Surprise

Please Take My Children To Work Day – brilliant idea. It gives a mother some time out from picking plasticine out of the carpet and finding that the crayons used on the walls aren’t quite as water-soluble as they claim to be. Meanwhile, her kids get to see the wonderful world of work, in all its photocopier/sticky note/Excel spreadsheet glory.

One thing I will note: just make sure that you’ve arranged it with the kids’ mum first. I discovered that surprising a friend to an unscheduled day off results in even more stress on her part than usual, and sirens, police dogs, armoured officers and battering rams disrupt your working day even more than you may think, not to mention the Tasers and CS gas.

Still, at least the kids got to play with the staplers for a bit.