Stay-at-Home Parent

I wrote this essay a few years ago when I was deep in full-time parenting. The humor came out of sleep-deprivation-induced insanity and a desperate need to be understood by  . . . well, I don't know by whom, exactly. But I felt better after writing it.

How to Relate to a Stay-at-Home Parent

            Imagine you don’t just work at your job, you sleep there, too.  Imagine you directly supervise three employees with little to no education and minimal experience.  Though you initialized the hiring process, you were not involved in the selection of candidates.  You must take disciplinary action with them on a regular basis, but they came in on 18-year contracts.  You must work with what you’ve got.

            These employees of yours show very little initiative.  They require hand-holding to complete even the smallest of tasks and are always in your office asking for assistance or just needing to bounce ideas off of you.  When you go to the restroom, your employees come from wherever they are in the building to pace outside the stall and discuss things.  Often one of them will find the separation so difficult he will enter the stall next to yours and pop his head over the top of the wall to say hello.  You do your best to respond with patience, kindness and encouragement (part of your company’s mission statement), but you admit you are not always as professional as you’d like to be.

You are not just the supervisor of these employees; you are also their secretary, in the traditional sense of the job.  You make their coffee, file their paperwork, take their phone calls, schedule their appointments, buy gifts for parties to which they’re invited, take their clothes for cleaning (which is in-house and which you do yourself), and plan the annual office parties.  You are also the company chauffer, driving employees to and from all off-site meetings. 

You are the manager of the building’s cafeteria, and you are the cook, preparing and serving three meals a day plus snacks to have available in the break room.  You’re responsible for tracking the inventory for both the office and the cafeteria, taking the company car to restock when necessary.  You are also the custodial staff, a position to which you’re unable to give sufficient attention.  The job is yours indefinitely since quarterly losses have created a hiring freeze.

Because this is a fledgling organization and you believe passionately in its mission, you signed on to work without a salary.  No paycheck.  No performance review.  No bonus.  No sick leave.  As with most start-up businesses, you put in long hours, working seven days a week, fifteen hours a day.  You’re on call around the clock, frequently getting called in in the middle of the night. 

Imagine all this, and imagine you are also in charge of office morale.  Fortunately, your employees are cuter than the employees at any other company.  Especially when they’re asleep on the job.