Children at work
As yesterday's guest blogging suggested, my kids went to work with me yesterday. Without divulging too much information, it's safe to say that my workplace is quite child-friendly and kids are welcome. They actually blend in pretty well.
That being said, my kids did not make my work day go any better. I had the mistaken notion that having them here would be fun, a novelty, would make the day go faster. Um. Not so much.
What I learned from my children is that my job is so boring that if I didn't have the opportunity to take meal breaks, I would probably calcify right there in my chair. They also don't understand why they can't play games on the internet here (many web sites are blocked).
Coming to work with me yesterday, however, did give Susie an opportunity to deliver some of the cookie stash. All that exposure to colleagues who had previously only seen her in photographs meant that she and I heard a lot of, "She looks just like you!" yesterday. And Alex got plenty of love, too, with one colleage wishing out loud that she could be a little girl of eight because he's so very handsome. Poor Alex really had no response to that, and was flummoxed the rest of the afternoon.
I learned something about myself, too, and my work habits. I found that distractions really bother me much more than I thought they did. Since life is, well, distracting, I probably should consider my reaction to interruptions, and maybe work on that.
So, unofficial "take your kids to work day"? Was educational. The kids learned that work is boring. (They'll eventually un-learn that, I hope, or just choose a different field than mine.) I learned that I work better without kids in the office. Fair enough.
2 comments:
My kids have been spending the afternoon with me every once in awhile, and I've found the same things to be true - calcifying in the chair, particularly! And I don't have much that they can help me with, either, so they end up sitting in our office lounge drawing and reading. It's nice to not have to pay for after school day care for these days, but it still isn't a great solution, either.
I remember spending time with my parents at their jobs, too, and I don't think it was much different for them. I hope that my kids have a better discernment experience in college so that they start out with something interesting and somewhat rewarding. I'm having to wait until they're older and my husband finishes his graduate program to do the same. It gets grueling.
I thought it rocked at dad's various offices when we were kids, but then again, I didn't really care what he was doing, just liked annoying the geology department, or playing on the marker boards, or abusing the minicomputer and/or copier :D
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