Take Your Child to Work Day

This summer, my husband and I experimented with our regular summer camp routine. Since we both have full-time jobs, we’ve always put our daughter in summer camps at various locations around town and booked the entire summer with camps. This year, we thought we’d lay off the camps a bit and throw in some quality time with her by bringing her to work with us some. Yesterday, she was with me.

I have such fond, wonderful memories of going to work with my parents. Daddy worked in a bank, so going to work with him was always a treat. I strolled alongside him, splendid  in his suit and tie, briefcase hanging from one hand and me from the other. We walked across marble floors and down heavy, wood-paneled hallways to his office. As we passed various secretaries and employees, they’d each chirp “good morning, Mr. Eagan” and I knew he must be very important. Of course I already knew this, but now others confirmed it. When he worked in a branch, I would busy myself by playing with a dry erase board (a novel creation in the day!). Bolstering already-developing OCD tendencies, I would straighten the customer island in the middle of the bank which had multiple slots with various forms and slips of paper and pens. Then, I would make a weird little trick-or-treat circuit by visiting each person’s desk or cubicle or teller window to see what candy they had. He’d take me to lunch (my first dates) and I loved it just being the two of us. I don’t think I ever thought, “man, I want to be a banker when I grow up,” (does anyone?) but one gift he gave me through these visits was learning first hand about work ethic, dedication to a job well done, that a smile goes a long way, and to kill with kindness.

  

Mom was an administrative assistant for the State of Tennessee, although in her day, there was no shame in calling them secretaries. Going to work with her was a totally different, yet thrilling experience. Everyone loved my Mom and, by relation, felt they knew and loved me. Once we reached her floor in a tall building downtown, she would set me up at an empty desk.  Then she would get settled in her cubicle, decked out with green plants, cartoons, a Garfield poster that exclaimed “T.G.I.F.” and many pictures of Daddy and me. As she’d sift through stacks of paper on her desk and answer incoming calls, I would hear the din of an office in the 1980s. A copier gliding through a job, people standing around chatting and complaining about the coffee, the clickety-clack of multiple typewriters, and the electronic ring of new-age phones.  

Although Mom certainly dealt with chauvinistic and egotistical bosses, I don't think she ever plotted to physically harm one.

She’d bring me busy work to do such as collating and stapling various forms (the copiers were union back then and couldn’t be bothered to do such tasks) and I did it with precision and laser focus. Then I got to play in the office supply closet. Hours were spent playing with various pens, markers, highlighters, Post-It notes, carbon paper, and paper clips. As I sat there decked out with a full line of paper clip jewelry, my love of office supplies and office supply stores blossomed. Her building had a cafeteria, of which I was terribly impressed and I longed for the first part of my own career to have (careful what you wish for).  We’d eat sandwiches or mystery meat but what I remember is getting jello for dessert. Something about it being cubed and served in a cup with a hardened, little puff of whipped cream on top just tastes better than what you make at home or buy pre-made in the store. Here’s what Mom taught me:  you can have a job, even a career, and you can still have a life. She worked and worked hard her entire life, Monday through Friday, 7:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m., but when that whistle blew, she was out the door faster than Fred Flintstone down the dinosaur’s tail. I didn’t quite realize it then, but now I know she was really just clocking into her “other” job at 3:00 o’clock. That job called “parenting.” It’s the best job in the world, the hardest, has the worst pay, and the best benefits.

So as my daughter sat across the hall from me yesterday, coloring and watching a movie on her iPod, I wondered if there was any way I could give her half the experience that my parents gave me. I heard the relative silence of my office. Not only is the hum and clickety-clack of typewriters long forgotten, but many of my (younger) co-workers have probably never heard them to begin with. We’re so technologically advanced here in 2014, that it’s more and more rare to even hear the clickety-clack of keys on a laptop. Now, people silently whisk and tap on a tablet. Phone calls are more rare, as well. Why call someone, even if they’re just across the hall, when you can text, email, or instant message? And the final piece of the office that’s missing? No one’s standing around chatting. Not about the quality of the coffee and not about anything. They’re just all working or sitting in a conference room in a meeting.

I can’t tell you what her observations were from yesterday. But I can tell you this:  she played with Post-It notes, she made a paper clip bracelet, and we had jello at lunch.