So my bosses get a work experience kid for engineering. Do they want him to do engineering ? Oh no, they want him to work with me. Great. WTF am I supposed to do with him ?

Can he administer networks ? No.
Can he apply the various registry hacks for Inventor after applying the Service Packs ? No.
Can he answer the called in help desk questions ? No.

What can he do ? Sit, watch me working and fetch coffee. Yay.

WHAT THE HELL CAN I DO WITH HIM ?

I've given WE kids "research projects" on the Internet (works great expecially if you have a fast Internet connection at the office)

Other stuff - get them to trouble shoot workstation problems.. update your hardware inventory.. give them some printers to setup.. a few machines to install OS's on.. document the patches on your building distributors..

(Be careful with the last one, I almost had a kid start unpatching the central distributor during peak time at one site)

Just some of the tricks I've used to keep kids busy in an IT/sysadmin kind of situation. Good luck! (They're good for sending on lunch runs, as well.)

Get him to play minesweeper...

A few of the ones I use,

Clean keyboards, mice etc.

hardware / software audit

test old hardware to see if it works, or is it really stuffed.

Get them to search the net for software keysstuff like that.

haha, i remember work experience two years ago... of course i left it to the last minute to organise something and ended up going to a dads mates work which is a surveying office. nothing but land maps and autoCAD. Spent the week dozing off to sleep whilst they worked and taking 3 hour lunch breaks

Why dont you ask the WE kid what he wants to do...if he really wants to learn stuff, then teach him as you go through your days work. If he just wants to sleep and surf the net (as i did) give him a PC somewhere out of the way and let him do that, keeps both him and you happy.

I remember when I had to do work experience at an auto elec, as part of my cert II in electronics. All I did was stand in the one spot all day, watching one of the apprentices pull down starter motors and alternators. It was the worse work experience. Oh I got to sweep the floor in the mornings, and wash the parts in a kero basin(oh didn't that make the eczma flair up). Here's me, who had some kind of idea with electronics and stuff, but they wern't informed. I did work experience at a car audio shop, and from the 2nd day, I got to do actual work.

Have you asked him what he can actually do? or is he really one of them stupid kids that your going to be stuck with for the whole week or two?

I'm thinking of giving him a PC and making him talk to our AI system all day long.

seriously have u asked him what he can do? he may appear stupid but in actual fact be a genius that can do ur job in half the time allowing u to sit on the net all day and relax

in all seriousness though, you have a duty to the younger generation trying to learn, oneday u will rely on them paying tax for your old age pension, to do this they'll need a job... if you were 10 years younger would you like being put down cleaning mice all week? no u wuldnt, u would want something u can learn from..

maybe just take it slowly with him and show him exactly what your job entails, get him to do the little things, turn your office into a production line, means friday will come much sooner with alot less work to do

Have u actually talked to him at all?? hahaha.

Comeon 1week free labour and u dont know how to utilize it, I would be at the pub by now hahaha

Whats stopping u... U don't have a job