UBM Post 8 - Kid to Work Day

Every year in June, Intel organizes a Kid to Work Day. The age group for kids who can come to campus and participate in the various workshops is 7-15, but the younger kids come during lunch time to the cafe and get a feel of their mommy or daddy's workplace.

For me, it's a chance for my colleagues to meet the kids and see how fast they are growing up. There's usually 'awwwwwwwwwwww' and 'sooooo cute' and 'he looks like you' 'she looks like her dad' 'how are the terrible two's' and more of such small talk involved.

The daughter has come to work many times before - for Halloween trick or treat, for Santa pictures, for the Spring Carnival.....and so, in her mind, Intel is a place where mommy goes to have fun, meet her friends and occasionally, have meetings with her manager M :).

Prior to having kids, I always led a workshop on KTWD. They range from hands-on engineering experiments, making video games and playing them, chip design with play-doh, various robotic workshops, working with legos, etc. These require many hours of planning, and an entire day of commitment on the day of the event. Last year, I was pregnant, so I signed up to be a lobby volunteer who greets the kids, makes personalized badges for them and gives them their goodie bags. For a couple of hours, it was good fun, but the booths were outside the building, and it was terribly cold that particular day.

So this year, I signed up to wear a bunny suit during lunch time in the cafe and pose for pictures with the kiddos. I was glad to get an older version of the suit which had plenty of pockets built in for ventilation. I put in on and reached the cafe on time, only to be stared at by all the kids (and their parents) and no one approaching me to take pictures. I felt odd, went back into the bathroom and checked my appearance :). It looked okay.....a little scary, but fine :). There was one other person wearing a similar suit and he too felt odd that no one approached us. So we started approaching the children ourselves and asking them if they knew what we were wearing. They didn't. So we explained to them what a bunny suit is, who wears it, where, and why. We started getting lots of questions from them, and most of the parents also pitched in with the explanation. The first batch of kids still did not realize that it was okay for them to get a picture clicked with us. So one of the organizers of this event made an announcement in the cafe that the bunny suit people were here and kids could line up for pictures with them.

And it was then that the floodgates opened. We were sooper busy (and happy to be so) for the rest of our time in our cafe. I found it funny that I smiled during every picture even though my mouth was covered - as they say in hindi, "aadat se majboor" :). At the end of my gig, hubby brought the kids over, and the baby started profusely crying when he saw me. Ofcourse, it was not his mom he was looking at, and the bunny suit looked scary :). Only after I removed my head gear did I see a smile on his face and his arms up in the air to come to me :). The daughter, on the other hand, was quite fascinated by my outfit and wanted to get a picture with bunny suit mumma :).

All in all, it was an afternoon well spent. We've suggested some preschool workshops to the organizers so that the younger children can participate, and we'll see how its received. Looking forward to KTWD 2014!