ahka | Michael at work

On Friday, I took Michael (7) with me to work. He was very excited about this arrangement. Fridays are my short days and I thought that he wouldn’t even stay for a few hours there before I would need to call someone to pick him up. To my surprise, he actually decided to stay to the end of the day 9am-4pm.

Well, he brought some entertainment with him such as 3D puzzle-tank and his DS plus we have computers in the office that he could use to play games. He was very polite with my co-workers. He met some of them before at the family picnics but didn’t remember them of course. He shook people’s hands very seriously and told them it was nice to meet them. Eventually, he even told them “knock knock” jokes. I was proud of my smart, funny and very well behaving son!

It was one of the slow days. A lot of clients didn’t show up, so I was trying to catch up on paperwork. It was very quite in the building most of the day unlike some days when we have a lot of clients waiting in the waiting area.

I work in a very old building Wells Family College Center and there were many stories about this building and ghosts. At one time it was a mortuary (see the website for the history of this building), so people believe that there must be ghosts for sure. Our very old elevator once in a while would open the doors, so we usually joke that the ghost came over. So, I told Michael that story long time ago and he was very excited to see the elevator open by itself and try to see the ghost there. At the end of the day I arranged that for him. I pressed on the elevator button while he was in the restroom and when he came out, the doors just opened. It was good timing. Michael was very excited about it and even told me that he saw something there.

I showed him around the building, during lunch we went to Subway, ate and then went for a walk in Loring Park and then walked behind the college nearby Hyatt. It was so beautiful and there were a lot of preparations going on for various weekend events (including Basilica block party). I was very disappointed that I didn’t bring my camera with. There were so many picturesque areas that we walked by. There were also a lot of homeless people in the park and Michael had a lot of questions about them. I was kind of scared to walk there with Michael at one point.

I really enjoyed our time together during lunch. I asked him if he wants me to call grandpa so he would pick him up and take him to the daycare to play with the kids. Michael said that he likes to stay with me and wants to stay until the end of the day.

He got to observe me working with clients, even got to talk to some clients and he almost didn’t play computer games or DS. He did a lot of other projects with paper and went through my desk drawers where he found fascinating office supplies such as post-it notes, and pins, and staples, pans, pencils, etc.

Everything was great all day! I even let him help me staple some things and press on the copy button to make copies. He was excited to help!

At the end of the day, as we were walking to the parking ramp, he started crying that he needs a dollar. It was very annoying cry. I asked him why he needs a dollar if he got so many dollars for his birthday a few days ago. He didn’t answer and kept crying that he needs a dollar. That was extremely annoying. I was thinking to myself, “well, I have a dollar, but now his behavior is unacceptable, however, he worked all day and earned it for sure, should I give it to him now or once he stops crying?”

I told him that I would give it to him in the car. He started crying even more. I started threatening him that I will not give anything to him if he will continue behaving like that. Finally, he explained why he wanted a dollar. He wanted to buy a drink in the wending machine. I gave him the dollar in the car and we were far away from the wending machines. He was very upset. However, now, he threw that dollar in my car and told me that he plans to go to work with me again and then he will use it to buy a drink. Well, now I need to plan to take him to work with me again next Friday.