An office, by definition, should be a distraction-free environment that inspires productivity. It’s pretty much a no-brainer, right? When one worker dealt with the exact opposite, however, they faced a difficult decision that ultimately led to the unintentional firing of a co-worker.
According to an employee’s Reddit post, work was getting harder to do in their office because a co-worker kept bringing their rambunctious young child to work with them. The employee accidentally mentioned it to their boss, and it did not end well.
“I … was hired in a small office,” they began the post. “There are 10 of us in the entire company, including our boss. I share a room with five of these people.”
Unfortunately, their boss was frequently absent, which only complicated the situation. “Our boss rarely shows up for work,” they explained. “I’ve been here since January, and in that time, she’s always been sick, working from home or sending her son.”
“That said, the job itself wasn’t bad … Apart from one co-worker,” they continued. “We work Monday-Friday. They brought their daughter to the office at least four times a week. Their daughter is six, and honestly, she was annoying.” They reported that the little girl was known to run around, bang on the door, try to wrestle the phone away from whoever was using it, and steal things. Despite the distractions, the employee’s co-worker assured them that they had permission from their boss to have their child there.
“In mid-February, my boss came into the office,” they said. “During a break, I had a quick ‘how are you doing’ conversation with her, and during that time I admitted that the employee’s daughter was irritating me a bit.”
The boss’s reaction surprised the employee. “She was confused,” they recounted. “She asked me what I meant. At first, I didn’t understand what was wrong, so I said, ‘She can be very loud sometimes.’ My boss continued to look at me, confused. ‘This co-worker brings his daughter here?’”
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By the end of the conversation, they were both perplexed. “And now I was confused too,” they said. “I said something like, ‘I was told that’s fine … ?’ The boss didn’t give me any answer, ended the conversation and left.”
“Nothing happened that day or for the rest of the month, but in early March, the co-worker showed up at the office, stating that the boss had just fired them,” they recalled. “They cried, telling us that ‘our boss was monitoring their behaviour’ and that she ‘ignored all their hard work just because they brought a child here.’ The employee said they managed to blend in with their other co-workers, who worked to comfort this person and just assumed the boss’s son was to blame for her finding out about the child.
Houston’s Chron newspaper noted that there are no laws against bringing a child to work. They said OSHA does maintain a list of workplaces that would be hazardous for minors, but there are no specific rules surrounding them.
On the other hand, the outlet also pointed out that virtually any workplace can pose a danger to a child if they are left unsupervised, and it sounds like this child was. They also mentioned how a child in the workplace can affect productivity, which this child seemed to be doing.
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While the employee may feel bad that what they said led to their co-worker’s firing, there is ultimately nothing for them to feel guilty about. The child was creating a toxic environment where they couldn’t get work done, and they didn’t know that her being at the office was a big secret everyone was supposed to keep.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
