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Ask HN: A pack of office-dogs, too much?

by crtlaltdel on 2/19/20, 8:03 PM with 7 comments

I've encountered several startups that embrace "office dogs" in the course of my career. Most of them its an occasional event, usually when the owner has trouble with pet sitting or something. A couple, however, have a constant presence of dogs. Multiple dogs. They bark, "play fight" and attempt to get some person (any person) to pay attention to them. None of them are scary or overly aggressive.

This is not a large space, though hardly a "garage" sized office.

I like dogs.

This pack of dogs is making me hate this office. It has gotten to the point where even the most typical, innocuous "dog behavior" in the office irritates me. It ruins my flow and engenders a modest resentment towards their owners.

I am at a loss to address this. The company is small enough that the non-bring-dog-to-work folks are a minority, and all of the senior leadership team bring theirs. If this was occasional, it wouldn't bother me...but it is just about every-single-day.

Every.

Single.

Day.

I'd not consider bringing my small children to the office every day only to let them roam around bothering people and squabbling over a toy...is it too much to expect the same of "pet parents" and their "fur babies"?

  • by sevilo on 2/20/20, 2:05 AM

    I love dogs and being able to bring a dog to the office is a huge appeal for signing up for a job, dogs only have 10-15 years of lifespan so I want to make sure the days count. But I can see how it can be annoying for people who require a non-disruptive environment to work.

    Bring it up with your management that it bothers you, then the ball is in their court whether they wanna make change to the policy. If it doesn't work out then all I can say is you'll be better off to find a place where the environment fits what you're looking form, also they should disclose this policy and situation upon hiring someone.

    I will get annoyed and leave if the office has a toddler policy because I don't like children at all, but I won't blame the owners of the company if that's what they want, it just so happened I landed at a place where my interest don't fit with the rest.

  • by h2odragon on 2/19/20, 8:11 PM

    If you find the environment distracting and unpleasant; say so. If they don't want to change the environment, go somewhere else.

    I love dogs too but there's few that will be happy in an office environment; set them up a fenced yard outside and hire a minder or take shifts for that among the dog lovers... hired will be less contentious.

  • by photawe on 2/21/20, 12:48 AM

    I have 2 dogs and work with them in the room all the time. They can be distracting, but to me, this is mostly in a good way. I do understand that they can be slightly annoying at times, but I couldn't live without them.

    I do understand that several dogs may annoy you, but yeah - bring it up with management, get some noise cancelling phones. Not sure why they would put the dogs so close to you guys.

  • by SamReidHughes on 2/20/20, 3:31 PM

    I wouldn't want to work in a place that had office dogs, but that's because I got attacked by one. Any workplace that involves information work that needs focus should not have office dogs or other stupid distractions. It's perfectly reasonable for my local dry cleaner to have a dog, though -- it gets a lot of people to interact with, and it doesn't bother the owner or employees.

  • by bjourne on 2/21/20, 3:15 PM

    A lot of people don't like dogs or are allergic to them. Bringing them to work is somewhat inconsiderate to say the least. But if the senior staff is doing it too, there's probably nothing you can do about it.

  • by kojeovo on 2/21/20, 1:15 AM

    > all of the senior leadership team bring theirs

    i think you gotta find a new gig