
The problems SparkFun has letting people bring dogs into work - lifeisstillgood
https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1381
======
levosmetalo
If someone tried to bring dog to my office, next thing I will do would be to
ask permission to work from home. If that doesn't work, I'd look up for
another job. If that doesn't work, I'd buy rats and cocroaches, and bring them
to work with me as "pets". But, there's no way I'm going to sit in the office
full of "nice dogs" and pretend that doesn't affect me.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I am not allergic to dogs and yes, I don't like pets,
but I also don't mind having dog or a cat around when sitting in friends
house. But, I just don't feel safe in a presence of dogs, and there's no way I
would be able to do anything useful the whole day except watching over my
shoulders to make sure the beast is not somewhere near me. Whoever wants to
impose that kind of feelings to me is making me bad, regardless of his
intentions.

~~~
Ntrails
Do you dislike dogs? Are you allergic? I get that you are saying you don't
want to work in an office with dogs and would find it unacceptable, but
explaining why would be helpful!

~~~
kamaal
Many people have a fear of dogs. I myself have an extreme fear of dogs. Most
people have had experiences with dogs which amplifies that fear. Being chased
till person falls and bruises themselves badly, or getting bit.

Plus animals aren't like humans, they don't use the restroom when they have to
relieve themselves. They beg for food, stare at you when you are eating, make
noises and smell.

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jstsch
I really love dogs, but this is just nuts. Pets belong at home, not at work. A
dog tribunal? Talk about a waste of company time.

I understand that in certain companies (with sky-high margins or money to
burn) the line between work and play gets blurred more and more, but that's in
stark contrast to the rest of the economy. I can understand that certain
people outside of tech (who are struggling) are starting to get a bit
restless.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _I understand that in certain companies (with sky-high margins or money to
> burn) the line between work and play gets blurred more and more, but that 's
> in stark contrast to the rest of the economy._

I think that the blurring of the line between work and play is a Good Thing in
some sectors, namely engineering/tech/creative jobs. Creativity comes out of
playtime, not worktime.

~~~
yen223
I think the blurring of the line is good for _all_ sectors. Let's not assume
that people who aren't in tech somehow don't deserve to have the same perks.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Maybe, but I'm not thinking about deserving and making workers feel good;
though I'm all for it in every industry, in some this is a requirement rather
than perk. You can treat people like slaves (and many do) in grocery stores or
internet bookshops with little negative impact on productivity or
profitability, but I wouldn't want to see or use code written by people in
similar conditions.

~~~
yen223
I don't want to be operated on by a stressed-out doctor who's at the end of a
36-hour shift either.

If your only concern was profitability, there are a huge number of engineering
companies who achieved success despite, or perhaps because of, encouraging
long hours and driving their employees to the ground. That's why profitability
is _not_ my only concern.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _I don 't want to be operated on by a stressed-out doctor who's at the end
> of a 36-hour shift either._

Good point.

> _That 's why profitability is not my only concern._

It isn't mine either; I wanted to point out that even in the most selfish,
profit-focused world imaginable, there'd still be an argument for blurring
work and play for at least some types of jobs.

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simonbarker87
I think what this shows is that you really need to work at what culture you
want at your company and take steps to improve something if it's not working
and deemed important. It would have been much easier to just ban dogs and move
on - instead management come up with a process that could maintain the dog
presence and keep people happy.

~~~
zwily
I suspect there are still a bunch of people unhappy with the dogs around, even
with the tribunal.

We allowed dogs at our office (until we moved to a new building that forbade
them). It was fun when there were a handful, but when there got to be about a
dozen it was terribly distracting and only fun for the owners. I think most
people are relieved we don't have them anymore.

~~~
VBprogrammer
Not to mention that some people have a dog phobia.

~~~
adnam
Or allergies.

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randallsquared
"Some serious incidents took place during this time, like bites. Most of the
bites were workers from other companies onsite to do their normal rounds, like
delivery drivers. Fortunately no serious injuries ever materialized [...]"

What are the insurance ramifications of all these dogs? I'm astonished that
the fact that dogs have already attacked people at SparkFun didn't cause them
to rescind the policy of allowing dogs. Just how serious does a bite have to
be, anyway?

~~~
gaius
If I went onsite say as a consultant to a company and was bitten by a dog that
had been approved by management, I would be looking to sue them into oblivion.

~~~
taude
Ha...sue to oblivion? I guess it'd depend on what a "bite" is but unless the
dog took you down, ate out your organs, your left arm, and you lost an eye,
etc, you might be pretty disappointed what oblivion would be.

Edit: for an example....if you got say a pretty good dog bite that required
you to seek medical help and say you had to get 5 or 6 stitches. And the
medical bill came to say $600 (probably depends on location). If you were to
take the cast to court to seek "pain and suffering" damages, and it was found
that you were having lots of pain and suffering, you'll probably receive
between $1200 - $2400. Far from oblivion. Despite the some sensational
headlines that make the media, you'd find that most settlements and awards are
a lot more reasonable.

But you might luck out and get a dog that wasn't vaccinated for rabies, in
which case I'm sure you'd get more.

~~~
gaius
Yes I have checked out the relevant law here now (Dangerous Dogs Act 1991) and
it says

 _You can be fined up to £5,000 and /or sent to prison for up to 6 months if
your dog is out of control. You may also not be allowed to own a dog in the
future.

If you let your dog injure someone, you can be sent to prison for up to 2
years and/or fined_

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qwerta
If this is not spoof, it illustrates well how startup turns into corporation.

They could allow occasional work from home. No instead they create The Dog
Policy, the Dog Agreement and The Dog Tribunal Management. If someone has
allergy or wants to bring his baby, they introduce another 10 agreements.

In my previous job colleague was bringing dog sometimes, I just asked him to
keep it away from me (have serious allergy) and problem was solved.

~~~
raverbashing
Well, I can understand why SparkFun might limit work from home:

1 - They're a hardware company. You can't take most of the equipment home

2 - EDA software is usually very expensive (and sometimes hardware demanding),
so you can't just install it in a laptop

~~~
qwerta
Thats not really an excuse. VNC+VPN is around for decades.

I worked for hardware manufacturer which produced 50+ pound UPS units. They do
Arduino boards.

~~~
michaelt
The other week I tried running EDA software (Altium) over Remote Desktop.

When trying to do any interactive PCB layout, there was substantial lag in
redrawing the traces as I moved them, making it borderline unusable. I put up
with it as I only had a small amount of work to do, but I certainly wouldn't
expect anyone to use it in a serious business environment.

And I had a gigabit ethernet link with the 'remote' computer a yard away. I
dread to think what the performance would be like over a slower link.

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popopje
I occasionally have to visit offices where a single dog is brought in - they
always smell strongly of dog, and often the dog will come and "greet" me. I'm
not particularly keen on either of these aspects and as such it really puts me
off visiting. I would certainly put that high on the list when considering
taking a job in such an environment.

~~~
lotyrin
I had other reasons to quit the job where they started bringing their dog in,
but wouldn't have needed any.

The idea of having these huge animals that can't communicate what they want
and try to assess relative position in their idea of a social hierarchy with
me by getting aggressive just makes me ill, so adding another species that
unlike those higher primates has nothing to contribute to my projects, can't
communicate at all or solve their own nutrition or excretion, and use physical
instead of verbal aggression for social survey is way out.

</humor attempt>

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wcarss
As someone who works at a company about the same size as Sparkfun, that also
allows dogs, I am surprised by two things: the number of dogs they have coming
in and the vitriolic responses to it here.

We have probably between one and two dozen dogs that come in regularly. There
is a "doggy committee" made up of volunteers that meets about once a month. No
software to manage them yet, but a little bit of occasional drama about them.
I can imagine it being more intense if we had three dozen dogs each day.

I get along with cats easier than dogs, but I love having either around. They
and their owners are one of my favourite parts of the place I work. I sit
beside someone with a dog who greets me every day, and it might be the best
part of my whole day.

Anyway, I just want to throw some non-hate into the top level of this post. I
get that some people do not like dogs or are unfortunately allergic. There are
clearly reasons to not have dogs around, and it simply would not work in many
environments. But there are also a lot of dog owners and people who are just
cool with the companionship, and for them dog-presence is a serious plus.

Either way, it's great to have insight into how other organisations dealt with
this stuff.

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pawelkomarnicki
At my current job I bring my dog to the office every day and there are no
issues whatsoever, but I have some personal rules when it comes to bring my
dog to work: \- no dog if there are allergic people around, \- no barking, \-
no wandering around, \- DEFINITELY no pee and poo in the building, \- CLEANING
outside the company building, \- I am responsible for the dog's actions.

Disclaimer: my dog is trained by me and really knows how to behave in the
office and outside the office.

Unfortunately in some past jobs I stumbled upon people that treated their dog
permit like a kindergarten — just dropping the dog in the office and not
taking care of it. Some fabulous examples was dog pooping in the middle of a
group of people during the SCRUM meeting ;) Or a dude bringing his 3-month
puppy peeing on the floor every 15 minutes. Some people are not mature enough
to bring their dog to the office :)

~~~
lportion
I think that if you bring a dog into work then it should be allowed to display
it's opinion of Agile methodologies.

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bluedino
We had an un-official 'dogs allowed' policy at my last job. It all began with
the owners wife bringing their dog in when she'd come to visit.

Then one day I brought my Bullmastiff in because not many people were going to
be in the office that day, and she's content with just sitting under my desk
for hours on end. Girls in the front office would bring in their dogs who were
pretty well behaved. It was nice meeting other peoples dogs.

Then another developer brought in his Beagle. A dog howling every 10 minutes
is very, very distracting, especially in an open-layout office. Someone in
customer service brought in their 1 year old Labrador, who I'm convinced was
fed a diet consisting of canine Red Bull.

At some point, people in graphics started bringing their cats in. I came in
one morning to find a cat on my chair. I did not bring my dog that day or
things would have probably gotten very interesting.

If I took anything away from that, I'd say pets are okay on Fridays, or
holidays when not everyone is in the building. But for every day, pets are
just too dang distracting. Eating out of trashcans, snooping around the
office, scaring visitors, and just people in general wasting time playing with
pets all day. The biggest benefit is taking your pooch for a walk at lunch
time is a great break.

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yetfeo
How do dog friendly work places deal with employees that are allergic to dogs?

~~~
epaga
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.

~~~
userbinator
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.

~~~
pawelkomarnicki
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 ;)

~~~
timjahn
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.

~~~
ama729
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...

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

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jbb555
I presume this is a spoof. Nobody would want to work in a place with animals
wandering around. It's really not an acceptable working environment.

~~~
VLM
I work with a mostly blind woman and her seeing-eye German Shepard service
dog. Amazing dog. All the puritan whining about dogs assumes its a standard
issue frat boy bringing in his basset hound, but the puritanism melts away
like ice from a blowtorch when its the blind lady instead of some frat boy
antics.

All the stories about poop everywhere and people getting bitten and fighting
amongst the rabble remind me of when my kids were toddlers. I wonder if I
could bring in my kids, as long as the poop ended up in a bag and they don't
bite too many people.

It seems more than a little ridiculous. Instead of "working" for 12 hours a
day but spending half of it Fing around with your dog, why not work 8 hours
and go home and play with your dog at home? Or if you're only "working" for
eight hours but spending half of it playing with dogs, why not honestly work
part time? Or why not just work at home, or flex time it to the max, or
whatever? It just seems the most complicated possible solution to a simple
problem.

~~~
elohesra
> _All the puritan whining about dogs assumes its a standard issue frat boy
> bringing in his basset hound, but the puritanism melts away like ice from a
> blowtorch when its the blind lady instead of some frat boy antics._

Well yeah, for obvious reasons:

1) It's not a luxury for the blind person to bring her dog into work, it's a
necessity.

2) It's not her pet, it's a service animal, and she will presumably treat it
like a service animal (i.e. no cutesy excusing any bad behaviour, no doggy-
talking all day long etc).

3) Seeing-eye dogs go through a tremendous amount of training to make them
basically not act like dogs, so that they won't be hyper, and won't randomly
bark, and won't randomly crap on the floor. Pets go through bare minimum
training (if that) to make sure they don't savage a human.

Surely you can see why the analogy between a service animal and a pet isn't
apt? It's like calling a Democrat hypocritical for disliking domestic firearms
usage, yet allowing military firearms usage; sure the object in question is
nominally the same, but the context and effects are entirely different, and
it's really the context and effects that the speaker is objecting to.

------
jfc
Why not just contract with a nearby dog day care center and provide subsidized
rates for employees? This way the dogs are cared for during the day and
distractions in the office are kept to a minimum.

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kamaal
>>Some serious incidents took place during this time, like bites.

This is serious. Whatever love you might have for your pet, but if its get
around to directly harming some one, that's simply just not acceptable.
Animals are animals, you need to take responsibility for their actions if you
own one.

I have extreme fear of dogs since a dog chased me till fell and bruised whole
of my left arm, my friend's brother had a dog bite after a chase and suffered
from serious health issues post that. Of the things that I fear the most is
dogs in a pack. In a pack dogs exhibit hunting behavior.

Plus asking for a workplace where pets can be bought in is just going to far,
What has this industry come down? In other professions there are people with
kids who would do anything to get day care at work.

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smackfu
The problem with banning dogs _now_ is that it has become an actual benefit to
working at this company. Like rescinding work-at-home privileges. You will get
very unhappy employees who feel they were misled and picked the wrong job
offer.

So not exactly an easy solution as suggested.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
I worked at a company that did away with all the free snacks in the break room
and put an end to the Friday beer cart. People were pissed. But we all got
over it. It is possible to make those changes.

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guiomie
Omg, enough with the dog madness. I already have issues with domisticated
animals whose sole purpose is to entertain a human. You have this aninal who
does nothing all day, except wait for you, this is cruel. My advice, get some
human friends, it will probably cost you less money also.

I had heard about offices with dog, and I never understood how this could be
tolerated by employees without dogs. I can only imagine trying to work, but
all I hear is random people talking to dogs with their dog talking voice.

------
carlob
The thing that baffles me in this thread is the nonchalance that posters have
when saying: "people need to be self-filtering at the interview stage", "just
work somewhere else".

Apparently for something that will actively discriminate on a large portion of
your potential employees it needs to be some sort of protected category.

If I open an office space where you need to climb a ladder to get in, I'll
probably get sued because I'm actively discriminating against handicapped
workers. Why can't it be the same with a dog allergy (or just plain fear)?

The other thing that bugs me is that engineers usually have a good range of
choices as to where they work, but I highly doubt that the delivery person
from UPS has any choice but to deliver to SparkFun or get fired. As it turns
out some of them were actually bitten.

It all boils down to this 'at will employment' nonsense IMHO…

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dethtron5000
I gave a talk once at an agency in Brooklyn. It was rife with dogs. A little
shih tzu proudly trotted across the presentation area right before I started
speaking.

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soggypopsicle
This perk would be a huge bonus for me as a potential hire. I think its
amazing.

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jawr
This is just publicity whoring.

