Working Downtown with Dad

When I was a kid we would occasionally go to the office with my dad. We called it "going to Dad's work" and we were usually pretty excited about it. He would let us loose in the copy room and the kitchen while he worked at his desk.

We would photocopy all sorts of things and then bind our favourites with a plastic coil binding and a fancy cover. Inside the books we would usually include lots of blank pages or letterhead so we could draw on them later -- using all the pens we looted from the supply shelves. Until one time when we overdid the looting and someone got on Dad's case about it. Then we got shut down.

The fridge in the kitchen was loaded with soda cans, but that wasn't enough. We would pour 7-Up into a styrofoam cup and then load it with sugarcubes, slurping this sticky brew through a coffee stir stick. Sufficiently buzzed, we would zip up and down the halls and the elevators. Eventually we would peter out and slump in a corner. Then it was time to go home.

Now it's my turn to be the dad.

Saturday morning I asked the kids, "Who wants to go downtown to see Dad's new office?" The votes were lopsided in favour. Katie was ready to put her jacket over her PJs and jump in the car. Sadly, she would have to wait until after lunch.

We parked only a block away from the building but we rode the C-Train one stop just for the fun of it. That allowed us to ride up all the escalators in the mall on our way in. Then Scott got hungry so we got a smoothie. Finally, we arrived at our destination and I put them to work.



Each of them got their own whiteboard-equipped meeting room near my desk where I could keep both of them in view. Katie filled the bottom 12 inches of that whiteboard with all manner of happy faces.



Scott mostly played tic-tac-toe against himself -- mostly winning -- before adding two cats to Katie's happy planet.



Afterwards, we created some books using copy paper and the power-stapler. They really wanted to use the power-stapler, but I reserved rights to the heavy machinery. Using a collection of highlighters, Scott was able to draw some very nice pictures of monster-beasts, while Katie mostly doodled in purple.









When I told them it was finally time to leave, they both groaned and wanted to know when were coming back. I promised them we would come back again soon.

After all, we still didn't try mixing any 7-Up.