Before I became a mother, I got myself some industry experience child-minding a 40 year old manager in a professional capacity. During my year of working with this man (whom I shall refer to as Mr W), I cut my maternal teeth on a whole range of child rearing dilemmas and strategies, such as coaxing, disciplining and dealing with totally random and completely inexplicable behaviour. Luckily, Mr W wasn’t a tantrum thrower – in fact the only tantrum I recall during that year was my own when I shouted at him “I’m not your monkey-girl typist! I have a honours degree in English, don’t you know!” (As if an honours degree in English actually means anything… Listen, it wasn’t my proudest moment but I had been provoked, okay?). And thankfully, he came to me fully toilet-trained. So while I wasn’t entirely battle-ready by the time Mr Justice was born, I was close enough.
My main struggle with Mr W was keeping him on schedule and that’s where the Chicken of Persuasion came in as a very effective “upward management” tool. The CoP was a plucked chicken made of rubber that would suddenly appear around the doorway of a meeting room when the meeting was starting to run over time or be laid across Mr W’s desk if he’d broken one of my Cardinal Rules (such as putting appointments in his Palm Pilot and failing to synchronise it with the network). The appearance of the CoP had much the same effect as a horse’s head appearing in your bed: Mr W knew he was in Big Trouble, Mister – and in any case, there was no way in the world he could argue back with the Chicken, because it was made of rubber and he would look most foolish. That was the persuasive genius of the CoP.
My own husband has recently instituted his own CoP-equivalent in his place of work. “Pirate Pete” is a hand puppet who will be laid in a threatening manner across someone’s keyboard when they’ve made some grave error. Sometimes Pirate Pete will, according to my husband, “jump up on his hand” and say things like “Pete doesn’t like dangling modifiers” in a “really sinister, squeaky pirate voice” – because, of course, the most sinister of pirates talk in squeaky voices. We all know that. However, not all of us – myself included – know what a dangling modifier is, but my husband’s job is as an editor, so thank god there’s someone out there living the dream. In any case, I’m sure it frightens the bejeesus out of his staff in much the same way as I used to frighten people when I would speak on behalf of the non-verbal baby I was carrying by cheerfully announcing stuff like “I’m a big boy now” and “I just did a big poo!”. I assumed, because I was using a slightly higher voice than my own, it would be clear I was talking for the baby but actually most people just assumed that I was talking about my own bowel movements and would take a few steps back. Anyhoo, my husband’s colleagues already suspected he’s strange but now that a lot of them are taking the time to read my blog, it’s a no-brainer.
Oftentimes, when I am trying to herd my children out the door for the school run (see “Herding Cats“), I find myself wondering “Where is the Chicken of Persuasion now that I really need him?” The answer is that, although both myself and Mr W have moved on from that company, the CoP is still there, lurking in the corridors for those times when people start to introduce non-agenda items in meetings or – worse still – set themselves down on a Hot Desk without booking it first. He is doing Important Works and the world of Big Business is a better place because of him, although arguably a worse place because of the global financial crisis.
As much as I like to reminisce about my days as an Admin Dominatrix, I often wonder what I would be like in such a job now that I’ve had some experience in the “Real World” of raising children. Would I be putting Mr W on the Thinking Spot or withdrawing his Palm Pilot privileges for weeks at a time? Would I be restricting him and the rest of his marketing team to only two hours of screen time a day, making them eat a serve of fruit mid-morning and to have half an hour’s “quiet time” after lunch? The one thing that is certain is that I would not be simultaneously printing out multiple copies of a PowerPoint presentation on five temperamental colour printers scattered around the building after 10 o’clock at night. Life is much too short to be working unpaid overtime in the ultimate pursuit of making rich men richer – certainly not when there is sleep, sweet sweet sleep, to be had instead. And ain’t that the truth.
CoP, we salute you.
Not Drowning, Mothering. 