One of the most common, and frankly dumbest, responses I get to this is "Oh, sure, but you'd love my kids." No. I may love you and am happy for you that you love your kids. Still don't want them around me. It's not like "I don't like green vegetables." "But try edamame! It's different. You might like it!" "Okay...om nom nom...Holy shit, this is amazing!" It's more like "I don't like being stabbed. I love you, but that doesn't mean I want to be stabbed by you." Loving the person who is stabbing me will not make being stabbed enjoyable. I may very well love you and am happy you have children that you love and are proud of, but I don't want children around me. Of course I'm not totally horrible. I'll visit my friends who have children. I'll even play with their children. My friend, who I'll call Peri, has a seven year old daughter. She's a pretty neat kid. She's really sweet, nice to her friends, kind to strangers, very smart, very creative. She likes giraffes. I love hearing stories about the neat things she's doing. I still don't want to spend more than five minutes with her in one go.
So, now that we've established I'm a horrible person and a nasty bitch to boot:
My co-workers all know that I don't like kids. I don't know what the Hell to do with them when they come into the store. And this may be most of my problem with kids. I don't want to overstep boundaries and discipline other people's kids (because it's not respectful to the parent and it's not my fucking responsibility). I'm not being paid to entertain your children. Don't let your children break my stuff. I have a thousand things to do, and people not watching their children makes it impossible for me to finish my work, because despite not liking kids, I value children and am not going to walk away while they're trying to knock a shelf of chemicals over on themselves. When they're very young and try to talk to me, I don't know what in the Hell they're trying to say. So I just nod and say "Oh, yeah? Yeah? Neat! Cool!" while thinking "Where the shit is this thing's parent?!"
Where are you going with this, Roz?! Get to the point already!
So, co-worker came in to work today. As usual, I had a floppity jillion things to do, with the extra fun bonus of a workmate having had broken the machines I use all day last night. So, co-worker, let's call her Pearl, comes in while I'm on the phone with tech support, trying to get a technician to come out on a Sunday, because my department was losing hundreds of dollars what with Mother's Day being one of the busiest days for my department. So Pearl's got her daughter in tow (6, maybe? I have no idea about the age). At this point, I'm on the phone with tech support, halfway under the machines trying to troubleshoot. And Pearl walks up with her daughter and I hear her say "You can stay here with Roz while Mommy works." From under the machinery, I just called back, "Nope! Roz is busy playing with electricity and caustic chemicals" and kept working. Fortunately, she got the not-so-subtle hint on that one and took her child with her.
In my current position, I get a 15 minute break and a 30 minute break. Since my department is fairly autonomous, I can take my breaks whenever I want without having to have somebody cover for me, but I try to take them at about the same time every day. When I open the store, I frequently don't eat before I go in because I know I have that 15 minute break, which I use to eat a muffin or a yoghurt, consume some caffeine, and read a bit of a book. With everything that was FUBAR today, I finally took my 15 minute break 2 and a half hours after I normally do. I go into the break room, unwrap my muffin, and here comes Pearl and her daughter. "I'm going to go do something on the computer in the office. Sit here with Roz." NO! DON'T FUCKING SIT HERE WITH ROZ! Dammit, Pearl, you're not a single parent. Your husband is so damn wealthy that you have a "just for fun" job. Leave your kid at home with Daddy and Big Brother or get a babysitter if you're not going to watch her at work. But of course, I won't actually say that out loud, so I just keep reading, hoping she'll get the point that I'm not there to be her baby-sitter, especially when I'm on a break. Nope. Her child kept asking me questions. "What's that paper?" "Bookmark." "What're you reading?" "Book." I wound up only taking five minutes of my earned fifteen minute break because I wanted out of the situation.
Again, the part of this that is so ridiculous is, everybody there knows I don't like children. I'm very good at my job and I don't mind doing the really difficult stuff or moving the heavy shit around, but I tag other people in when children need things because they stress me the Hell out and irritate me.
I feel extremely disrespected when things like this happen. First of all, Pearl was completely disrespectful of the fact that I have a job to do and it's not watching her kid. She is well aware that I'm trying like Hell to get promoted and need to be getting about 16 hours worth of work done in my 8 hour shift. She knows that nobody else in my department gives a fuck, so I have to do their work, too. And, here's the biggie, she knows I don't like kids. So logic would dictate, get the Hell out of my way, let me do my job, and keep your child away from me!
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