Is it ok to take to your child to work in an emergency?

[runnyhabbit]

Some advice needed please! DS (17 months) has got chickenpox,and can't go to nursery (which is usually 3 mornings a week) Grandparents are away/working,and DH can only get 1 day off.I work in the mornings for a small office based company.Get on really well with boss,and have asked for the time off,but its short notice.I wanted to know if taking DS to work with me is another option.Office is very quiet,and very often I work on my own.

I think taking him wouldn't necessarily be a problem, but him having chicken pox wouls make me not want to do it.

WOuld it be possible for you to work from home?

No I wouldn't not with chicken pox if there was someone pregnant there who hasn't had it , it could be dangerous to mother and baby.

Big no no, does your employer have the relevent insurance to allow it? What if your child has an accident there, offices are not really child friendly places.

Is there work you could do from home?

There is only me and my boss who work in the office(although he is out on site a lot of the time),and the only person who is pregnant is me(been checked by mw,and I'm ok)The logical part of me has thought about the insurance and professionalism, and to be perfectly honest it would've been the last resort and most definatley not an ideal.Wish working from home was an option, but all files etc need to be kept in office.

No I don't think it's ok

At most you will be working at 30% capacity, if that

You need to take a day's holiday

I would say no purely from the point of view that chickenpox is a horrible thing to have and your DS will want to be at home snuggled up - not sitting in an office!!

You would need to ask your boss for permission - check no one who is at risk of catching CP is likely to come in.

Also check workplace for hazards for little ones, stairs, balconies, wires, heavy boxes etc.

On the whole I would say dont do it - not nice for DS, who just wants comfort, distraction for you and generally unsafe.

Insurance is another issue - usually the only times policies allow this dort of thing is when the office is a disaster contingency site. I.E somewhere for skeleton staff to work if normal office is unihbitable after say fire or something. Because people normally tend to have to come is an emergency to start off with.

zephyrcat - I can think of nothing better than snuggling up with him!

Thank you all for your advice. Deep down, I knew that taking DS to work wasn't really an option (but I've got this strange feeling that my boss might suggest it) I'm going to go through my workload for the week and see if there is anything I can do from home, that way hopefully we can reach a compromise. After all, the building won't fall down if I'm not here

Thanks again x

If I was your boss I would be pleased that you had suggested a way of overcoming the problem - but would tell you to stay at home with ds.

Hope he's better soon!

As an employer, I have let employees bring children to work when they have had childcare emergencies, but I would not let someone bring a sick child to work. You won't be giving your work your full attention, and you won't be helping your child, either. Your employer cannot legally discipline you for taking leave at short notice in this situation.

If it's a small office, just you and the boss and he agrees then that's fine, do it. Mine had chicken pox this year and mostly carried on with their normal life. Depends how badly a child has it really. Also if no one is there but you and your son you're not going to disturb other workers. I let my cleaner bring her children here when there's a childcare emergency as no one here is going to be disturbed in the house, not like taking a sick child into a call centre.

My Dh sometimes takes ours to work with him if he has no meetings on, they watch DVD's or play the playstation on the giant screen in the meeting room, or draw at one of the empty desks.

Well spread out desks and the fact that most of them are out on jobs or meetings means nobody minds, they all have school age kids and have brought them in at some point over the years.

Insurance seems to always be a big issue when taking kids anywhere but unless you plan on suing your boss for any injury they have while in the office, is it really a problem?

As for a kid that is sick especially while still contagious, well perhaps not. Dh had chicken pox as an adult and suffered horribly far worse than when kids get it, might not be appreciated.