Bring Your Daughter to Work Days…From Participating Princess to “Employee”
After leaving a lengthy career in the financial services industry, I bought into Let’s Dress Up when my daughter had just turned 4. She was the exact age of our customers. She loved to come to the events and dress up and sip pink lemonade at the tea party. We were reading the same books at home as we were at storytime at the store. As I learned the business, she was the tester for new themes and crafts. The two worlds were totally intertwined.
Cut to present day. She is 11 now and well past her Princess loving prime. She still comes with me to the shop, but now she works the events. We decide together on tasks she can handle and take ownership of. She can’t quite reach the dress hangers just yet, but she will man the jewelry table, help kids find the right size shoes and serve tea and snacks. She will help with crafts and hand out stickers and craft supplies. You may see her checking people in at the door where she has been instructed to make sure we have the correct grown up contact information for each child (and why we need it). She is also tasked with capturing photos and videos for our social media posts (as a typical tween, this is likely her favorite part).
So aside from spending time together, which is a bonus in and of itself, what am I hoping to teach her? So many things. Work ethic. How to be professional. The importance of customer service, smiling, being friendly and engaging (even on days when you might not feel like it). How to distract and redirect an upset or overly high energy princess. How to work independently and prioritize. How to work with and be respectful of the other (more senior) staff members. I also share the reasons behind our process and why something works better a certain way. Why do we switch activities about every 15 minutes? Why do we not have wands at the table? Why do we wear gloves or use tongs when serving? Why does it matter that they all get the same number of stickers? And then there is the set up and clean up, what needs to be done before and after the event that people don’t see.
I know everything can’t possibly be a teachable moment, but over time, I truly hope she is learning to be a responsible, respectful and reliable employee. And perhaps even an entrepreneur or small business owner one day. She is seeing that behind all the magic and fairy dust, there is a business side with tons of varied responsibilities that are decidedly less sparkly.