Bring Your Daughters and Sons to Work

Thursday was “Bring Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day.” It used to just be “Bring your Daughters to Work Day” but someone fought for equal rights so they allowed the boys to get in on the fun. My company participates in the annual event. It is supposed to give the kids some idea about what their parent does in their daily work.

On each of these annual days the company has donuts for the kids to eat as a great way to start the day. They have a class that gives them a brief history on telephony. I am pretty sure they do not get too specific since the kinds are mostly around 10 years old. They serve them lunch, give them some gifts, and by 1:00 or so they are back with their parents for the remainder of the day. During that time the parents coworkers offer candy and friendly chitchat to the children. By 2 or so the children are playing with their parents cell phones, iPods, surfing the net or playing Solitaire on a PC. Now that I think about it that is just what their parents do!

I told two kids I talked to that they could not work at Verizon Business until they learned their multiplication table up to 12. They said the cash register would do the math for you. I told them they needed to know this phrase then, "Would you like fries with that?"

When I was a kid I got to see where my parents worked. At mom’s job as a teacher when I had to be there before or after my school was already out I had to just sit still at the back of the classroom. I was offered no candy or form of entertainment and was actually told to do my homework while waiting for their class to end. I was told if I did not sit quietly I would serve many hours of hard labor at home. No donuts were offered

Times I visited dad’s place of work were few but I remember the people being busy with their office work. They had 10-keys on their desks with rolls of calculator tape hanging from their desks which were all in one room with no cubicles. The people looked reasonably happy but we never hung around too long as they looked busy.

I never got to spend all day at either of my parents places of work. I didn’t want to. But I grew up knowing that when I grew up I had to work. It did not take a day away from school playing at their place of employment to understand that concept.