You might think the title of this post is an exaggeration and it is…by only the tiniest of margins. But I survived to tell the tale.

For those who may not know, there is a day here in the US called “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day”. It’s a day where we can introduce our children to our office, our jobs and our lives away from them. For some unknown reason (possibly a bit of masochism?) I volunteer every year to run this insanity at my office.

Over the past four years, we’ve grown from having maybe a dozen kids to almost 30 this year. 30 kids with essentially two people corralling them in an office environment. A few other volunteers jump in with their knowledge and fun here and there, but these parent entrust their kids to me every year and every year their children attempt to kill me.

Of course, it’s not a literal killing, just a mental mutilation and a physical toll on these old bones. I currently can’t feel my feet and my brain is mush.

This year, we gathered the kids ’round and forced them into teams of young/old (a 6th grader paired with others from 1st to 4th grade), introduced them to clients and had them build a website. Once we got through the tech difficulties and the early confusion, these kids took the task pretty seriously and got down to it. Some built really clean sites and some built crazy sites. We had some insisting they find “real information” about the clients, like address and about us info and others had fun adding info like “Our location is 5 blocks from Willy Wonka’s factory” and “Visit the Sharks”! There was a lot of walking around to help them and sometimes not helping them so they could figure out how to help themselves.

All in all it was a good day.

And even though I asked myself (and others) “Why do I do this every year?” and swearing I won’t do it again next year, I think I probably will do it again. Because I LOVE to see their little faces light up as they figure it out and they understand a little better what mom or dad does. Or when my boys ask a bajillion questions about what I do and what other jobs there are at my office. Both of my boys have decided they want to work for us in the future – one as a graphic artist and the other as anything EXCEPT a graphic artist. 🙂

But right now? I’m currently just counting the days until my vacation to Costa Rica. Or my next Kit Kat. I need a break!

XO – T.