Working 9 to 5 at 5 Years Old
by Mark Friedman
3/1/2005
It seems like every other week Little Sarah's school is closed for a school holiday, a teacher workshop or asbestos eradication. That leaves my wife, Kim, and me with a dilemma: How do we keep our 5-year-old entertained for the day? While we could enroll her in the Little Rock School District's affiliated daycare program, we figure we'll save an extra $12 a day if Little Sarah follows me to work. See, I'm a reporter at Arkansas Business, a sister publication to Little Rock Family. As a professional reporter, I spend part of the day reading the newspaper, chatting on the phone and checking the sales on eBay. So, bringing Little Sarah with me to work shouldn't be much of a problem. Plus the company built a playroom where kids could hang out, watch TV or wrestle. Because Sarah is much too young to stay in there all day, I told her on one recent field trip to the office that she could sit by my desk as long as she was quiet and didn't bother the other workers. She agreed and practically skipped down the hallway to my desk. "I want to color a picture," Sarah said, scanning stacks of disorganized papers on my desk. I handed over some scrap paper and told her to sit at the staff photographer's desk, which is adjacent to mine. Little Sarah soon found his cup filled with markers and attacked the paper. As I raced around various Internet sites, I glanced over and noticed Sarah was using a red permanent marker to color the paper. The ink had bled through the paper onto the cream-colored desk. "Sarah, look what happened," I said. Startled, Sarah froze.
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