My imagination hasn't run so far as to think about bringing a baby into work, but I stumbled across an article from The Guardian (not my usual choice of red blooded male reading material) today that had a journalist go ahead and do just that, with predictable results.
Apparently the US has a lot of advocates for a child-friendly workplace, but if a newspaper like The Guardian can't make it work, there's no chance for it happening in London.
Some great descriptions of the attempt though, like
... checking emails, now that's proper work. Technically, you can do this with a baby on your knee, but there are flaws in this plan. Mine likes to thump the keyboard repeatedly, or until he has found "select all" plus delete, whichever is the sooner. Then he likes to stand up, and sit down again, and wriggle and grunt, and all this makes it really hard to think. When I'm at home, I have a whole battery of baby-pleasing techniques - I can sing songs and dance about, I have an elaborate mime that I can do with a monkey, which pleases him so much he almost always needs a snooze afterwards. But for some reason - call me crazy - I feel inhibited in an open-plan office, so it is a bit of a grey day, from his point of view.Read the full thing here.
The one time Sophie came in to the office see my workmates we forgot to "prefeed" her. This meant that as soon as she got in the building she decided it was time to feed, and that means about a 10 second window before the crying starts.
Of course my desk was in the corner of the office that was furthest from any toilet we could use to feed her. The result - I got to show off my screaming baby to the whole office as head after head popped up to see what the heck was going on.
From proud father to chastened father in a very short time - my daughter is already starting to making a habit of that!
2 comments:
Interesting.
I would take a huge shift in mentality from industry in general to work that one.
Oddly though, here in Holland, especially in larger companies I've worked in I've seen people bring in their entire families for a day a week.
Normally not babies, but anything from school going age upwards. They have lunch in the canteen together, see where Mum/Dad works, chat with colleagues, all very civil.
But one thing is for sure, sod all work gets done.
Agree that it would take a huge mindshift, I just can't see it working here in London. The one time I took Sophie in to work the rest of the afternoon was a write-off. It's amazing how bringin in a baby leads directly to everyone coming up and sharing their war stories about their children. It's nice, but as you say, sod all work gets done.
Interested to hear about Holland, Europe tends to be much more family friendly than the UK. A friend recently had a son in Sweden and they get some fantastic support from the government.
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