Why did we stop doing this?

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.
  
  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.
- 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.
  
  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?
  
  Sometimes I forget that Lemmy is full of people who make way more money than me.
- 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?
  
  Yeah ours used to do that, and now they require a full background check before you can volunteer. So no field trips.
- 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!
- I've been sent to plenty of conferences that were pretty fun
- They're called "vacations" and you have to pay for and plan them out yourself.
- 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. :(
  
  Tell us more about talc processing.
- 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.
- Dammit, you're right! I'm inspired and am going to the museum!
- 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.

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.
- I wish to join your guild but I'm already drunk. We good?

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.
- 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.
- 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?
- 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.

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.

That's why I chaperon every trip as recently as today.
- 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.
  
  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
  
  "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.

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.

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. They sent out an invite asking the department if we wanted to go check out these places, so I signed up figuring it would be a good networking opportunity. It was, I connected with a bunch of people. Plus i got to see the inside of a power plant, how cool is that? More employers should do this.

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?
- Extraneous ass word.

School in general is wasted on kids. No kid cares about history or god forbid chemistry. You know who does? The person who just became an adult and is about to FUCKING GRADUATE! I only remember the last year and a half of school, because I was actually old enough to care and process that shit. Everything prior was just needless torture.

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.
- How was the dance party at the end of the day?
  
  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.
  
  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.

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.
  
  Mine was Bartleby the scrivener... I preferred not to read for quite a long time after.

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
  
  Oh that fucking tour with Rudy Giuliani and GWB and every other asshole you never want to hear from.
  My ex got dragged to that by her manager at a previous job, who had been before; she was disappointed that all the speeches were exactly the same as the last time she had been.
  You expect people doing a lazy cash-in not to phone it in?

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.

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.

There use to be this thing called "vacation".
Now, even if you could get vacation days without people calling you for work stuff, people would rather catch back up on sleep or shows in a "staycation" then travel to an old mill.

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.

Aren't Company Outing's a thing?
We do ours once a Year, last time we went to a bird sanctuary.
- 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
  
  Now I want to go that Museum too, it sounds awsome :D Have Fun :D
- 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?
  
  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.

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.

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.

I told my mom this story the other day, she didn't know about it. It involves the shitty private elementary school I went to: We had a field trip to the Lincoln Boyhood Home in southern Indiana, about a two-hour drive. It looks quite nice now, but in the 80s, and I will never forget this... we got there, and there were some log cabin foundations in a pit. We looked down at the pit for a few minutes, then were rounded up back into the carpool station wagons and drove back home.
I didn't mind all that much because I got out of school and we stopped at McDonald's on the way back, but looking back on it, what a strange day.

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"
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_of_the_Abyss

Adult Field Trips are called Strikes
Sometimes the strike related protests go all the way to company headquarters (or at least, the regional "headquarters") so its technically a field trip? Sort of...
- Not everything needs to be turned into an industrial action. People can have fun.

Story time…
It was the paperwork for me. The last year in school i actually voted against going to a fieldtrip, apparently it was a rhetorical vote, people where very confused i was so demotivated.
I love learning new things but i am very self motivated and have no control over concentration, so out in the field with all those impulses i will be learning in an explorative way but not perse the things my school tried to focus on. Especially hard for me was the dreaded bundle. The papers we where all given and would be graded on later.
I was always to distracted learning on my own i always missed the key information. I had tried many strategies but the last one earlier that year “organized group effort with duos responsible for different sections of the bundle” was shot down mid trip by our head teacher who was the same teacher did the rhetorical vote if we wanted to see go somewhere or stay at school.
So yeah the joy was pretty much beaten out of me by repeated low grades and by that same head teacher “detention to find the answers online for the past trip or i would have basically no grade.” which i knew in advance was impossible, i had tried to do exactly that before we had gone.

Off-site training, conventions, etc. They still exist, just less... fun for the sake of fun.
- Mandatory organised fun is the best kind of fun!

I'm Still T(r)ippin' now and then...