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Your dog or cat may be your co-workers’ pet peeve

Published 9:30 am Friday, October 28, 2016

By Doug Parry

In this Oct. 18 photo, Barbara Goldberg, CEO of O’Connell & Goldberg Public Relations, poses for a photograph with her bulldog Rosie, at her office in Hollywood, Florida. Goldberg is a small business owner who believes pets improve the quality of their work life, boosting morale and easing tension for staffers. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
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In this Oct. 18 photo, Barbara Goldberg, CEO of O’Connell & Goldberg Public Relations, poses for a photograph with her bulldog Rosie, at her office in Hollywood, Florida. Goldberg is a small business owner who believes pets improve the quality of their work life, boosting morale and easing tension for staffers. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

In this Oct. 18 photo, Barbara Goldberg, CEO of O’Connell & Goldberg Public Relations, poses for a photograph with her bulldog Rosie, at her office in Hollywood, Florida. Goldberg is a small business owner who believes pets improve the quality of their work life, boosting morale and easing tension for staffers. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Your dog or cat may be your co-workers’ pet peeve

Pet peeve

Maybe you’ve been there. You’re slaving away at your office job, working on your TPS reports, and a co-worker brings by some tail-wagging beast in need of attention. So you dutifully dole out a little love, because nobody wants to be the jerk who tells someone their pet isn’t welcome.

But the truth is, some of us wish we could tell them to take a hike. Dog and cat owners often don’t seem to realize that pets are like kids: They’re adorable when they’re your own, but everyone else’s are kind of disgusting.

In our latest poll at HeraldNet.com, we asked whether pets should be allowed in office settings, and most of you would prefer they weren’t. Sixty percent said to leave them at home.

The rest think pets are OK at work, but were split on what varieties to allow. Twenty-two percent said most pets are fine. “Most pets” could include not only dogs and cats, but fish, bunnies, guinea pigs, hamsters and other rodents, so an office with that kind of policy could have all the sights and smells of a pet store. If my office were that open to pets, it might get to meet Larry, the pet daddy longlegs spider who hangs out in my shower.

What about if we only allowed really good dogs and cats? The other 18 percent voted for that option. And if we asked these same people whether their own pets were “really good,” most probably would say they are. Your judgment about your pet is about as suspect as mine would be if I were judging my daughter’s talent show.

So maybe instead of making your co-workers put up with Fido, you can settle for the next-best thing: regaling them with a constant stream of photos and stories about him. Do enough of that and pretty soon you might even have an office all to yourself.

— Doug Parry, parryracer@gmail.com; @parryracer

Marijuana legalization is on the ballot in California and nine other states. After Washington’s experience with it, what would you recommend?

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