Every once and awhile you stumble into the chance to be part of something special. I recently had that experience. This blog is about the intersection of being a wife, mother, and employee. No single event has crossed all of those lines simultaneously before and the result was very cool.
EMC Children’s Day was EMC’s take on “bring your child to work day”. RSA and other divisions of EMC have had similar programs and Daisy Alba, Sr. Manager; Global Cash was determined to have it happen here at our corporate facility at 176 South Street. As a mother of two gorgeous kids herself, she understood the importance of having our kids’ see what their parents do and where they spend their workdays.
Daisy secured executive support for the idea and starting a steering committee. She asked me to be her co-chair and the project was underway.
Celebrating Employee Families as the theme, the volunteer team put together an aggressive program of activities to ensure that parents who brought their kids to work for the day would not be disappointed. Another requirement for the team was to put a smile on everyone’s face who worked in the building (whether they have children or not). It was no accident that the courtyard was selected in hopes of bringing smiles to anyone who saw the event from inside the building.
One HR meeting was completely disrupted in a conference room that overlooks the courtyard due to the 42 foot inflatable whale on loan from the New England Aquarium was being inflated as part of the program. One member of the meeting took a cell phone snap of the activities and emailed it to all the remote participants on the phone. Anecdotes like that one are what make the volunteer team members beam with pride.
As the day had come to a close, I was heading back to my office and half a hallway ahead of me I saw a family headed down the corridor, two children with balloons skipping down the hallway. As if that was not enough to make you smile…All of the people coming down the hallway in the opposite direction were SMILING. One of them said to me, “hasn’t this just been the greatest day?” Another said. “This place came alive today.” With that I went back to my desk to finish up my work. I was tired, but proud and of course, smiling, too.
Special thanks to the all of the Children’s Day sponsors, volunteers, facilities personnel and security teams that made the day possible! P.S. Thank you to Mother Nature for such a great day.
