I adore cats. I think the concept of cats running around my workplace would be quite cute and fun.
However.
I happen to be allergic to cats, and I couldn’t work in a place with cats, or visit a workplace with cats in it for any signifigant amount of time. And then there are people who just don’t like cats. Cats can be troublesome, shredding paperwork, peeing or pooing on things, or tracking kitty litter over keyboards. I can’t blame anyone for not wanting a cat in their workplace, no matter how much I like them.
Any chance of someone at the office taking these cats to their house and/or giving them an actual home?
I’m the biggest animal lover there is but having animals in a business just isn’t appropriate for a couple of reasons.
#1. Clients/Customers may have allergies. If they’re customers thats one thing, they can shop somewhere else. If you’re willing to lose their business, that’s your perogative. But if they’re clients who have to be in that office for one reason or another and happen to be allergic, I don’t think it’s right to “force” them to be around the animal. If you warn them ahead of time, that’s fine. But if they come to the office and have no idea it resembles Wild Kingdom, that’s quite another.
#2. If the animal attacks the client or customer for any reason, you’re just begging for a lawsuit.
Let me get this straight. Your office helps those with disabilities and yet isn’t handicap accessible?
Nope, no relationship other than the work relationship. I know this because she is a person who cannot restrain herself from expressing her opinion of others whether verbally or through facial expressions.
She was the one who selected the office because she was (at the time) the only person who lived locally and knew what was available for rent.
I like her most of the time, but this (the kittens) was sort of the last straw.
Hey jeanster, thanks for the link. My old hometown library cat (God rest her soul) is listed… in the new incarnated version too.
They’re SO sweet! Wish all businesses had pets, except for all those pesky allergy problems. My heart goes out to those who suffer from such and therefore can’t partake. Sad deal for all involved (or not) the whole way 'round.
My brother used to work for a company called “Big Cat Marketing” and yes, they had a cat there. (He now owns his own marketing company.)
Anyhow, they had the sweetest cat that had the run of the whole office and production facilities. It was kinda cool to go to his office and while waiting for him to get off an important phone call or whatever and to pet the cat. He/she was a large fluffy long haired silver tabby.
While it’s not appropriate for everyone’s office, I certainly think that a pet, outside of fish, can really break up the monontony of the day. Also, studies show that people that own pets or a visited by pets (like in elderly care facilities) have lower blood pressure than those that don’t have furry animals in their lives.
I for one think it’s a cool idea. Unless you are allergic then have fun with it and think about the positives rather than the negatives.
But that’s just me who’s worked out of my home since 1994 and find my work life is much better with my animals around than without.
A fellow in New York called Terry DeRoy Gruber put out a photo album called Working Cats, about businesses all over New York and surrounding areas with cats, from the Algonquin Hotel to a steel mill in PA to a synagogue.
Here in Montreal, the Melange Magique (pagan supplies and bookstore) has two cats, and so does S.W. Welch bookstore on Saint-Laurent. (Their cat is very old and fat and tends to repose in the front window. For a while they had a sign in the window saying YES THE CAT IS STUFFED.)
One of the distinguishing features of Mosaic Communications, which became Netscape, before it was acquired in the Sun / AOL deal, was the policy that you could bring your pet to work. The Netscape campus in Mountain View had “doggy areas” outside the buildings. After the acquisition, they retained the policy, Steve Case knowing how badly it would antagonize people if he didn’t. I’m on the Sun campus, where some of the Netscape employees wound up (I’m neither originally Sun nor Netscape - yet another acquisition). You occasionally still see an old ex-Netscape employee that brings their dog to work - usually a little floor-mop type.
Having worked in architecture, I know that there are some leeways.
For a while there, I was retrofitting older buildings to meet ADA standards.
However, I don’t know if this particular business is considered a ‘small business’ seeing as board members and such were listed. It’s hard to say what classification this business is with the info given.
I would also have to wonder about health codes being violated.
I have a friend who praticed mostly domestic relations law for several years (he’s now a prosecutor), and he leased a big old house that had been converted into offices. He brought his big, lazy black lab to work with him almost every day. Most of his clients really liked it- they were usually pretty fragile emotionally when they came to see him, especially if there were kids involved, and they seemed to take a little comfort in being able to pet a doggie while they poured out their troubles to him.
However, the house had enough rooms, and the dog was obedient enough, that he was able to put him in another room if he had a lient who was uncomfortable around dogs. I'd love to bring Auggie, The Cutest Dog on the Planet (TM) to work, but he's a Jack Russell mix and way to hyper to sit still all day. Maybe when he's older...
The pet store I worked in had a Persian who stayed in the store. He was a sweetheart, but he had no use for anyone except me and the guy who cleaned the store and the kennels. When I left that job, I went back to visit him a few times and he usually jumped right into my arms. Then he apparently forgot all about me and he doesn’t recognize me anymore:(.
But as far as cats in the workplace - I would love to have cats at my job, but I also think it would be a distraction. Animals really don’t belong in an office environment unless they can be trained to lay down and be quiet like a dog can. There are offices upstairs that allow people to bring their dogs, and it gets a little noisy sometimes with the pups in the hallway. But if we had animals in our office, I would seriously be distracted all day - that’s why I have them at home, so I can pay attention to them and love on them. I have business things to concentrate on here (well, when I’m not posting here;)), and animals would be a distraction.
Perhaps you should fire off an email to your boss.
When I worked for Penn DOT, we had a cat in the garage that I worked out of.
Nobody ever decided to get a cat, and he wasn’t intentionally brought there from anywhere. What happened was that one day after work when all the trucks came back from wherever they were, there was a cat in the wheel well of one of our one ton flatbeds. He was a little cat, probably a year old, no collar, no ID and no idea where exactly he hopped onto the truck to take him back.
He seemed to like being in the garage, so we kept him. We got him litter box and food and rabies shot and he lived in that garage. He played with stuff he found in there, and he never tried to leave the garage. It was kinda funny to see all these great big construction worker guys petting this little cat after a long day of work, but the cat loved it.
If anyone had been allergic, we woulda taken him to the humane society.
I used to work for an educational materials publisher. The owner and the owner’s son both brought their dogs to work frequently – a springer spaniel mix and a dachshund, respectively.
The dogs both had great personalities, but sometimes, problems would crop up. The spaniel didn’t seem to be 100% housebroken, and, having free run of the sales offices, he would sometimes defecate under people’s desks. Sometimes people thought it was funny. Sometimes, they didn’t.
I worked in an area on the second floor, and away from the areas that the dogs would roam in. However, one time the owner’s son brought the dachshund up to my office. I had a large film processing machine on end end of the room. This machine collected used chemicals in an open tray underneath the main processing apparatus. Well, the dachshund thought this vile-smelling tray was a water dish, and I had to hustle to keep the dog from partaking of the used fixer/developer mix. The owner’s son was simply not paying close enough attention to his dog – who knows what would have happened had his dog ingested any of those chemicals?
I find this stranger than the whole cat issue. How does not living locally prevent someone from finding out what office space is available for rent? Has not the management ever heard of newspaper classifieds? Or rental agents? I’m in Boston and I could, if I wanted to, rent office space in Tokyo. Within a few hours, I’d bet.
As to the cats, I think it would be adorable and I myself would love it, but I have to admit an office with outside clients is usually not the best place to keep a cat, or any animal. Too many potential liabilities.
