As for showing people around the house… It depends. Am i busy? Are they the prior owners, whom i met when we bought it? I probably would, but there are lots of reasons why i might not.
I thought Molar Mass might be a Requiem for an extracted tooth.
Regarding the polls about co-workers with incompatible psych issues . . . .
I don’t suppose “Beat them both with a stick” would be an option?
Could person B dress as a dog ?
D is completely reasonable, B is fine, A is an asshole, and C should be fired.
If A genuinely requires the emotional support animal, A is not an asshole. A just has mental health issues (as, to a certain extent, does B). The extent to which A and B can be accommodated depends entirely on the nature of the business.
If the business actually has soundproof offices, then that’s a workable solution; and it’s the person making the noise who should be shut in one, as it’s unlikely that the noise is only a distraction to one person even if only the one bothered worst is complaining.
If the business doesn’t have a soundproof office available, then the noisy person needs to shut up and get some headphones.
If the business has space enough to arrange things so that Must Have Dog Person and Must Not Be Near Dog Person can be placed where the latter won’t be in the vicinity of the dog, then do that. If it doesn’t and they can be arranged on different shifts, then do that. If those don’t work but Dog Person can come in five minutes sooner and leave five minutes later than No Dog Person and can hide the dog under their desk in the meantime, then try that; though the poor dog may need to piss before the workday’s over. If none of those will work, I don’t know – decide by which is more important to the business? toss a coin? But neither of the people is necessarily being an asshole.
With the noise & quiet pair, my first answer was “arrange some other accommodation”, assuming that the other accommodation would be headphones. Then i read the answers more carefully. I think both of those people are quite common, honestly, and i think they both routinely use headphones in open office situations, and there’s generally no conflict.
The dog/no dog situation is harder. And make the “no dog” person, allergic, not just afraid. Because my mother was really scared of dogs, and it was a significant issue in her life, but she could cope with legit service dogs if she didn’t have to get too close to them, because they are SO well behaved.
For the dog at the office, I need more information. Who was there first? If the service dog owner was hired first, then they and the dog stay. If the dog phobic person was hired first, then they stay.
The person with the dog-phobia is just going to have to learn to deal with it. Dogs are awesome.
Dogs are awesome and I feel sorry for person B that they can’t see it. Doesn’t give asshole A the right to shove their dog in B’s face though.
“Legit service” being a key phrase in re the dog scenario.
Yes, legit service is important in the conversation. But i don’t see how the guy who needs an emotional support dog is being an asshole, i think he has a legit disability and the dog is a reasonable accommodation.
Yeah, neither of them is an asshole, presuming that neither of them’s lying. Phobias and allergies are both real things; emotional support dogs are also real things. Genuinely having any of those difficulties is cause for sympathy, not for being called an asshole.
And conflicts between different people genuinely needing different things is also a real thing; both in this area, and in a whole lot of other areas. Usually these things can be worked out. Once in a while they really can’t, and somebody has to move, whether out of the specific workplace or out of a specific household or occasionally out of an entire neighborhood; and if nobody’s willing to do so, that’s a genuine problem.
Pass me my “emotional support beer” next time I’m at work.
I don’t think he’s an asshole, but I can tell you as a former counselor that a large number of people who don’t have an ADA disability will tell their counselor they don’t qualify for a service animal but either having the pet with them is emotionally calming, or that they just want the untrained, non-service animal with them because they like having the pet at work. This is why airlines started requiring that they be service animals, not emotional support animals.
I’ve had several supervisors who thought it was okay to bring their non-service dogs to work although it wasn’t allowed, starting a cascade of other people bringing them, and soon the carpets smelled like urine, so I’m not for it unless the workplace permits it and there’s formal accountability for a dog urinating on my office doorjamb.
I’d be inclined to say that any dogs urinating in the workplace* should be immediately removed and forbidden re-entry. Ditto any insisting on jumping up on people other than their humans and/or otherwise interfering with getting work done.
In some workplaces, dogs are welcome, even if not service/support dogs of any sort. But expecting said dogs to behave (at least barring really unusual circumstances) seems to me to be entirely reasonable, whether or not they’re service and/or support dogs.
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*possible exception for a previously well-behaved dog who turned out to be ill, who could be allowed to return when they’d been treated and recovered from the illness. Or, in some workplaces but not others, for young puppies confined to a crate.
Yeah. I know a lot of people who work in places where people bring their dogs to work, not because they are service animals, but just because it’s nice to have your dog with you during the work day. I’ve heard about it from both dog owners and coworkers of dog owners. I’ve never heard of it being a problem, and I’d hope that most employers would have zero tolerance for misbehaving dogs. I mean, people sometimes pee on walls, too, but if you do it at work you generally need to find a new job.
And an employee who becomes violently ill and poops on the floor will probably be allowed back after they recover, too.
Yup; I know several workplaces where I routinely see dogs who to the best of my knowledge aren’t service or support dogs, but it’s just that the owners either like to bring their own dogs to work or allow one or more employees to do so. I also know workplaces where cats live there full time. In all cases I’ve never seen misbehavior (though I’ve seen a couple of signs warning customers not to bug the cat if the cat doesn’t appear to want company.)
These have all been fairly small operations. I expect potential employees who can’t stand dogs/cats just get hired somewhere else; there aren’t a large number of jobs, or a high percentage of the jobs in the area, being affected.