It all started, I think, with Bring Your Child to Work Day.
Like many modern ideas, it seems to have started in America and eventually crossed the Atlantic, arriving here just late enough for everyone to assume it must be a good thing.
As baby boomers, we had no such nonsense.
Work was where adults went to escape from children.
That was part of the attraction.
From Monday to Friday, children were handed over to the education system at about nine o’clock and, with any luck, not returned until half past three.
Nobody ever sat around an office in the 1970s and said:
“You know what would improve productivity around here? Thirty children.”
I can only imagine what Bring Your Child to Work Day was actually like.
Within ten minutes, children would be racing office chairs down corridors, pressing every button on the photocopier, opening drawers marked CONFIDENTIAL and asking awkward questions about people’s salaries.
One would manage to fax something to Germany.
Another would discover the fire alarm.
And every task would be subjected to the full interrogation.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m preparing the monthly accounts.”
“Why?”
“Because the company needs them.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s how the business works.”
“Why?”
At this point the parent would be staring out the window wondering why they hadn’t joined the Navy.
Then came Bring Your Dog to Work Day.
Apparently, dogs reduce stress in the workplace.
I’m not sure about that.
I can imagine being on the phone to an important customer while a Jack Russell lifts its leg against the side of my desk.
“Yes, Mr Wilson, we pride ourselves on maintaining the highest professional standards…”
Meanwhile, somebody’s Labrador has stolen my lunch, and an Alsatian is growling at Human Resources.
Then, of course, there are the dogs who take an immediate romantic interest in each other.
Nothing says modern professional workplace quite like two unneutered poodles having enthusiastic sex beside the photocopier while everyone pretends not to notice.
“Could somebody separate them?”
“I’m not going near them.”
“Where’s their owner?”
“She’s in a Teams meeting.”
Fortunately, I escaped all this, but it got me thinking.
Why stop there?
How about Bring Your Mother to Work Day?
Now that would be interesting.
My mother would be inside the building for five minutes before deciding standards had slipped.
She wouldn’t care about sales figures or business strategy.
She’d be running a finger along the top of a filing cabinet.
“Look at the dust on that.”
Within twenty minutes she would have found the cleaning cupboard.
The managing director could be presenting the annual accounts while my mother worked around his feet with a Henry vacuum cleaner.
“Lift your legs there.”
Then she’d move on to the staff kitchen.
That would be a massacre.
“Who left this mug in the sink?”
Nobody would answer.
“Were you all brought up in fields?”
Next, she’d find out I had eaten a sandwich at my desk.
“You call that a lunch?”
Before long she’d be confronting my boss.
“He needs a proper meal in the middle of the day. And he’s far too pale.”
My boss might point out that my diet was none of his business.
That wouldn’t help him.
“And why is he sitting in front of that screen all day?”
Five o’clock would arrive and that would be the end of my working day.
No discussion.
No overtime.
No deadlines.
My coat would already be on.
“He’s finished now.”
“We really need him to stay another hour.”
“No, you don’t.”
And there goes one of the great excuses of married life:
“Sorry I’m late. The boss kept me back.”
Not anymore.
Your mother has been in the office all day and knows perfectly well your boss left at ten past four to play golf.
But even Bring Your Mother to Work Day pales beside the nuclear option.
Bring Your Wife to Work Day.
That could finish entire companies.
The problem is that there are things you say at home about people at work that were never intended to reach the workplace.
You’d begin the introductions.
“This is Dave. He sits beside me.”
There would be a brief silence.
Then:
“Is this the Dave?”
Immediately, Dave would look worried.
“What Dave?”
“No, no. Different Dave.”
Then she meets your boss.
“And this is Martin.”
Another pause.
“Ohhh. Martin.”
That one word would contain six years of private marital conversations.
Martin would know instantly.
He’d know you had discussed his management style.
His personality.
His car.
Possibly his hair.
You’d desperately try to move things along.
“And over here is Sandra from Accounts.”
“Oh, Sandra! You never said she was so young.”
At that point you might as well clear your desk.
Worse still, your wife would discover what you actually do all day.
For years you have arrived home exhausted.
“God, what a day.”
You sit down heavily.
Remove your shoes.
Perhaps even sigh.
She naturally assumes you’ve spent eight hours making life-or-death decisions.
Then she visits the office and discovers that between 9.00 and 10.15 you made tea, discussed last night’s football, checked the weather and spent fourteen minutes trying to remember your password.
By lunchtime she has worked out that your entire career involves replying to emails and moving information from one spreadsheet to another.
“You said you were under terrible pressure.”
“I am.”
“You’ve been talking to Jim about football for twenty minutes.”
“That’s networking.”
The danger works both ways, of course.
By four o’clock your colleagues would know things about you that had previously remained safely at home.
“He does that at home too.”
“Does what?”
“Nothing.”
There would never be another after-work drink.
At five o’clock you’d suggest popping into the pub with the lads.
“For a quick one.”
Your wife would simply look at you.
The quick one would be cancelled.
Perhaps we could have Bring Your Neighbour to Work Day.
By mid-morning they’d be saying:
“Is this what you come out here for every day?”
Or Bring Your Grandfather to Work Day.
Try explaining hybrid working to a man who started work at fourteen.
“So you work from home?”
“Yes.”
“And they pay you?”
“Yes.”
“And sometimes you go into the office?”
“Yes.”
“But not every day?”
“No.”
He’d stare at you for a while.
“We had a word for that.”
And refuse to say what it was.
Then there could be:
Bring Your Mother-in-Law to Work Day.
Absolutely not.
Bring Your Cat to Work Day.
Nobody would get anything done because the cat would sit on the keyboard and somehow become Head of Finance.
Bring Your Therapist to Work Day.
Far too much information would emerge before lunchtime.
And perhaps the most useful of all:
Bring Someone Who Knows How the Bloody Printer Works to Work Day.
That one would actually increase productivity.
Looking back, I think we boomers had the whole thing worked out rather well.
You went to work.
The children went to school.
The dog stayed at home.
Your mother didn’t know where the office was.
Your wife had only a vague idea what you did there.
And your boss knew absolutely nothing about what was said about him over dinner.
It was a remarkably successful arrangement.
Some parts of your life were simply kept separate.
And, having thought through the alternatives, I’m increasingly convinced that was for everybody’s protection.
