Did you ever go to your parent's office as a kid? Those were the days. Coloring while mom wore a power suit and yelled at people, or riding along while dad serenely delivered the mail. Today is Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work Day, and it's bound to be a great day for workers and their families alike. And there are lots of good reasons to take your kid to work, or even to hire someone else's kid to take to work for a day. We've got eight of them.
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You're Avoiding A Performance Review
If your sixmonth performance review time has come and gone, and you're not up to par for your grade just yet, taking your kid to work is a great way to deflect it for just one more day. Better yet: schedule your performance assessment for this Thursday. It's the perfect buffer! What boss is going to scold you for your three-hour lunches and complete lack of productivity when there's a cute little whipper snapper listening in?
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Your Boss Is A Total Kid Person
Maybe she's a mother of three, or maybe he just likes to make balloon animals for an audience. If your direct boss is crazy for kids, bring yours to work today. Bribe your child to suck up to your boss for you, and you could emerge as a star employee that offered the daily grind a little bit of childlike sunshine.
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Your Kid Can Do Your Job Better Than You
Is your child a prodigy, or are you just an idiot? No matter. It's great to put them to work for the day. Teach them a little something and let them go. Or, if your kid is better at tech tasks, have them defrag your computer or update your virus protection software. Those 64,000 Windows updates you've been ignoring? That phone call you need to make about your cell phone plan? Get your kid to handle some of your more administrative and cumbersome tasks. Bonus points if you stand directly over their shoulder and watch, while doing that weird intimidation breathing that micro-managers everywhere have universally protected. Welcome to the real world, kiddos.
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Your Job Is Kid-Friendly
If you're not a 9-to-5er, first of all: bless you. And second of all, what's your job? If you're a teacher, a day-care worker, a garbage collector, a librarian, a toy/video game tester, or a professional clown (props if you're not also a professional alcoholic), you should take your child to work as much as possible (and not so often that it's counterproductive)! If you've got a kid-friendly job that could benefit from some perspective from today's youth, consider your child your greatest career asset and go with it!
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Your Office Toys Are Super Fun
Want to hypnotize your child with those steel ball things? Want your kid to put down the video games and learn to solve a Rubik's cube, already? Is your copy room barely used and a veritable office supply playground for the creative? Do you have cool cubicle toys? If you want your kid to get a taste of adult toys, introduce them to label makers, "thumb" drives, and that Nerf gun we know you keep in the back of your desk. We're all just grown up kids inside; why not share in the fun? It's also a great reason to steal and play with any of your kid's toys that you've been lusting after. "Yes, I will trade you these telescoping PostIt Notes for your Nintendo DS, Billy." That sort of thing.
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You Want to Leave Early
Step One: Take your kid to work.
Step Two: After lunch, bribe your kid to fake nausea or diarrhea, and you'll be in the clear. If your child has made an especially sweet impression on your higher-ups, no one will think twice when you feign good parenting to sneak out for that doctor's appointment, tee time, or pedicure.
Step Three: Profit.
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You're A Pariah
If you don't have any friends in the office, now's the time to call in the troops. If you're the biggest loser in your workplace, or maybe just the anti-social one, create your own clique for the day by making it a family thing. Whether you're awkward, hated, or just don't fit in to your corporate culture's standards of behavior and values, showing off your kid for a day (or holing up with her in your office) is a great way to have some fun, and a friend, on the job.
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You're A Good Parent
Take your child to work because you love your family and you love your job, and because life and work should always intermingle. We are living in a great new age of near transparency, and it's a great idea to put an essence to all those Facebook pictures and after-school phone calls that your secretary knows about. It's humanizing, and it could really make your work day fun. Make sure your child is equipped to act appropriately, and bring them some of their own work or activities to do for the day. Get excited — this will be fun for the whole family!
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