Kids in the workplace....very VERY bad idea

Kids in the workplace.  Some say it's not a good idea.  They would be right.

I had to take Miss5 to work with me last Friday afternoon.  I don't normally work Friday's, but I was doing a favour for my boss, and he was fine with Miss5 tagging along for the afternoon.  And I was converting the extra income to Mojito's on our impending Christmas holiday to Bali.

She's been to visit me on a Saturday (when I normally work), and had a great time photocopying her face and hands (thankfully not her naked behind, as I have forgotten to destroy the evidence a couple of times), and generally running around creating havoc.  Which is fine since the building is otherwise deserted on Saturday's.

Not on Friday's.  During the week there's a whole other company occupying the floor all around me - both sides and behind.  Try explaining this to Miss5 and she couldn't care less, she's too busy stapling the paper towel from the dispenser in the bathroom to her Tshirt. Which is followed by hilarous cackling (hers, not mine).

After banning the paper towel (stupid, stupid me...why did I ban that and not the stapler?!?), she started sticky taping one of the computer screens - entirely covering it with layers of tape.  Severely reprimanded her for this, and she sincerely promised not to sticky tape the computers again.

In the first hour I stopped counting her trips to the bathroom after 6.  I knew she was there because I could hear the hand dryer going, and her squealing as she squirted the air freshener into the hand dryer and it propelled the spray back out over her.  In hindsight, it probably would've been easier to let her stay in there and gas herself into a state of unconsciousness with it.

I got 5 minutes of silence - 5 whole minutes without having to hiss "Shhhh!" through gritted teeth - before she walked up to me, all puppy dog eyes, and said "I love you too Mum...".


Dear God what has she done now?!

I do a quick recon. of the office and can't find anything out of place.  Rather than being reassured by this, I'm even more rattled because I know she doesn't offer up proclamations of love without a reason.  I start to panic as I head out the back to the communal kitchen for a caffeine hit, in an attempt to gain enough energy to keep up with Miss5 on this horror afternoon.

The communal kitchen is shared with the other company in the building - a very respectable Engineering firm...NOT a daycare or school or anything remotely child-friendly.


It is at this point that I find out Miss5's declaration of love was in anticipation of the trouble she would face when I found out she'd spilled the sugar bowl in the kitchen "accidentally on purpose".  And then proceeded to draw pictures with her finger in the mess of sugar granules.  She's even made quite a decent attempt at writing her own name in the sugar (so there's no possibility of explaining it away as an accident to the unimpressed Office Manager from the Engineering firm).  So typical that Miss5 can't write her own name legibly with pen and paper, but now she manages quite a solidly legible effort.

So after much apologising and mortification on my part, we retreat back into our office.  I lock us in, just to be safe.

The phone rings, I answer it.  The other person doesn't respond.  So I repeat my greeting.  The other person keeps saying "Hello?  Hello?  Is anyone there?"  I keep answering, they keep saying hello, eventually they hang up.

This happens THREE times.  On the FOURTH time I run to another office to see if it's a problem with my phone.  I breathlessly answer, but it's the same problem.

I grab my mobile and call Hubby and tell him to keep trying to call me in the office, because by now, I'm totally frazzled that the phones have gone down, and that can't possibly be Miss5's doing, but she will inevitably be suspected since it has happened on the one single time the Boss knows she's in the office with me.

So Hubby humours me and keeps calling.  Call number FIVE and I'm sprinting to another office.  No good.  Call number SIX and it is only on this last phone in the office that we have success.  I've never been so pleased to communicate with Hubby in all of our 14 years together.

I then spent the remainder of the afternoon hurdling over chairs and boxes and other office equipment to get to that one single phone in the furthest corner of the office, every time the phone rang.

About five minutes before closing time - me, completely buggered; Miss5, completely oblivious - I pick up my normal phone to divert it for the evening.

MISS5 HAS STICKY TAPED THE MOUTH PIECE!!  OF EVERY SINGLE PHONE IN THE OFFICE!! - Except, of course, the one in the far corner that I've been using.

I take a moment (and many deep breaths).  I am mindful of the thin walls that separate my office from the surrounding Engineering offices - lest anyone there hear me go ballistic at my Angelic faced Miss5.

I turned to Miss5, and in my best calm and rational Mummy voice (that deceptively tricks the child into thinking they can admit to anything, because we're friends and we'll just have a laugh about it and be done with it), I asked her why she had done this, especially after she had promised me that she would not sticky tape anything.


Without a moment's hesitation Miss5 shot back at me, in all her Miss25 haughtiness, "No Mummy, I said no sticky tape on the 'puter.  Not the phones."

Enough said...