Start 'em young
It’s that time of year again when the nannies of the nation are enjoying their annual two weeks of drink and drug fuelled unprotected sex with strangers on a nameless Greek island and the working mums of the country have to consider alternative clildcare arrangements. This means lodging Precious with some teenager for the day, locking the drinks cupboard and hoping for the best, or settling them down with the local paedophile or, as they are also known, agency child-minder, or bringing them into work.
The office has turned into a crèche and the wild wails of tired toddlers echo down the corridors like the cries of the damned. This provides a considerable distraction and some office drones have become noticeably testy as their feeble concentration - already under attach from the eccentricities of the air con, novelty ring tones and snatches of banal conversation that make up life in open plan - is tested further by the protests of a bored infant. There has been tutting, muttering and the pasting up of a picture of the child-catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with the caption ‘our hero’ under it.
Sad to say, there continues to be an unenlightened view about parenting and the workplace. Possibly it is because we’ve all harboured homicidal thoughts about anyone who excuses themselves from a purgatorial meeting by saying they have to leave to collect their kid from school, more probably because the office environment acts as a focusing tool for petty resentments and bad moods, while at the same time sucking the joy out of its inhabitants. It’s just plain wrong to bring an innocent to this kind of environment. It also means I can’t swear or read porn at my desk with a clear conscience.
The office has turned into a crèche and the wild wails of tired toddlers echo down the corridors like the cries of the damned. This provides a considerable distraction and some office drones have become noticeably testy as their feeble concentration - already under attach from the eccentricities of the air con, novelty ring tones and snatches of banal conversation that make up life in open plan - is tested further by the protests of a bored infant. There has been tutting, muttering and the pasting up of a picture of the child-catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with the caption ‘our hero’ under it.
Sad to say, there continues to be an unenlightened view about parenting and the workplace. Possibly it is because we’ve all harboured homicidal thoughts about anyone who excuses themselves from a purgatorial meeting by saying they have to leave to collect their kid from school, more probably because the office environment acts as a focusing tool for petty resentments and bad moods, while at the same time sucking the joy out of its inhabitants. It’s just plain wrong to bring an innocent to this kind of environment. It also means I can’t swear or read porn at my desk with a clear conscience.
1 Comments:
First of all, I can't believe they are allowed at the office. Where do you work? EuroDisney? This is ridiculous. And, don't even get me started about everyone's excuses about their kids. I don't have kids and I don't get jack shit for it. It's like I'm being punished for coughing up the $10/month for birth control pills since I was 20. I should get reimbursed---they should give me a bonus at the end of the year simply for not getting knocked up (ok, everyone knock on wood please, I don't want to jinx myself). I never have to leave for little Johnny's doctors appointments, when he pukes at school or when daycare isn't in session.
What reward do I get? "When are you going to get married and have children?" Hmmm, answer? "When I can afford to stay at home with them and not work."
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