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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think that, no, bringing your 4 year old in to work with you all day is really not a good idea?

69 replies

TantrumsAndBalloons · 17/10/2013 14:37

Especially when you work in a communal office and you the parent work as a call centre agent meaning you are supposed to be on the phone for the whole 8 hour shift?

I am covering the call centre managers shift as well as trying to do my own job today because of the strike.
And I know it's bloody hard trying to arrange childcare when you are a working parent.
I've had to do it myself today.

But 9-5 in a call centre with 10 other people and a 4 year old is surely never going to work.

The little boy is adorable. But he's 4. And obviously 4 year olds are loud and get bored easily and need to be taken to the toilet quickly by someone, needs to be taken to the kitchen to get a drink.

Everyone else is complaining to me, I don't normally work in this part of the office so I don't know who agreed to this but.... It's not going well.

I don't want to offend her at all because I know that she had no other option but I am thinking of letting her go home now and authorize pher wages so she gets paid for the last 2 hours.

If I suggest that will she think I'm a cold hearted bitch who hates children?
It's just getting a bit unbearable now tbh.

OP posts:

Original poster

TantrumsAndBalloons · 17/10/2013 15:26

I know pigs, honestly I do, I've had to arrange childcare for my DCs, which I sorted out last week.

But for whatever someone, I guess the call centre manager has said this is ok. None of my department asked me, because I would have said no.

But there was no way she could stay til 5. The rest of the staff are complaining to me and I wouldn't have felt right not paying her. Because she was told it was ok, so it's not just her fault is it?

OP posts:

MummytoMog · 17/10/2013 15:27

I didn't actually notice that the strike was happening at my DD's school until tuesday, because they slipped it into the newsletter, in tiny writing at the bottom of the page. Her teachers don't always go out on strike, so I had assumed they were not striking this time. So maybe she didn't have plenty of notice? I wasn't hugely happy about having to pay for the extra childcare, but at least my childminder was actually free today, she could easily have been full up.

Would have been SO much easier to have the strike on Friday. I could have taken it as annual leave. Would have been lovely. Please bear that in mind in the future NUT. If you want me to support you, don't make my life difficult...

Original poster

TantrumsAndBalloons · 17/10/2013 15:28

chipping I'm doing a cake run right now to try and cheer everyone up.

OP posts:

chrome100 · 17/10/2013 15:31

YANBU. I work in a University and one of my colleagues will often bring any one or more of her 5 kids in during the summer. They just run up and down the corridor shrieking, the toddler gets "left" in our office to be entertained and I hate it. I can't get anything done and think it's really inappropriate for them to be here.

ilovesooty · 17/10/2013 15:32

It's shit for you Tantrums and I think you sound lovely. Her normal line manager is certainly a fuckwit though.

expatinscotland · 17/10/2013 15:36

I would send her home and no, no pay. chrome I would complain to HR about your colleague. NOT ON. Am past the toddler stage, didn't enjoy it, tbh, and if a colleague did that to me it would stop immediately. 'Excuse me, I am not a babysitter. You need to collect your child.'

Original poster

TantrumsAndBalloons · 17/10/2013 15:39

I think it wouldn't be so bad if she had her own office but this is a call centre with 9 other people trying to work.
It was crazy.

OP posts:

CrohnicallyLurking · 17/10/2013 15:41

There are jobs where it is appropriate to bring your 4 year old. One of my teacher friends had to do it- she works in a reception class with 4 year olds and he fitted right in!

I also remember going to my dad's office. However, he wasn't in a customer facing role, and there was plenty of toys, books, colouring etc to do so I was happy.

Call centre does not sound like. 4 year old friendly workplace! Glad you got it sorted.

TheHouseCleaner · 17/10/2013 15:54

Am I the only person to think that this sounds less like the mother "had" to bring her child into work (as opposed to could have taken a day's holiday or a day's unpaid leave) and more like she's making some kind of big dramatic point about the (undoubted) difficulties of being a lone parent/having no support.

I agree with expatinscotland. I would be sending her home with no pay and I would be bringing it up with HR too.

SaucyJack · 17/10/2013 15:58

It often isn't possible to get childcare sorted if you don't already have a childminder or nursery. I've never known one who would take a random four year old as a one off with a couple of days notice.

What she did was inappropriate, but it's unfair to say she was taking the piss. People earning call centre wages cannot afford just to lose a day's pay due to no fault of their own.

OP- you sound lovely btw.

ilovesooty · 17/10/2013 16:03

Well everyone else there seemed to manage without hauling a child into work.

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 17/10/2013 16:04

I remember being in Mum's office too, but we weren't 4 and it wasn't a call centre, and she had her own room and could close the door. I can't remember why we had to be there, but she spent all the time telling us to sit down/shut up/stop fiddling with the Tippex. It wasn't all day either, just for the odd hour here or there. Also, it does disrupt everyone else because they have to converse with the little darling/s and make allowances etc.

Really can't believe someone thought a) it is appropriate to ask this or b) it is appropriate to authorise it!

ilovesooty · 17/10/2013 16:05

And the strike was not called with a couple of days' notice.

Shenanagins · 17/10/2013 16:05

I would inform hr of what has happened and the action you took to start covering your ass when all the other parents come in tomorrow to find out what has happened and put in a complaint.

ColderThanAWitchsTitty · 17/10/2013 16:06

You sound very kind OP and did the right thing

x2boys · 17/10/2013 16:07

I cant imagine it would ever be easy taking your child into work regardless of what you do except prhaps a nursery?

ColderThanAWitchsTitty · 17/10/2013 16:08

She was told she was allowed it would have been very unfair to send her home no pay in an emergency situation that could further impair her ability to pay for a babysitter. I remember my really great paying call center job at about 11,000 have some compassion people.

MsWilliamTheBloody · 17/10/2013 16:09

I used to work in a nursing home and one of the staff used to bring in her FOUR children (aged 1 - 7) for the entire weekend.

Their dad wouldn't look after them so the mum had to bring them to her weekend job.

That's a TWELVE HOUR on both Saturday and Sunday.

They'd scream (the 1 year old would scream for hours - amazed she was never sick), run around, pull faces at the residents. Residents couldn't watch TV because the children wanted to watch Teletubbies and similar.

Was fecking awful.

The staff would all leave with headaches.

ilovesooty · 17/10/2013 16:11

It's nothing to do with compassion. It should never have been authorised and all the other employees seem to have managed.

flippinada · 17/10/2013 16:12

Tantrums you handled that very well.

I can see both points of view - it's impossible to work with a little one charging about so can understand complaints.

OTOH call centre jobs are generally very badly paid and she probably needs the money, otherwise she wouldn't have come in.

wonkylegs · 17/10/2013 16:12

Uh oh - I've been a parent who took their child into work.
The main difference is I work for a small company that needed me to work and nobody else could cover that particular project which had a very tight deadline.
It was works idea that he came in and everyone was ok with it.
We set my at the time 4yo, up at a spare computer, DVDs/cBeebies website access with headphones, snacks, sweets
Some toys, crayons & scrap paper.
Honestly he was better behaved than the guys I worked with, ate less sweets and made a lot less noise!
We did have a fairly informal creative environment though, wouldn't dream of doing it otherwise.

x2boys · 17/10/2013 16:13

actually I do vaguely remember going into work with my dad must of been about six and dsis about 8, cant think where my mum was my dad used to work for the gasboard as it was then and had to work Saturdays his job was to tell gas vans where to go if there had been a gas leak etc. But nobody else was working on a Saturday and myself and my sister had great fun in the empty offices with all the big pads of paper rulers rubbers ink cartridges etc!

flippinada · 17/10/2013 16:14

The ones I worked in, if you didn't turn up you didn't get paid

Not saying she was in the right, but I can see how it might have happened.

ColderThanAWitchsTitty · 17/10/2013 16:15

It should never have been authorised and all the other employees seem to have managed

Bad decision by the manager not the employee and it would be unfair to penalise her. Op should take it up with the manager presumably the employee would have taken a personal day if she had to. It's not about compassion, you're right it's about knowing who to get pissed off when a bad decision is made.

If I come in to work in hotpants and a tube top because my manager tells me that's dress code, you can't send me home with no pay because actually I should have been wearing a suit.

SweetSeraphim · 17/10/2013 16:16

One of the directors where I work brings his dc into work in the school hols sometimes. Then fucks off to meetings most of the day and leaves the womenfolk to sort them out It fills me with rage.

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