Take Your Child To Work Day

As I mentioned the other day and Leo Chiang agreed with, spending time with your family is very important.
Today was “Take Your Child To Work Day” and this is the first year that my oldest son was old enough to participate at my company. First and foremost, it was so much fun having him with me at work and he had a blast as well. We had a great time together and he is already looking forward to the next time he can go back to work with me.
Organized Program
The way my company organizes the day is that they prepare an organized program for the kids from 8am until 12pm, where they attend various sessions and take a tour of the building. At 12pm, parents come back to pick up their children and they have a special lunch for the parents and kids. After lunch the kids can accompany the parents for the remainder of the day or the parent can take a 1/2 day of personal time and leave with their children.
In our case, we stuck around the office because I had a meeting in the afternoon but we still had fun. One of the highlights for my son was meeting the President of the company, which he thought was really cool because his office had it’s own meeting room attached. The group that my son was in for the morning sessions had a stop in the President’s office where he spoke to the kids for about 10 minutes.
Lunch and Fun At the Office
When I came back to get my son after the morning program, we enjoyed lunch while they had “Finding Nemo” playing on the big screen and then we headed back to my office. As I walked my son around to introduce him to people, he thought it was great because just about everyone has a drawer full of candy or toys that they offered to him.
There were a few things that I needed to wrap up before my meeting so my son opted to do a little surfing on one of my machines. The idea of a 2+ hour meeting did not appeal to him so he said he would hang out in my office. I left him my cell phone number and told him just to hang out and relax and to keep the office door closed. Little did I know that I should have also told him not to answer my phone. 😉
After approximately 30 minutes into my meeting, my cell phone started buzzing and I noticed the call was coming from my office. When I answered, my son informed me that someone had just called and he took a message for me. Luckily it was just another colleague calling me to ask a question and my son told him I was in a meeting, although he later told me my son was very professional on the phone.
Long Day Takes It’s Toll
After departing the house at about 6am and a full day in the office, my son and I headed for home. For the first 15-20 minutes of the ride home, my son was digging through the goodie bag that my company handed out and couldn’t stop talking about all of the fun stuff that he did and the things he learned.
As we crawled through traffic, he was talking away one minute and then he was no longer answering my questions. When I looked back, he was sound asleep in the back seat. He slept the rest of the way home and had a long day at work.
Hopefully those of you with children were able to participate in “Take Your Child To Work Day” as I have to tell you, it was an absolutely fantastic experience to share a day like this with my son. My youngest son still has a couple of years until he will be allowed to come with me, which by that time I might be working right here at home as a Dot Com Mogul.
But until then, I will cherish the time I was able to share with my oldest son and have him share the experience of a day at the office with me.