Item — HN Reader

As someone allergic to dogs I was wondering exactly the same thing. I assume this simply makes it impossible to work there if you have a dog allergy since (even with an isolated office) any contact with coworkers who are around dogs all day would be enough to get my eyes itching and my nose running pretty badly.

Edit: Note that I don't think this is necessarily bad - not having people allergic to dogs be able to join up is a price they are probably willing to pay because the perk is a huge factor for keeping dog owner employees happy.

2 comments

I'm also allergic to dogs (and cats), and so policies like these would just make me go somewhere else. I don't particularly understand what advantage there is in bringing a dog to work anyway... yes, you probably love your pets but the same goes for children, that doesn't mean they should be with you when you work.

> yes, you probably love your pets but the same goes for children, that doesn't mean they should be with you when you work.

Well, it's actually not that uncommon to have an office kindergarten (at least in the part of Europe I live in, no idea how it is in the US), for some people, it's a big perk, as it allow people that would otherwise have to choose between an office life and a family life to have both.

Would you like to be left alone without a toilet for like 10-11 hours a day, 5-days-a-week? Then you know why some people insist on taking their dog to the office ;)

Seems silly to have a dog if you're just going to leave it at home for 10-11 hours a day, 5 days a week.

Honest question, would you feel the same way if you replace dog by baby in your sentence?

Edit: Hopefully, "at home" would then mean "at the daycare", otherwise it's a bit irresponsible...

A dog is not equal to a child. Not in any remote way.

Yes, but I realize this is horribly politically incorrect because everyone has a right to reproduce, even if its at everyone elses cost. It seems especially if its at everyone elses cost.

In another post I bring up the excellent point that the proper solution to the 11 hours in the office problem isn't making the 11 hours more bearable by Fing off for several hours per day, but perhaps only spending 8 hours in the office per day. Or less.

My wife did half days at home for almost a decade while the kids were little. They trusted her to work at home during an emergency at 3am, so leaving work in the afternoon to pick up the kids at school then working at home from 3pm till 6 or whatever was no big stretch of the imagination, even for "big corp" "dilbertian" management. This is obviously only applicable to cubie/desk jobs not manual labor.

It took me a bit too long to figure out that you weren't implying they use their dog as a toilet...!

Dog walkers are a simple option.

I (fortunately) never met anybody allergic to dogs, so I have no idea how sever it is — would you get allergic reaction by just meeting me without the dog? If yes, then the dog rules don't really matter, as you will be allergic to me anyway.

Still, in coworking spaces I would just leave my dog at home and try to agree on some 4h-4h working schedule so my dog isn't alone longer than 6-7 hours.