All in a Day’s Work : Girls Get a Taste of Life at the Office as Part of Career Planning for Daughters

Compare it to an adolescent girl: She may be a little awkward now, but some day she may grow into an accomplished woman.

That’s the way Take Our Daughters to Work Day turned out Wednesday in Los Angeles.

Few seemed to know about the national campaign to improve teen-age girls’ self-esteem and alert them to job opportunities.

But ponytails and giggles did bounce through the corridors of a few offices scattered around town.

Thirteen girls from the inner-city San Pedro Street Elementary School shadowed female managers of the Transamerica Life Insurance Co. in downtown Los Angeles.

Nine girls ages 5 to 16 spent a full day “working” at the law offices of Berman & Clark in West Los Angeles. Included in the group were two teen-age daughters of the building’s cleaning woman.

The girls seemed right at home. Carrie Burns, 12, of Agoura Hills helped her mother, Joanne Burns, file documents. Onyx Starcks, 15, of North Hollywood helped her mother, Aleta Starcks, with faxes. Jennifer Kinsey, 8, of Lancaster typed a letter to a friend about losing a tooth while her mother, Yvonne Kinsey, typed legal documents.

“The adolescent time is hard for girls,” said Jamie Collins, an office administrator who arranged pizza, T-shirts and $5 “salaries” for the girls. “They’re taught to be nice, to be ladies. And ladies don’t make aggressive movements. They aren’t able to be as direct because they have to be nice.”

According to officials of the Ms. Foundation, which raised about $400,000 from corporate and other sponsors to promote Daughters Day, studies have shown that girls have lower self-esteem than boys. The 20-year-old foundation funds programs related to women’s issues.

“It’s hard to describe to a child what you do at work,” said real estate agent Tony Castelli of King Realty of Sherman Oaks. “I think boys tend to have a little more self-confidence. My daughter’s never the leader.”

Castelli was one of those who didn’t get the word, he said as he sat at his desk in front of a picture of the Butterflies. That’s the name of his 7 1/2-year-old daughter Colleen’s soccer team.

Some workers were angry that boys weren’t invited to come to work, too.

“It’s unfortunate they limited it,” said attorney Michael Ong, who works at Berman & Clark. Ong, of Redondo Beach, wanted to bring his 6-year-old son, Matthew, to work.

“It seems to me they’re perpetuating a myth that there’s a difference between men and women in the workplace,” he added.

Deanne Naves, office manager of the Zivetz, Schwartz & Saltsman CPA firm in West Los Angeles, said she was disappointed that the official Daughters Day program was supposed to be limited to girls 9 to 15.

“My daughter Brittany is 5. She heard about it on Nickelodeon TV. She was very disappointed when I told her she couldn’t come,” said Naves of Canoga Park.

Parents said some work sites weren’t suitable for children.

“This is not a job where they could come for eight hours,” said Chris Molles, a Lomita resident who works as finance manager for Honda of Hollywood. “Anyway, my 6-year-old girl, Keely, has the highest self-esteem in the household.”

At noon, several girls were seen walking alongside their briefcase-toting fathers at the downtown Civic Center Metro Rail station. One youngster listened patiently to Daddy’s lengthy explanation of the Red Line ticket machine, much to the displeasure of those waiting in line behind them.

But none showed up for lunch at the Pacific Dining Car, a popular lunchtime destination.

“I was looking for men and women in suits having lunch with girls, but I didn’t see any of them,” said restaurant manager Mike Green.

Although New York Mayor David N. Dinkins enclosed letters of support for Daughters Day in city workers’ paycheck envelopes two weeks ago, the city of Los Angeles made no such effort for its 44,750 employees, a spokeswoman for Mayor Tom Bradley said.

And although girls spending the day at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a largely male bastion of futures trading, reportedly held a mock trading session in pizza futures, a spokeswoman for the Pacific Stock Exchange reported that no girls were spotted on the trading floor here.

In the South Bay, officials of TRW held Daughters Day a day early. Thirty-four employees’ daughters and granddaughters heard motivational talks from company Vice President Janice Pulici and engineer Rosalie Wider on Tuesday.

“We had a scheduling conflict,” explained TRW spokeswoman Montye Male.