Why aren’t adult field trips a thing?
They are. You just have to sign up for them. Nobody’s gonna come drag you out of your comfy chair to do it like they do when you’re a kid.
There are probably twenty places in your city where you can show up and pay $20 for a tour.
If you’re in Denver, for example, you can go to the Coors brewery, or the Art Museum, or the Botanic Gardens, or Buffalo Bill’s grave, or Meow Wolf.
If you want someone to call you at 6 am and order you to call in sick to work because you’re going on a field trip, please let me know and I’ll make a business out of it.
I played hookie a few weeks ago and went down to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo on a random Tuesday. It was glorious.
Later my middle schooler was looking through Google Photos and went “wait, you and Mom went to the zoo without us?!” Mwahahaha. Get rekt kid.
Bahahaha I love it and I need to make this happen for my wife and I.
Along similar lines, there are chartered bus tours that you can sign up for to go to multiple destinations in a city farther afield.
Exactly! I did tours through a cathedral, where we went inside the roof or behind the iron curtain of an opera. In any city, there are loads of these tours.
Stranahan’s is a fun tour too!
There might be something to that… Is it illegal to forge a doctor’s note? If so, you’ll just need to keep a doctor on retainer.
Unfortunately it’s perjury. All places of employment are considered to be courtroom proceedings per the Honesty Expansion Act of 2021
lol wut
safety first
Capitalism.
The real answer is nobody cared enough to push the idea into the mind of the public, and, therefore, the public did not care enough to act upon it. Capitalism is merely another fragment of humanity’s callousness.
Which is why extra bonuses for already wealthy people is the most important thing in the entire world.
Costs need to be cut for the sake of commercial school budgets. Because somewhere the budgeting became a school’s job and not a regional government thing.
On an unrelated note, the word “adult” is cursed.
“Adult field trip” has a much different connotation than simply a field trip that adults go on…
Call it what you want as long as orgies are involved
They exist, just search for “old watermill tour” and I’m sure you’ll find something close to you.
They are. They’re called “conferences” and they’re typically of a bullshit subject matter your company is interested in enough to send you to.
And if you’re really unlucky, you become part of the exhibit and have to speak or work booth duty.
So when do I go to the zoo?
To a small degree they exist. At least for the parents of said children. My kids’ school frequently asks for parent volunteers to go on field trip to help watch the kids.
Do I have to bring my own cattle prod or do they provide those?
I believe the school system provides those for free.
Until the DoE is disbanded
Then they’ll be issued guns
I’m concerned how powerful these cattle prods are that the Department of Energy is involved /s
“I hooked mine up to a car battery, sends a third grader flying 'cross the room I tell ya” - some hillbilly probably
Yeah ours used to do that, and now they require a full background check before you can volunteer. So no field trips.
require a full background check before you can volunteer
The local animal shelter is begging for dog walkers. But they send your info to a totally shady international background check place that shouldn’t know very much and also violates data sovereignty.
So no dog walkers.
The background check is pretty easy. Costs less than $20 iirc.
Assuming you mean work-sponsored, they exist. My job usually does one (optional and workload permitting) like every six months. Outside of work…well if you’re an adult nothing is stopping you from going to a museum or an old mill yourself.
Schedule a tour of your local water plant! Even small cities have interesting setups, and its in their best interests to give tours and build community trust.
Great idea!
They’re called “vacations” and you have to pay for and plan them out yourself.
I’ve been sent to plenty of conferences that were pretty fun
I think those are just called “Strikes”
Every month or so we have corporate, engineers, sales, customers, whoever come through the plant for a tour. Makes me feel like an oompa loompa.
If only the higher-ups got into dangerous mishaps, followed by you and your coworkers singing a song about what they did wrong.
Oompa-loompa dinkety dorklift…
I had a woman slap my hand away from a hot surface while on one of these tours. No songs, though. And I’m not much of a higher up, so probably not worth it.
“She touched the reactor’s body, she did! Now her flesh is melted like…?”
We have those! They’re called: “conferences” and “trade shows”. Some business sectors hold them in places like Las Vegas.
Yep. Conventioneering! Except you get to learn about talc processing and talk to sales reps who are really big into talc processing.
I’ve never been to a convention. :(
Honestly, I like to avoid them. They sound fun at first, but then you realize that you’re going to be in a room with strangers for 8 hours and at the last minute you realize, “would anyone really notice if I just skipped out?” And, “why do I always get invited to the talc and sulphates convention and not the candy convention?”
I do travel a lot for work, and frequently see conventioneers at hotels. The Excruciating Implantable Medical Device Convention (with posters) looked amazing. I honestly thought about crashing that one.
I went to one in Orlando one time.
I don’t remember what the conference was even for, but I sure as shit remember scuba diving in the Aquarium at Epcot.
I go on field trips all the time! Take a day of PTO and straight-up go the science museum or the zoo or the Japanese garden alone, but with a packed lunch so it really feels like a field trip.
When you’re an adult, you can do whatever you want*.
* terms and conditions apply. Travelling, accommodations, tickets, food and planning not included and must be paid separately. Field trips can only been done on non-work days or after applying for PTO. Plans may be cancelled by your SO, kids or employer at will and without prior notice.
It does fall a little flat when I do have to buy my own tickets, but on the other hand, I can just be all “yoop,” and suddenly be in an art museum with no planning or prior expectations of ever planning it out.
The best trips are the ones that just abruptly happen.
My employer is sponsor of a (huge) museum and other cultural institutions. They have several family passes that can be borrowed by us to visit those alone or with our families for free.
I have used that several times now - go to work on the morning, eat lunch with your colleagues and then take some time off in the afternoon and visit that museum or another place.
And yet when I try to hold hands with a 12-year old at the museum, so we don’t get separated, I get ‘a conversation’ with the cops. So unfair. Just trying to fit in.
My first day at my new job a month ago, we all loaded onto a bus and took a guided tour of campus. Had lunch at the cafeteria, stopped for ice cream. It really felt like a field trip.
I had a similar experience a long time ago when I worked for a telco. We got on a bus and they took us to visit a tower, their NOC, and other sites. It was pretty interesting. That’s also where I learned they literally have a dedicated dashboard just to monitor the CEO’s mobile signal and data speeds, to make sure it never falters. So from his perspective, the service is great! For everyone else, not so much.
Pretty soon they might need dedicated dashboards to monitor their body armor.
Congrats on the new job. What are you doing?
Thanks! I got hired at a pretty big university (better than the one I attended for sure) to do documentation (and hopefully, increasingly data) work in their advancement department. Kind of random and the pay could definitely be better, but I’m generally pretty happy with the environment. Nice to not be supporting abject evil. First actual work-from-home job without feeling a suspicious eye on me at all times. Trying to make use of the free certification courses they offer and am halfway through CompTIA Data+. Nice break from the Uber/Lyft grind for awhile, anyway.
I find the inclusion of the word “ass” here extraneous.
Monday Thursday Wednesday Assday Friday Saturday Sunday
Am I missing something? Why is Thursday after Monday?
Explanation is simple. I don’t know English.
Carry on, my friend. Just didn’t know if I was missing a joke.
If you want you can always do it in German
Montag
Dienstag
Mittwoch
Donnerstag
Freitag
Samstag
Asstag
Sonntag
Arschtag
My apologies. I’ve only been learning German for 3 months. I sometimes mess up the spelling!
I enjoy how Germans were like, “fuck you (W)oden, we’re calling it mid-week. We’ll keep the rest.”
still better than humpday
What calendar do you use where Thursday occurs before Monday in the week?
Because they made a whole ass of it.
Extraneous ass word.
Hey when I was a kid I loved any chance to escape kid jail.
Well, we have an adult version for you to try escaping.
You can arrange stuff like that and I can only recommend it.
My friends and I made a “guild” back when we were younger. As we were all young at the time, our original written rules were mostly about drinking and securing the dates in our calendars for drinking. As we grew older, it’s less about drinking, but more about keeping dates free in the calendar on which we are excused from our families. So we meet up a couple of times a year in weekends with no obligations from other stuff. It’s litteraly just agreeing to pull a day out of the calendar in a weekend. We don’t get complaints from the wives either, because they also have their bi-annual trips for their respective groups, or they enjoy a day without the husband for whatever reason. Actually it doesn’t matter if someone is married or not, it’s just the idea of putting a day in the calendar for no other reason that being the “guild meeting” and everyone around accepting it.
So… ar first we had a lot of fun doing the kind of stuff that dudes do (riding motors, shooting guns and daring to run naked etc.), but eventually we got sick of hang overs, bruises and wasting time, so we try make at least one “serious” event before getting to the drinks now. Sometimes we go on company tours. Maybe someone got hired somewhere and wants to show off, or they have a hobby to show. Sometimes we just arrange for someone to show us around interesting stuff. Some things do cost money,but more often they’re happy to showcase their stuff. Doesn’t matter to me. We’re here to learn, experience and understand all stuff that we wouldn’t ordinarily get to see.
Through this self-made “guild” we have been to places that are not accessible without invitations. Some might call it “networking”, but I mean, honestly, that’s not what we are doing. Sure, I learn stuff from these companies and we get a connection, and I would be more inclined to choose them for future references, but we are doing this entirely because we can’t drink from noon to midnight anymore.
Advertisement: I’d gladly volunteer my guild for testing company showcasing and reviews if anyone is willing to have us. We are 4-6 guys willing to watch you work. We won’t be initially drunk, unless you serve it to us. We have seen many companies doing the same stuff before, and can provide valuable feedback if you want it.
You in Germany?
Only for the annual border crossing shopping. We’re in Denmark. A trip could be planned.
One great thing about working at a big tech company is that they would give us field trips. Like, legit, we’re all gonna go play at the Imaginarium kind of field trips.
All of our proposed work field trips sucked so hard, everyone revolted.
Idea one: There was a bizarre “corporate leadership conference” which was a bunch of weird conservative motivational speakers that were on tour across middle America. No one aside from the two asshats who proposed it wanted to go after learning the details.
Idea two: Our two department managers decided that a canoe trip would be a great way to bond as a group. It sounded fun until anyone put an ounce of thought into it. Since the managers didn’t want to do any planning, we were all given vague tasks. Like, “lunch.” And “portage at the roller dam.” I was one of the two in charge of lunch. WTF? Do we figure out a place to stop mid-way and eat at a restaurant? Am I bringing a cooler of hotdogs? Does Steve bring a grill? Can there be beer? (NO)
I don’t think they understood the purpose. xD
Same for great literature.
I wonder if the fact we push these amazing stories on high school kids, before they have any capacity to resonate with them, is resulting in less appreciation for the literature than would exist if we didn’t push it at all.
Like, I read The Grapes of Wrath as a teenager and quite simply didn’t feel it. I mean I felt it a little, but not the way I would now after just grinding through poverty for decades.
It does the opposite. It makes kids resent reading if all they have to read is stuff they are not interested in. My worst experience to this day is still reading Madame Bovary.
No general education system is going to be able to tailor curricula to every single child based on their individual interests. Besides that, children’s interests change constantly and they need to learn things beyond just what they’re interested in at any given moment. That includes reading things that aren’t interesting to them but might be interesting to their peers (or even to them later on).
Reading boring shit you don’t like is necessary in a lot of jobs. Training yourself to get through it is also a skill set and one you should develop early. And in some cases, it reveals a new interest.
Not saying it should cater to them but I know a bunch of people who have sworn of reading because they started hating it because of school.
It is possible there was a learning need that wasn’t being met for those people who swore off reading. We’re getting better at catching those but it’s difficult. Kids are people and can hide a learning disorder to seem normal. A good teacher knows how to make the student comfortable enough so the teacher can figure that out and plan an alternative learning strategy. Not all teachers are good, but most try very hard to do well in a very demanding and low-paying job that is increasingly disrespected, including by comments like yours.
The way your comments read seem like an indictment on every teacher and I frequently encounter similar attitudes online based on anecdotal evidence of a single incident. The reality is the world is hard and people are increasingly bragging online about how little work they did in school to prepare themselves for it. This is increasingly going to translate to anti-intellectualism and lower outcomes in society. We already see it.
Going back to your case, you disliked reading Madame Bovary, which I know is just one example. And maybe you had a shit experience with teachers, which I’m sorry you had to go through. But that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t read Madame Bovary in school, it just means you didn’t like it and maybe had other shit you had to deal with as well.
You must be reading something wrong here then. I never disrespected teachers in any way. I also don’t believe the people I mentioned have any learning disabilites. They just slowly got soured on reading by being forced to read uninteresting books.
I actually love reading it’s just not fun having no choice. If the obligatory reading was a list of a couple things and you could choose what seems the most interesting I think that would work better.
My opinion on madame bovary was just to show that I can see how many people can have a dislike of several books that are on the curriculum and that can then fuel their dislike of reading. There were other books I was not the biggest fan of when I had to read them but bovary was the only one I actually found dreadful.
That’s fair, sorry for misunderstanding. There’s a tradeoff between “interesting to the student” and the teacher’s time as well. My guess is most teachers would love to cater reading more towards every student’s interest along with some required reading just because there’s a canon you need to understand, even if you don’t like it. Maybe technology will make that easier, but getting it in the classroom is an uphill battle very much outside of teacher control.
Tl;Dr.
(Sorry, I had to)
Mine was Bartleby the scrivener… I preferred not to read for quite a long time after.
Compared to Billy Budd, I was all in on Bartleby. I felt a certain kinship, if you will.
Is it also a realist work? Taking 3 pages to describe how someone walked out of the door into the garden?
try calling the chief of facilities at any nearby industrial place and ask for a walk through. they’d be proud and happy to, unless its a national security type place. if you ask good questions dont be surprised if they offer you a job. often union.
I guess I never thought about it, but my job technically does this once/month as we have an off-site day and it usually involves doing things that normally aren’t open to the public.
And as Jesus taught, millstones are useful. You can tie them around a CEOs neck, and throw them into the Sea!
As they sink beneath the surface he puts on his dark aviators and says “walk on that, motherfucker”
If you work in the right job, ‘field trips’ can be a pretty common thing. Site auditors and inspectors, procurement officers, investigative journalists, surveyors, etc
And if you work a job where you have days off or have vacation time, you can organize a field trip for yourself. Hit up a museum, take a brewery tour, go for a hike, make your own field trip. It’s one of the benefits of being an adult.
Oh yeah for sure. I keep telling people the best part of being an adult is doing whatever the fuck you want as long as it’s not hurting anyone else. In a way I think part of what people miss about field trips is someone else organising these kinds of trips and “paying” for them. As an adult, you have to deal with all that yourself, on top of finding the time to do it.
My employer has their own power plant and gardens and I got to go on a “field trip” to both of those places and yeah, it was pretty dope. More employers should do this.
