Here’s the progression of pretty much every child on “Take Your Child To Work Day,” which in my house has become, “let your kids stay home for no reason and entertain them while you get nothing done day” but, there was a time when my kids went to the office with Mark and it went something like this. (I imagine it looks the same in offices across the land):
1. Wake up brimming with excitement to see the magical things you or your spouse does.
2. Watch the magic happen for like 10 minutes, when they realize your job is boring as shit and they vow to NEVER grow up — and if they must they will do something exciting like race cars or be famous. (If you’re already famous, they’ll think your job sucks too and vow to be something totally amazing like the check-out person at the grocery store who gets to swipe things over the cool scanner.)
3. Spin in office chair for 30-60 minutes because that’s awesome and clearly the real magic of your job. They will then question why you don’t spend more time spinning and make a mental note that you’d probably do better in your job if you spun more.
4. Play with a phone, tablet, computer, copy machine, calculator, or anything that’s shiny and has buttons until lunch.
5. Periodically look at the clock to determine what they would be doing at that very moment if they were unlucky enough to be at school.
6. You’ll look at the clock periodically as well, to determine what you would be accomplishing at that very moment if you were lucky enough to have your kids in school. 
7. Whether they’re busy or not they will let you know how monumentally bored they are. This will be verbalized about every 10 minutes until you decide to go to lunch at 10:30 am.
8. Repeat until 1-6
9. You will leave work as early as possible, thankful that this is a once a year occurrence.
10. Despite any complaints, kids will be sad they have to go and will want to know how soon they can do it again.
NOTE : If you work from home you will get nothing done so don’t even try… and if other people’s kids are attending consider yourself lucky!
PS For the Gen X Girls I’m doing a Heartthrob Smackdown Today on Facebook – Check it out!
But please like or share this post first, it’s my living…
I never ever ever ever ever liked Bing your kids to work day. NO ONE GETS ANYTHING DONE! I think your points are great than it is time to go to the movies for creative inspiration!
SInce I work from home, I just had my daughters wear bagged-out yoga pants and old 80s concert tees while they deleted a thousand emails to find the ten important ones.
Love this image. Never did it with mine when they were young. Since I worked from home, when I went back to work, I was the mean mom who sent them to school on Take your Child To Work Day!
This is so accurate it is scary. I can’t tell you how many times I heard the word bored.
My kids love take your kid to work day!! Since I am a stay at home mom, they can’t “go” with me — which leaves daddy. And he’s a cop. So….um, no. Sorry kiddos. He’ll swing by in the cruiser and run the lights and sirens for you. that’s the best you get. LOL
Although, he did take them on a tour of the police station. They did think that was pretty cool — but then it was time to come back home when shift started.