Unless you work at, say a kennel, or a vet’s office, or a pet store or something.
You don’t. You work at a newspaper. We work in a newsroom. There are no water bowls, there is no dogfood, there are no fire hydrants in here. This is not a place for dogs.
No, there are people working here. Or at least, they were until you brought your yappy, pouncy little furry-rat excuse for a dog into work with you today. Now they’re all fawning over the cute little puppy, neglecting the actual, you know – work – we’re supposed to be doing. I’m last in the chain – I don’t get things until they’ve passed through all the rest of the newsroom’s hands first. Hands that instead of typing or toning photos are petting a fucking dog. In the newsroom.
When I first saw it trotting around on the carpet floor, I thought perhaps you had just stopped in on a night off to pick something up or to have a chat with someone. But no, you took off the leash, sat down at your computer and settled in to work, oblivious as to where your animal was and who it was bothering. You didn’t notice that it walked through the doorway and stared wistfully down the hall to the pressroom several times until someone finally saw it and called it back in a baby-talk voice.
No mind that we haven’t made deadline so far this summer because of people already having problems figuring out that we’re supposed to – get this – actually do work, rather than sit and chat – and that regardless of how late you all are, I’m the one that has to stay to wait for the press to run. Don’t worry about it. Play with your schnookums. I’ll be sitting over here waiting for you to finish, so I can do my job.
I asked someone after you left what you possibly could have been smoking to think that bringing your dog to the newsroom would be a good idea or even appropriate in the slightest. They said, in all seriousness, that you couldn’t find a dog-babysitter.
I was, literally, speechless for several seconds while trying to comprehend this statement. Dog…babysitter. A babysitter is for babies, I thought. Not dogs. Dog…babysitter. I’ve heard of people who ask a neighbor to check on their dogs and feed them while they’re off on vacation or for a long weekend. But a dog…babysitter? I have never, personally, owned a dog, especially one as ugly as yours, but my family has (again, not as ugly as yours…by a longshot). We never hired a “dog babysitter.” When everyone was gone during the day, the dog stayed at home. Outside. In the yard. You know…where dogs belong. Occasionally inside, when it was cold out. She did fine there too. My parents certainly never took her to work – though maybe that’s just because they don’t work in newsrooms, I don’t know.
Besides – you’re a college student. No knock on college students, being one myself, but maybe you don’t need a pet at this juncture of your life that requires 24/7 care, or at least can’t be left alone for the whole four hours you were at work.
One of the things I love about working in newsrooms is that every day is different. The news is always changing, you never know what’s going to happen next. We know about things first, and we have the privilege of informing the public of things they need to know. This can be important business. So don’t bring your fucking dog to work.
