Community Corner
Plugging Away
An unofficial Take My Daughter to Work Day is empowering in its own way
A couple weeks ago during the snowstorm, I and most other Oaktonians found ourselves without power. We were powerless. And I felt that even more when I also found myself in charge of a 5-year-old on a weekday because her preschool was closed due to the weather.
With a 52-degree house and no way to plug in my laptop to do work from home, I did the only thing I could do: I chased two Ambien with a Zima and instructed my daughter to check back in with me after she had read every book on her bookshelf. Just kidding. I took my daughter into the office with me.
Even though I have the option to work from home whenever I want or need to, I don’t choose to do it very often — and with good reason. Even when my daughter is home sick, she does not let me work. She wants me to play with her and color with her and read to her and snuggle with her and talk to her. Sheesh. If I wanted that much responsibility, I’d have gotten a dog.
Find out what's happening in Oaktonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
So, I didn’t expect to be very productive at the office either.
But this time it was different. She brought a level of excitement and enthusiasm to the office that I swear helped me work better than usual. Everything about going to my office is such an adventure for her. I think that made me approach my tasks with a little more gusto. She loved the elevator ride, serving herself water from the water cooler, and creating an entire wall of artwork for my office on a legal pad with the three different color highlighters I had available in my pencil cup. (Yay, neon!)
Find out what's happening in Oaktonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
She also helped keep my energy level high by maintaining a routine of visiting the restroom about every 15 minutes. On one of the trips back from the restroom, she broke into a full run from the office door all the way down the hall to my office. One of my co-workers, who was busy at his computer, saw this out of the corner of his eye and, for a moment, thought I had taken to running through the office. (Silly guy. We work for the government.)
Everything worked well until about 3:30, when it became obvious I would not be able to peacefully complete any additional work for the day. So we left the office and got home around 4 p.m., which is right when the power came back on in our house.
And we were empowered once again.