Take Your Child to Work Day

teecee

Does your company participate in this and if so, what do you do? Thanks.

Balloonman

Thank god NO!
My $0.02 worth.
DJ The Balloonman

ritaanz

We don't either. But if an employee wants their child/children to see where mommy or daddy works, we will arrange a tour of the facility.

Gillian

This is an environment issue where you have to consider safety and other factors. I work in a university and we don't make a bid deal for a kid or two shows up every once in a while. We don't, however, have a "kid at work day".

Mentel

Yes. Employees may take their child to work. We have mostly professional employees (not manufacturing) so for the most part safety is not an issue. We encourage employees to do it for a half a day and have the child meet with people from various departments so that the kids get the benefit of finding out what everyone does here. We limit it to children over the age of 9.

Parabeagle

We don't participate in this. However, people are permitted to bring their pets in if they are well-behaved.

cebudragonlady

I bring my step-daughter here once in a while. She stays in the office, so there is not a safety issue in the production area. The sales-manager brings his dog every day, and the dog stays in the office. Both owners bring in their dog once in a while. The GM brings in her son to do computer work for the company - real smart kid, we do pay him a very good rate.

Chari

HS

>We don't participate in this. However, people are permitted to bring
>their pets in if they are well-behaved.


Boy, I'd love to see how that goes...Can just imagine the nightmare of what my building would look, sound and smell like if people were allowed to bring their pets here!

And then there's the nightmare of one person saying...yes, my dog is well behaved...and it goes around chewing on everything...

Eeek!

x:o

Parabeagle

Last fall we had an "official" pet day here at the office in conjunction with a barbecue. In addition to 14 employees, our population included a Chesapeake Bay retriever, a chocolate lab, a (huge!) tabby cat, a normal, garden-variety mutt, a diabetic, blind Westie, a Scottish terrier and a Corgie. Believe it or not, the dogs were all scared of the cat!

Rockie

I guess you can equate this the same as parents thinking their children are all little angels when they are actually holy terrors.

Whatever

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 01-29-03 AT 11:07AM (CST)[/font][p]We do not participate. This is a manufacturing company so there are safety concerns. However, I know people at other companies who have actually had to do the activity planning for this day. After talking to them, I am very grateful I work for a manufacturing company.

Crout

I bring my daughter to work once a year and work her like a sled-dog. There's puhhhhlenty to do around an HR department, some of it quite menial. I sweeten the deal by taking off a half day and taking her out to lunch. Then we do something fun. She does work her butt off, though.

WITracy

The first year I was with this company, I organized a TYCTWD. The kids (including my own) & parents loved it. I made up a schedule of activities & came up with "jobs" the kids could do at their parent's workstation, to keep them occupied in between activities and to allow their parents to get SOME work done. I did a tour, goodie bags, snacks, etc.

Even though it was a success, we decided not to do it again. It was a lot of my time to prepare and the day of, I got virtually nothing done .. as did the parents who had their kids here. With workload, production schedules, safety issues and feedback from local schools -- we decided once was enough.

Lola815

We don't do this, but we did have an employee bring their 9 year old son to work and leave him in the lunchroom all day with a coloring book and pens. Her manager had to let her know that this was not appropriate. She tried to sneak it passed everyone again at a later date. This employee had other issues and was let go. Oh, the things people do!

Sally

We've done this over the past couple of years. The child must be at least 10 years old. We're an arts organization and always looking for volunteers to help with mailings, filing, etc. If our orchestra has a rehearsal that day the student is permitted to sit in on part of that.
As a side note, Florida high school students are required to do certain number of community service hours for graduation, and volunteering for a not-for-profit organization fills that bill. (Some middle school teachers are also emphasizing community service now, too.) This past summer we had three high school students volunteering for us to fulfill that requirement. They were great, because they didn't complain about the mundane projects! (And neither do the younger children....) And some of these students are far more computer literate than many adults I know.

Nurse Recruiter

We do not participate in a specific day to bring kids to work and do not allow employees to bring kids to work. And definitly NO Pets!!! We do have a "volunteen " program for kids 14 and older and we work with area high schools to provide shadowing experiences for Jr and Sr students to promote health careers. Both are quite time consuming, but very, very rewarding. We have more student that want to participate than we can accomodate.

Rockie

I have to tell you guys a funny story. I love animals and have two Yorkies that are my "children". But...I realize not everyone loves dogs just as not everyone loves children.

Anyway...we had a doc in one of our small offices who was bringing his dog to work with him (without us knowing about it). He was bringing the dog into the exam rooms with him and introducing him to patients as his "assistant". That wasn't so bad, but the dog lacked certain, shall we say, social skills and was pooping all over the place. The manager called me about this and, our CEO had to finally tell the doc he couldn't bring his "assistant" into the office.

(He was a cute little dog, though).

Forrister7

I bring my inner child to work with me every day. She sees all the unfairness and poor management practices and lies and deceptions, etc, and she wears me out every day by telling me I shouldn't be participating in all this. Might be easier on me if I left her at home!

Mentel

Maybe you should find a job where your inner child is happy. I work in such a place.

Forrister7

Well... are you currently hiring?

Parabeagle

Surprised your inner child hasn't caused an ulcer yet!

Trinity

Question: What day IS Take Your Child to Work Day?

Parabeagle

Don't get excited, Trinity. It doesn't involve Harrison Ford. ;-)

Trinity

It could if I had his child!!...

Terri B

I would be blessed if I didn't know. Can we trade places?

HRGirl

My company participates. We don't have a specific age limit, we have had kids as young as 4 and kids as old as 15. We do a lot of work to make this a special day for the kids. So far its been a hit!

We have a program set up prior to the date (which happens to be April 24, 2003 this year). We have donuts and juice for them when they arrive, they are given a T-Shirt which is specially made for TYCTWD and our company, then the president of the company always meets with them and tells them a little about the company. We tour the building. We show them a videos that are related to what we do. An engineer or two (we are a traffic engineering firm) talks to them about what their specific department does (for example bridge design, signals, highway design). We then have a project for them to build or make, last year it was design a section of roadway and put the proper roadway markings on it, the year before was build a bridge (we did two kinds, the older group used yard sticks, popsicle sticks etc., while the younger group made edible bridges using pretzels, various candy and icing. We give lunch to both the parent and the child. The day ends with snacks and goodie bags, the president meets with them again and presents them with a certificate of participation in TYCTWD from our company, a color collage of digital pictures taken through out the day and lastly a gold dollar (Sacagewa dollar) is given to every child.

Hmmm...I think thats all we do.

cthr

TYCTW day is April 24 this year. This will be our third year participating. I coordinate, but ask for a team of volunteers who can give up that day to assist. Yes it is a lot of work, but we think that it is a valuable experience both for the children and their parents. Last year our CEO had breakfast with the kids and talked about the company and his experiences. Our COO made a lunch presentation. We have the kids spend an hour in the morning and one in the afternoon working with their parents. They get a tour of our facilility and we have an informational scavanger hunt. We are the Credit Union for a manufacturing facility and they allow us to bring the children over to look at thier display of products. We limit to ages 8-16.