I am working IT support at a small college. I am new at this job. A faculty member has a 8 year old kid who has been dumped off to play in my computer lab. It's driving me nuts! Today he decided to SING to himself!!!! Should I call the Community Life person or just deal? I was also wondering if I could ask a co-work how to make friends with the boy. Really I would love for him to go away, I know there is a reason that my co-workers seem not to be bothered by him. Maybe I should learn his name and birthday. Any idea.
Jake
It's called the "WORKplace" for a reason!
First. Protect yourself. Do not allow yourself to be left alone with this child for any reason. Ever. If he is an engaging child, and you want to make friends with him then--by all means-- do so. But always use the "buddy system". If you want to make friends you will, of course, need to ask his name--no harm there. But I think you ought to avoid anything that could be deemed overly personal. Think "need to know". That would rule out knowing his birthday. Unless, of course, you are now responsible for acknowledging and celebrating his birthday in your new role as computer mentor and care-giver, which I suspect your employer would not support.
Having said all of this, my real advice is to bring this to the attention of your manager immediately and ask for his or her intervention. You work in a workplace; not on a playground. There may be some rank and politics involved, depending on the stature and tenure of this faculty member (who, I might as well add, is demonstrating completely irresponsbible behavior as a parent). Even if the child has been left there every summer since birth, this parent doesn't know YOU. Not that there is anything wrong with you, but you said you are new in your role, so how does this parent have any idea of anything about you to know that you are trustworthy enough to be conscripted as this child's ad hoc guardian? Again, I stress that you are probably a wonderful person (as most Manager Tools devotees are), but I doubt the parent has had enough exposure to reach that conclusion. To summarize:
1) First and foremost--protect yourself, your job and your reputation
2) Escalate to your manager and see what intervention/alternatives are available to get him out of your workplace. This is one of the reasons you HAVE a manager--so he or she can run interference for you. If you engage with the faculty member directly, there may be a backlash that you don't intend. I don't know what the Community Life person does, but he/she might be a viable resource, depending on the results you get from your manager.
3) If #2 is not an option, (and I sincerely doubt that there is nothing that can be done) adhere to #1 and always ensure that someone else is around when the kid is there.
4)If you can't beat him (and I don't mean literally), join him. Make friends at arms length. If you befriend him, you might be able to control him. Give him little jobs to do (let him debug code for 6 or 8 hours :) . Establish firm boundaries, and then stick to them (e.g. no singing in the lab, or he loses some Jake-provided privilege that he enjoys). Provide immediate feedback. (no O3s though. LOL). Give him some things to do that appear to be helpful to you. You probably control access to things he wants--this gives you "position power". Leverage it. He may be lonely and potentially resentful at being dropped off in your lab. Try and look at issues from his perspective--he probably didn't ASK for this. So, if he is coming from a negative place, he will push and act out. He's probably testing to see if you will get him to stop singing. You can negotiate with him on that point. Praise the behavior you do want;ignore what you don't. It will extinguish quickly. I stress, though, that you shouldn't HAVE to do any of this. This paragraph is just "Plan B" in case you're stuck with no alternative.
5) Your colleagues are probably not bothered because they have kids. I've raised 4. And I never dropped them off in someone else's workplace.
Even more importantly, what
Even more importantly, what happens in case of a fire or an earthquake? What happens if a stranger claims to be child's other parent and takes the kid from the lab? What happens if another student in the lab is browsing a porn website?
Definitely a matter for your manager.