April 25th, 2019 is Take Your Kids To Work day.
Well, technically, that’s not true. It’s actually called Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day. According to my deep and thorough research*, the tradition began in 1992 as Take Your Daughters To Work Day. I was surprised to find that this practice was so recently created because I first encountered it in 1995 in my workplace, and every year since until I started spending a lot of time working from home. It felt like a well known tradition back then, but now I suppose it actually is one. Kids who went to the offices of their parents or guardians back then might well have their own young candidates now.
I suppose if it were rare for my kids to see me working there would be some novelty and excitement around the prospect of finding out just “what Dad does for a living.” But since what I mostly do for a living is stare at screens and type, I suspect they find my work indistinguishable from their own endeavors at online gaming and YouTube surfing. Oh, I’ve tried to explain to them the exquisite joys of getting some code to work just so, or having some coworker forget to mute on a conference call. But these are pleasures unique to the rarefied atmosphere of the work-at-home coder. They’ve no nose for it.
My father was a self-employed carpenter for most of my life, so for my sisters and me what we really craved was a Stay At Home While Dad Goes To Work Day. Sure, I learned a lot of handy skills while helping him out during hot Georgia summers, but mostly what I learned was that I wanted to work inside with air-conditioning.
Mission accomplished.
I’m not making fun of the idea behind this initiative. Far from it. I think making kids aware of what adults do to pay the bills is extremely educational. But what if your job is incredibly boring to the uninitiated? I’d strongly encourage you to have a plan before trying this out at your workplace.
Here are some tips for making your TYDASTWD successful for you, your daughters and sons, and your employer.
Make sure your workplace supports the program
As fun as it is to surprise your colleagues by bringing your family in for a visit, make sure that the idea is embraced by your employer and coworkers. Check with HR. Sure, if the boss says it’s okay you’re covered — but it is courteous to check with your coworkers especially if your company has never participated in this program before.
Check with your school system
Some schools may consider this to be an excused absence. Others may not. You’ll need to check with your particular school to be sure of what the rules are around participation. The point of having this event on a Thursday is that the next day it can prompt in-class discussions around what was learned by the various students as they visited workplaces with their parents or guardians.
Plan for activities
Your school-aged children are probably used to a highly structured schedule. They might not understand the ad-hoc meeting schedule, coffee breaks, lunch decisions and other administrative factors that shape a typical office day. Think about how you can engage your student in your work, or within your company’s work in ways that are educational, engaging, and memorable.
I wish I had more advice here but I don’t know what you do for a living. But don’t despair. Even if you think your work is boring, that’s true for even the most interesting jobs much of the time. How much of a firefighter’s job is fighting fire? Thankfully, not a lot. Most jobs have long stretches of boredom punctuated with periods of high stress.
The program was envisioned with kids from 8 to 17 in mind. Think of activities that would appeal to people that age — and here’s the tricky part — that don’t don’t involve playing on their phones.
If you’re going to have several participants, it might be helpful to have them engage in some brainstorming meetings. Or perhaps they can take a tour of the workplace? Maybe you could schedule a time when they could ask questions to a director or executive?**
Encourage questions
Your workplace is a new landscape. Perhaps your kids will ask a lot of questions — but some kids become quiet and introspective when exposed to this kind of experience. Make sure that you ask your child questions, and encourage them to ask questions. If you’re not going to explain things they’re not going to get much out of the endeavor.
Plan your lunch
Make sure that you have a plan for lunch. Depending on your work environment you may be used to eating in the break room, or perhaps your coworkers pick a place and go out for lunch. Make sure you have a plan in place so that it doesn’t take you 30 minutes to figure out what you’re even doing. Because that never happens, right?
This is a good day to have lunch in the office and show your kids how to survive in the perilous world of corporate America. If you work in a large company, you might also give your offspring a hunting lesson in how to obtain bagels from meetings to which you were not invited. (I speak here of scavenging, not stealing. Your morals may vary.)
Show them the bathroom
Make sure your kids know where the bathroom is. Remember, even though you know your child is at the office it doesn’t mean everyone does. If your workplace has a badge system for security, remember to make sure that you don’t get your young charge locked out of the office with no way to get back to you.
Remember those drills
Hopefully this will not be a critical part of your day, but take a moment to show your young charges where the exits are, where the first-aid kit is, and generally what to do if a fire-alarm goes off. Statistically, it’s unlikely but school kids have drills for this stuff and it is good to show them that adults deal with the same safety concerns in the same orderly manner.
Get feedback
When you’re finished with the workday, don’t do the obvious thing and just ask your kids, “how was your day?” Does that ever work at home? Of course not. Without turning it into a huge homework assignment, ask very specific questions:
What was your impression of the [workplace]?
Did people seem to get along well when compared to school?
What did you most enjoy about the experience?
What did you least enjoy about the experience?
Do you have any questions that you didn’t ask while you were there?
Do you understand now why I just say “I work with computers?”
My wife suggests you take this opportunity to discuss things about 30 minutes prior to the end of the workday rather than on the drive home. It is a good way to share the ethos of Leave Work at The Office. You can certainly talk about work on the way home, but I like her suggestion a lot.
Personally, I’d avoid asking them potentially ego-smashing questions about whether they are impressed by what you do for a living. If you wanted your ego boosted, having kids was probably not the best move.
In Summary
Hopefully, if you get to participate in Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day, you’ll all have a rewarding experience. Remember that kids sometimes don’t tell you in the moment that they appreciate what you do. Sometimes they don’t even realize it in the moment. You do this stuff because it’s the right thing to do, not for the transitory pleasure of a “thank you.” Maybe you’ll get lucky and even get one of those.
But do not worry if things go a bit poorly, because your chance for redemption is right around the corner! After all, April 26th, 2019 (the very next day!!) is Take Your Daughters and Sons to Avengers: Endgame Day.
*I looked it up on Wikipedia. The Canadian counterpart is actually called Take Our Kids to Work day. They have such an economy of words.
** If you’ve made a habit of saying bad things at home about your company’s leadership, you might want to avoid this last suggestion.
