Thursday, April 27, 2006

Take Your Child to Work Day

was today. This always takes me by surprise. I show up at work and two dozen little kids run past me. And I get grumpy. Why?

1) Productivity suffers. Parents who have kids in the office can't concentrate because they're keeping one eye on the little ones. Other adults shrug off their work so they can play. While I'm not much of a bottom line guy, it's not fun to pick up someone else's slack.
2) The basis for this day is evolving, but the one used today is so that kids have a better understanding of what real adult work is. If that's the case, let's put some guidlines in place. How about limiting the experience to 10 year olds and up? Young children want to be astronauts and sports stars. Sitting in an office won't help them. How about eliminating the Playskool atmosphere. Taking your kid out of school so she can sit and color in your office is a horrible use of time.
3) Missing school isn't a good thing. Why isn't this day during the summer when most kids are out of school? The FP Gal tells me that it's tough to build a lesson plan for half of her class. That makes sense to me. I've heard one defense that being let out of school makes this more special and therefore better for kids. But is that 'specialness' important enough to justify it? Not to me.

It's time to rethink this whole thing.

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