Jeremy SomsoukA day supervising little minions at the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace, with instant feedback and an unexpectedly interesting fire extinguisher.
Today I supervised a small group of kids at the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace in Le Bourget. I called them my little minions throughout the day, which made me laugh because that’s also what I call the Claude sessions I supervise when I’m working.
The resemblance ends fairly quickly. Keeping several coding sessions moving is considerably easier than keeping a small group of children moving in roughly the same direction.
With the kids, it was frankly chaotic. But the feedback was instant. You knew when something caught their attention, when you’d lost them, and when it was time to stop explaining and move on. Nobody needed to write a review.
I tried to guide them around, help them understand what they were looking at, and keep them focused on the things I thought mattered. That last part was probably the most optimistic.
Sometimes they were more interested in a picture of a plane than in the actual plane standing right in front of them. You could point out its size, its shape, explain a few things, and still find them studying the image. Fair enough. They had found their own way into it.
My favourite moment was a group discussion about a fire extinguisher, right beside the Mirage 4000 and the Rafale A. Two remarkable aircraft within reach, and the fire extinguisher had won their attention. I couldn’t even be annoyed. It was too funny.
Some interactions with the museum staff were less enjoyable. I found them rather unfriendly with the children’s noise. Perhaps they’re more used to quiet adult visitors, but kids make noise for all sorts of reasons, including simply being excited to be somewhere new. There are rules to respect, of course. Still, repeatedly making visitors feel told off doesn’t leave the best impression of a place.
It didn’t spoil the day. We had an awesome time together, even with the wandering attention and the effort it took to keep everyone together.
There was also something rewarding about being useful in such a direct way. Showing them around, answering a question, helping them notice something. Small things, but you could see what they meant in the moment.
I enjoy building products. I spend a lot of my days doing it. But sometimes I need a day like this to feel useful in a different way, away from a screen. It gives me a bit of distance, and I come back to work with a different perspective.
I’m not sure there’s a great lesson about working habits hidden in any of this. The minion comparison mostly made me laugh.
Today’s minions just happened to have very strong opinions about a fire extinguisher.