Ask a Manager: "Have your kids take notes at your meetings!"

[minoanmiss]

I offer for your enjoyment this amazing email I received this week:

I thought you and your readers might be amused by a meeting that my spouse’s company had recently. The topic was “Tips on Staying Productive While Working from Home with Kids” and the meeting was hosted by three people from their HR department.
Some of the tips included:

Have your kids listen in on meetings and teach them how to take notes
Get them acquainted with technology by having them help you submit an IT help ticket
Delegate small tasks to them such as organizing your files or setting up meeting alerts on your calendar
And my personal favorite:
Make a prioritized list of schoolwork and chore objectives for them daily so that they’ll be able to work independently all day.

A meeting attendee asked the meeting hosts for advice on how they put these tips into practice.
HR person #1 has a stay-at-home spouse that cares for their children.
HR person #2 has moved their parents into their home to provide childcare.
HR person #3 has a live-in nanny who is still working and quarantining with the family.
My spouse intends to send an email to their team tomorrow saying, “Help, I delegated tasks to my 2 year old and now I think all our data has been sold to [competitor]!”

Comments

[lemonsharks]

oh my god what the fuck child labor laws

[naath]

Teaching a 15yo some useful skills might work; with a 2 year old... not so much.

[rosefox]

I'm reminded of this considerably more compassionate Twitter thread, which noted that kids might be more engaged in learning skills if they can see what those skills are useful for, perhaps by observing or helping with your work. But that came from a perspective of not being completely demolished by attempting to mimic school at home while working. It's very different to get it as """helpful""" advice from a company that clearly means it as "quit whining about having to watch your kids"!

[mommy]

Hopefully, that HR department is willing to hire those kids into their administrative staff.

[green_grrl]

I loooooved spouse’s planned response!

[cynthia1960]

Oh hell yeah.

[tielan]

When I clicked, I imagined this was a joke.

Uh. Wow.

[fred_mouse]

I'd probably get useful notes from the 16 y.o., but I bet the 22 y.o. and the 19 y.o. take dreadful notes (if I could even read them). Youngest does join in with our morning tea meetings though, which is a much better choice!