Having kids around the office can easily anger fellow co-workers, and likely slows down productivity. A former Federal Reserve worker told the “New York Daily News” of a time when a co-worker’s child was playing on his parent’s computer and wiped out a days worth of bank transactions that left the entire staff in the office until 11 p.m. fixing the problem.
And then there are the distractions, like crying, screaming, tantrums, misbehaving, or even kids that are so cute the entire office stops work just to ooh and ahh at them.
Of course, not all employees hate it when kids are in the office. Administrative assistant Emma Walls likes to have fun with the kids, and gives them assignments like making copies of stapling.
“They protest to their parents when they have to leave.” Some even consider kids in the workplace a breath of fresh air from a dreary day on the job, and worker harder because of it.
Still, kids aren’t the only distractions in offices these days.
“We have some dogs around, and I think the dogs are more annoying than kids,” said Meetup.com founder Scott Heiferman, who pays a co-worker’s older kid to watch his kid at the office. “I don’t think that my kid has pooped on the office floor.”
