15 Dec

Dad and Buried Posted in Advice 6 comments

How to Act Like a Child at Work

Children are little terminators.

To quote Kyle Reese, “They can’t be bargained with. They can’t be reasoned with. They don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.” The only difference between my son and Arnold Schwarzenegger in that movie is that my son’s speech is more intelligible. And that Arnold loses. My son never loses.

His commitment to being irrational is so absolute, it’s like living with Andy Kaufman. I honestly can’t tell where the act ends and the real person begins. Or if there even is an act. Or a real person. I’ve never been so uncertain of how to deal with someone in my life.

Which is why I might start acting like a child at work.

10 Dec

Dad and Buried Posted in Charts and Graphs 3 comments

Parenting Reward Chart

A few days ago, we procured a reward chart for our son.

The hope is that by incentivizing his behavior we can train Detective Munch into a decent, reasonable person instead of the feral four-year-old he currently is. Our typical repertoire of threats is neither working nor healthy (nor really stopping because I’m terrible at this new “reward” method!)

So far, it’s been going okay. If he brushes his teeth (without a fight), or goes to bed (without a fight), or eats his dinner (without a fight), or gets dressed for school (without a fight), he can earn rewards like dessert, and TV, and not getting yelled at by a dad who is at the end of his rope.

It got me thinking about what a chart for parents would look like. So I made one.

09 Dec

Dad and Buried Posted in Fear 11 comments

Performance Anxiety

Before I became a parent, I didn’t know if I could handle it.

I had never even held a child, let alone changed a diaper, and I honestly wasn’t sure if I had what it takes. Was there a switch that would flip when I saw his face for the first time? Was the ability to care for a child something hard-coded in my biology that would suddenly materialize when my son was born?

Yes and no. I was lucky to love Detective Munch right from the start (though I can totally understand the adjustment period some new parents weather; there’s not much there there at the beginning!), but Morpheus wasn’t around to instantly upload the Parenting program into my skull. I just took it one day at a time – I still do – and slowly but surely adapted to my new role, and my new reality.

There are still plenty of aspects of parenting that I’m insecure about, plenty of situations I have yet to experience, and I have no real idea how I’ll react when confronted with them.

Five Ways Parenting Can Make You a Better Employee

I’m fairly well-educated. I went to college. I have almost two decades of experience in the professional world, and while I’m used to dealing with arrogant superiors and lazy peers and rude clients, nothing prepared me for dealing with a child.

Kids operate from an unrelatable place, often with no logical motivation or rationale for their behavior. They’re like something out of a horror movie; indefatigable, rarely-sated, and conscience-free. Kind of like your boss…or your clients…or your annoying coworker Karen!

I don’t care if you’re great at your job, and neither do your kids. Nothing you bring from work will help you at home. You can’t manage your children; they’re too unpredictable for that. But you can learn how to be a better manager from them.

04 Nov

Dad and Buried Posted in Future 13 comments

Scar Wars

My son hasn’t seen Star Wars yet!

But thanks to its pop culture ubiquity, he definitely knows about it. Whether or not the kids themselves have seen the movies, my son’s preschool classmates wear shirts emblazoned with the different characters, Detective Munch himself has a toy light-saber, and he’s already announced that he wants to be Darth Vader for next Halloween. (He’s also announced that he wants to be Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Batman, and the Joker, so let’s give it some time before we buy the next costume.) Sight unseen!

Recently he even asked me if he could watch it “someday,” a question I could barely even answer due to my enormous grin.

Like every dad whose childhood was shaped by the original trilogy, I am dying to show it to my son. But I’m exercising restraint. Because Mom and Buried.

Dad and Buried

Tag: learning

How to Act Like a Child at Work

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Parenting Reward Chart

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Performance Anxiety

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Five Ways Parenting Can Make You a Better Employee

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Scar Wars

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