• @[email protected]
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    86 months ago

    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.

  • Roflmasterbigpimp
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    6 months ago

    Aren’t Company Outing’s a thing?

    We do ours once a Year, last time we went to a bird sanctuary.

    • @[email protected]
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      6 months ago

      Our company is across the street from a heritage railway. They operate a steam locomotive railway with a museum at the other end.

      We went on a company trip this summer. Which meant we took the railway to the other end. This being something that I was looking forward to doing myself.

      But instead of actually, you know, seeing the museum, we went to a terrible restaurant. Where my boss proceeded to drink nine glasses of wine at 2 in the afternoon. While we collectively ate one of the worst meals I’ve had.

      Afterwards, he felt so bad about the trip that he offered me another ticket so I could actually visit the museum on my own time :D

        • @[email protected]
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          46 months ago

          It is; they’ve got an awesome collection of steam locomotives and matching rolling stock. They also do a lot of restoration work.

          Here’s actually a shot from the railroad crossing at the end of our street. And yes, the locomotive is ‘backwards’ in this configuration, as it can equally pull in both directions. Makes it a lot easier that they don’t need to turn the locomotive itself around at either end.

    • Flying Squid
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      56 months ago

      Never had one in the U.S. At best, the food truck shows up or they have a “pizza party,” but actually leaving work? On company time?

      • Roflmasterbigpimp
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        46 months ago

        Damn that sucks.

        My former Boss even apologized that they couldn’t do one during COVID and made an

        even bigger one to “make up for it” as the Lockdown was over.

    • dohpaz42
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      106 months ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        16 months ago

        Yeah ours used to do that, and now they require a full background check before you can volunteer. So no field trips.

        • @[email protected]
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          26 months ago

          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.

          • @[email protected]
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            16 months ago

            A background check for working with kids makes sense. For walking dogs though? What do they think is gonna happen?

            Nah, I’ll pass on that one.

    • @[email protected]
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      126 months ago

      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.

        • @[email protected]
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          16 months ago

          I went to one when I was making $36k/year. It’s because I didn’t know any better and volunteered for a bunch of stuff. It was a huge company though.

      • @[email protected]
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        56 months ago

        And if you’re really unlucky, you become part of the exhibit and have to speak or work booth duty.

      • @[email protected]
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        6 months ago

        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.

      • HEXN3T
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        196 months ago

        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.

        • @[email protected]
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          96 months ago

          Which is why extra bonuses for already wealthy people is the most important thing in the entire world.

    • @[email protected]
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      56 months ago

      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.

    • @[email protected]
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      1066 months ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        66 months ago

        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.

      • @[email protected]
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        36 months ago

        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.

        • @[email protected]
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          26 months ago

          Only if your employer requires a doctor’s note for sick days. Honestly if I ever have another job that does require a doctor’s note I might just make a habit of forging those because fuck that noise

        • @[email protected]
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          26 months ago

          Unfortunately it’s perjury. All places of employment are considered to be courtroom proceedings per the Honesty Expansion Act of 2021

      • @[email protected]
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        196 months ago

        Along similar lines, there are chartered bus tours that you can sign up for to go to multiple destinations in a city farther afield.

        • @[email protected]
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          76 months ago

          The local bus company does a “mystery bus trip” every couple of months or so where you pay a flat fee, hop on the bus and go do something. They give you just enough info to know if you might want to do it or not and how to dress and the rest is just up to whatever happens

      • @[email protected]
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        6 months ago

        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.

        • @[email protected]
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          6 months ago

          I’m often unsupervised in my work. Sometimes we can work extra hard for a few days and skip a day once we’re sure that we’re getting done on schedule. We say we were there of course. Got to go to MoMA and New York’s Museum of Natural History this way.

          Edit- letting your kid look through your Google photos account, pretty brave

        • Flying Squid
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          6 months ago

          Just went on a trip with only me and my mother, while my wife and the teenager stayed behind and my god, it was so nice going through an aquarium and being able to stop and look at something for longer than 15 seconds.

    • @[email protected]
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      76 months ago

      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.

    • @[email protected]
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      166 months ago

      They exist, just search for “old watermill tour” and I’m sure you’ll find something close to you.

    • @[email protected]
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      186 months ago

      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…

  • @[email protected]
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    6 months ago

    I’m sorry that’s the platinum life experience. It’s only available to those born in the right zip codes and the right families. It says so right in the 28th verse of the Star Spangled Banner, our unofficial social contract of America.

  • @[email protected]
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    116 months ago

    In my company they give us all a factory tour so we can see what are work helps facilitate. It’s pretty cool, honestly. Helps make things less abstract. When I worked as a roaming tech it was my favourite part : arriving at a new client and discovering their factory or offices or whatever and seeing them do their thing. Very cool stuff, once in a while.

  • @[email protected]
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    246 months ago

    And this is why I loved being a community education teacher.

    I get to decide where we’re going for an excursion/field trip. I choose which activities we do. I not only get to participate but I’m expected to actively get involved to encourage my students. I get paid to do it.

    I’m literally living the dream.

    I had a student ask “what’s the big red building on [Street]” and enough students were curious that we spent 20 minutes talking about the building. It’s the pipeworks and gas mains museum and I’ve wanted to visit for years but never had time or justification for the adult entry fee …so you bet we took a field trip the following week!

    (another upside to community ed, we can plan and initiate a field trip on 20 minutes notice. Last week the toilets in the classroom started spilling over and we couldn’t physically be in the building, but class had just started, so we grabbed our bags, I grabbed the field trip kit, and we walked to the train and went to the beach. “Change of plans, maths class is cancelled, we’re doing environmental science today, who’s ready to learn about coastal ecosystems”)

    A few staff members and I have joked that we’d save so much money just ditching our school building entirely and literally every class is a field trip. Field trips are some of the most fun, most engaging, and honestly sometimes the most effective ways to learn something. Place based learning and hands on learning utilises a different part of our developmental skills compared to classroom based learning, as well as community engagement and life skills developed from getting out into the community and learning how the world works.

    But the way America does excursions and field trips is odd to me, because they’re often expensive and you get a chartered bus and it’s a curated experience. Vs Australian community ed where a field trip is often “walking to the local train station to talk to the station staff and learn about the ticketing system” it’s free and is like 40 minutes out of our class then we walk back to school and you do several things like that a week.

    • @[email protected]
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      36 months ago

      walking

      That’s the problem. This really only works for urban spaces in the US. So much of this place is sprawled out, you often need to arrange for private transportation.

      Unless you’re arranging transportation for something that’s within walking distance. That would be kind of nuts.

    • @[email protected]
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      46 months ago

      My dude, my elementary school principal was afraid of busses. Every time a teacher would take their class on a field trip (about once every other year) they’d get fired for some bullshit reason. No, we got to sit quietly in assemblies. Far more educational that way, right?

    • @[email protected]
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      66 months ago

      Yes, kids tend to learn better when they’re not chained to their desks in a Taylorist torture chamber. Thanks for being a great teacher.

  • @[email protected]
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    76 months ago

    And as Jesus taught, millstones are useful. You can tie them around a CEOs neck, and throw them into the Sea!

    • @[email protected]
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      26 months ago

      Do you have to use PTO, or do they just let you have the day? Do they pay you for the day without having to use PTO? That sounds awesome. I would be signing up even though I don’t have kids.

      • @[email protected]
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        36 months ago

        "Pay you without having to use PTO?’

        Ha.

        Look, when I found out that Europeans get a thing called "holiday " that isn’t two or three days in a row, I was almost ready to riot.

          • @[email protected]
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            6 months ago

            One of the things that wasn’t too high up on my complaints but I have the opportunity to complain now about: I had a serious plan ready to apply to immigrate to Canada. I’m in Software, I was learning French, financially sound and healthier.

            Then my ex wife fucks a dude I don’t know and of course we already have a kid. No more going to Canadia.

            • @[email protected]
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              36 months ago

              What were you planning do in Canada? I’m only lucky to be where I am thanks to a lot of generational wealth and family connections which gave me an edge over most people.

              Most newcomers to Canada really struggle and often don’t make it.

              Sorry to hear about your ex bro. Going through a divorce myself right now, thankfully no kids.

              • @[email protected]
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                16 months ago

                Ah, well, blessing in disguise then. For a good chunk of time software engineers were in demand. For whatever reason, I can’t remember if it was embedded or application level though.

                • @[email protected]
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                  16 months ago

                  I’m a datacenter system administrator and I often ponder moving to the US actually. I really want to buy a house but even in my situation I can’t afford one.

      • @[email protected]
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        76 months ago

        Not OP, but they almost certainly have to use PTO at least in US.

        Many places you didn’t even get off for Jury Duty

  • @[email protected]
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    126 months ago

    My department actually did a field trip to a steel mill the other day (during paid working hours). Steel mills are so fascinating and I can only recommended visiting one at least once. The sheer sizes of everything is just breathtaking and molten steel just looks glorious. I would say that these kind of events are not unusual in German workplaces.

      • @[email protected]
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        26 months ago

        Sadly no dance parties… But we also didn’t stay for the night shift 😅 Oh and fun fact: Steel mills must run 24h a day, 364 days a year (1st of May is off) for I think 20 years straight. That’s just crazy.

      • @[email protected]
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        46 months ago

        I never noticed the sign. But I do know that in the real-life “Anvil,” a lot more devious stuff used to go down than just dancing.

  • @[email protected]
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    36 months ago

    Off-site training, conventions, etc. They still exist, just less… fun for the sake of fun.

  • Tanis Nikana
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    296 months ago

    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*.

    • Hossenfeffer
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      36 months ago

      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.

    • Elvith Ma'for
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      6 months ago

      * 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.

      • Tanis Nikana
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        76 months ago

        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.

        • Elvith Ma'for
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          46 months ago

          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.

  • @[email protected]
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    76 months ago

    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

    • @[email protected]
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      6 months ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        26 months ago

        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.