Our Investigative Daughters

By Joel Stein

I don't know why I was involved in "Take Our Daughter To Work Day." Not only am I male, and therefore perhaps not the most inspiring example, but I'm also not usually the first person mothers ask to take care of their prepubescent girls. The only logical explanation as to why I was given some of the girls to chaperone is that I know one of the women who is in charge of the program. These are the kinds of powerful connections I've made since I started working at TIME.

Because I work for a company larger than most nation-states, the girls were given a full schedule of speakers, activities and meetings--generally a more packed workday than I've ever had. First we took on an assignment to put together an actual printed magazine in three hours; my group had to photograph, report and write a story about the TIME art department. My reporting team, ages 9 and 10, was shockingly smart, culturally aware, energetic and uninhibited. By this I mean that when we went to interview a page designer about her job, the girls, poised for a lucrative future in celebrity journalism, immediately asked the following questions: "Are you married? Do you have a boyfriend? Are you engaged? Are you dating? Do you like Joel?" These, oddly enough, are the same questions I ask when I interview people.

Then the designer explained what she did. About one and a half sentences in, one girl asked, "Do you just put funny drawings on the page? You know, how the New Yorker has those?" These were not the kind of girls who needed to be exposed to a work environment.

It was the work environment that needed to be exposed to them. They had an energy and excitement I hadn't seen in a while. And even though they were in a new world with insane expectations thrown at them from a scary bureaucracy, they ran into people's offices with their little press passes completely fearlessly. If anyone was scared, it was that designer who couldn't adequately explain why she had no boyfriend.

They fit into the work atmosphere incredibly well, although none of my editors has ever rechristened me "Ookie-Bookie Stein" and told me I look like Jar Jar, an alien from the new Star Wars film. But basically it was very professional. At the end of the morning, as we were writing our story on the tale of the lonely designer, my boss, managing editor Walter Isaacson, walked by my office. "I just wanted to make sure my daughter wasn't in your group," he told me. "I didn't want you to teach her how to write." This is not what you want to hear from your boss. I told the girls he meant that because my style is so complex, it would be confusing to them. They weren't buying it.

Bored with their story after the first 100 words, they focused on a picture of my girlfriend tacked on my bulletin board. They demanded to call her, which I foolishly allowed them to do. "You should marry him," they shouted into the speakerphone, many, many times. I used this opportunity to deliver a lecture to everyone involved about independence and feminism. Again, no one was buying.

Despite all the diversions, they were able to produce a truly impressive publication before eating pizza and spending the rest of the day with the business side. I, on the other hand, took a nap. Very soon, I realized, one of these girls could get my job. I'm guessing it'll be Walter's daughter.

Joel Stein, Writer-Reporter and Temporary Teacher