[Publib] children of staff

[Judith Turner]

I've brought my children to work with me on occasion during the school year from about age 10 on and more regularly during summer vacation over the course of a decade (1989-1999).  

My employer welcomed volunteers of all ages and there was no problem signing them up officially.  From that point, existing rules, policies, security clearances and liability insurance in place for the museum's volunteer force of several hundred individuals applies to them.

It helped that both kids had been registered as volunteers since they were literally babes in arms (my spouse and I each always had one apiece when we volunteered at various museum events like Dinosaur Dash.)  With that kind of history, I was able to re-initiate their volunteer status when they were able to help with various simple library tasks that quite frankly we didn't have support staff to handle.
  
Also, by the late 1980's slightly older children of the museum director's and other employees were being hired for paid summer positions as visitor assistants so I wasn't breaking any unwritten rules about nepotism.

The biggest problem was keeping them interested as they turned teenagers but luckily our increasing use of computers took care of that.  Eventually one of the taxidermists swiped my more seasoned volunteer, my son, to set up a database for old departmental records.  Once he moved on his younger sister did a great job of keeping various vertical files up-to-date and became an adept OCLC searcher, ILL photocopier and mailer and helped with name and subject heading authority projects., among other things.
 
Both kids generally enjoyed the work and it was a huge help, especially during the summer vacations when our college-aged, work-study employees were 
off the payroll and staff were vacationing.

Judy Turner
Whitefish Bay, WI
 
       
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