Elizabeth Joyce: Visits to the office with baby won't work for me

Concentration is the name of the game here. Concentration, dedication and good old-fashioned elbow grease.

Now is not the time for distraction – for checking your Twitter feed or sorting out your inbox – now is the time for work, work, work.

And then you hear it, that most dreaded of sounds echoing up the corridor.

No, not the big boss venturing out of his office tyrannosaurus-like, nor the shrill trill of a superior telling you your expenses are suspiciously high, but the unmistakable sound of a baby.

Yeah, that's right, I don't care if it's crying, giggling or gurgling, the noises of a newborn are the worst possible thing to hear in the office.

The. Worst. Possible. Thing.

Worse than 'Liz, you're spending the day covering Wolverhampton Magistrates Court'.

Worse than 'Liz, go and doorknock the grieving acquaintances of this murdered gangster'.

Worse than 'Liz pack up your things, you're fired. Security will be here in a minute'.

The following may seem a little harsh but it's about time someone said it, and, quite frankly, I'm at the end of my already-short tether.

Parents of the world, listen up, NO ONE CARES ABOUT SEEING YOUR NEW BABY.

Your new baby has no place in the office.

Your new baby is interesting to you and you alone.

Your new baby looks and acts exactly the same as their new baby and their new baby before that.

You might be all aboard HMS Parenthood but the rest of us have got work to do. A fact that has clearly passed you by.

Each wail, each chuckle, each sneeze or regurgitation ties us up in knots.

You may very well think it's adorable but to us it's just another distraction we don't need, like that girl who chews too loudly or that bloke on the other desk who cracks his knuckles.

I hate to be the one to break it to you but it's true. Soz.

Your real work friends will have already made the effort to see said bambino out of hours, when there's all the time in the world for ooohs and aaahhs and 'Oh, doesn't he/she look like his/her dad?'.

The rest of us simply don't care.

This is a workplace. A place of work.

It's midday on a Friday, we've already been rollocked and that deadline is tick, tick, ticking ever closer – is someone actually playing the Countdown theme tune? It sure feels that way – and yet this is the moment you decided to bring in your brand new human.

Why? How? What's wrong with you? Have you got Mum Brain already?

Of course, it brings the entire place to a standstill.

We have to drop everything for the obligatory 'isn't he/she cute' schtick.

We have to do this otherwise you think we're monsters.

Well, guess what? We are monsters. And this is Monsters Inc so get back to the nursery, we've got work to do.