Cute Little Children in the Workplace

August 28, 2006 - 2:13 AM by Sarah

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy . . .

August is a strange time in Israel. The kids are off from school, half the country is on vacation (read: abroad), and so for those who are left behind it is virtually impossible to find childcare.

According to Squarepeg, many parents become, eh, creative and take their children to work. Which is fine for . . .well, no one really . . . but particularly not for someone like Sqaurepeg, who apparently would be more happy in a more adult-centric society:

Last week, my colleague brought her 11-year-old boy to sit and take up space, swivelling back and forth at a 3rd computer in our very small room, while she sort-of worked for 5 hours. I didn’t get much done either. The arrangement is just a little farcical. To avoid them, I took a very long lunch, but was punished upon my return with the nauseating smell of him very slowly munching on a big hot dog. There are few things more disgusting than inhaling that smell right after you’ve eaten lunch. After another half-hour, when he still hadn’t finished it, he held it out to his mom and said, “I don’t like it.” Well, DUH, throw it away, for godsake, IN ANOTHER ROOM, please! And he wasn’t even the engaging sort of kid. When I said hello, he just grunted back without even turning from the computer screen.

There are ankle-biters all over the place these days, gurgling, screeching, calling anxiously for their working mothers. The fathers, however, seem to bring the kind of kids I don’t mind so much having around. One of them, a 12-yr-old boy, wandered into my room asking about the picture of Pinky on my wall. (Yes, I will post something newer soon.) Sweet, curious, charming — the kid, not the cat. I let his father know Ms. Squarepeg is available.

And then the next day, a co-worker took me to see the snake brought in by another boy. He was probably hoping to see me squirm and be repulsed, but I was fascinated, just having read an article about how snakes were nowhere near as aggressive as they appear in Snakes on a Plane. Still, I cautiously approached the tall box where the python was curled up quietly. I stifled a response of “eeeewwwwwwww” as I watched the 10-year-old boy pick it up and wrap it around his shoulders. (It looked a lot like this one, found with a quick web search.)

He told me the venom had been removed, so the snake was not dangerous. I stroked its skin … hm, leathery. I decided if the boy’s very sensible father was okay with his son holding this snake, maybe I could try it too.