Family, home, Kids, pets, Uncategorized, work

Gussied Up

36 Comments

Rhiannon got brushed and clipped this week for a visit to my office. Several years ago my company began to observe “Take Your Dog to Work Day” in June.  Well-behaved dogs are invited to the office and we have “Yappy Hour” on the front lawn.  Since then the program has expanded.  Throughout the summer, every Friday is dog-friendly and then there are random pop up days announced; today is one of those days.

Bringing both dogs is just too much for me (and my small cube) and YA’s dog isn’t as user-friendly as my old pup, so it will only be Rhiannon today.  Her cushion will come to the office as well as a water bowl and a Tupperware of treats.  It’s pretty exhausting for her, so she’ll only stay half a day and I’ll take her home at lunch time.  Even though it’s tiring, she seems to really enjoy it, especially the ride in the car!

You’re the boss. Budget isn’t an issue.  What perk would you like to offer your employees?

36 thoughts on “Gussied Up”

    2. We will get a dog when I retire and we are home to train it. I want to get another Welsh Terrier and have it be the best socialized and cat tolerant terrier in town.

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      1. Nobody can accuse you of lacking ambition, Renee. People who set out to civilize a terrier are either confident or foolish. I’m going with confident in your case since you have experience. I’m not nearly good enough at training dogs to control a terrier.

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  3. I was actually imagining yesterday how nice it would be to have cats at work. Cats sleeping on my desk, knocking pens on the floor, chasing each other, available for calming ear scritches.

    If I consider my own work place, a great perk would be a new building, all on one level, with a functional heating/ cooling system. Our current building is a former college dorm with 6 floors, aging plumbing, and heating/ cooling units in each office for which they no longer make parts and that either freeze you or boil you.

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      1. A small, local used bookstore, Sixth Chamber Used Books, has a wonderful black dog named Jem Finch that likes to curl up in the lap of readers. They have this comfortable, but rather dilapidated, old chair for customers to sit in and read, often with a child in their lap. If you don’t have a child in your lap, it’s a pretty good bet that Jem will join you. Unfortunately Sixth Chamber has just recently announced that they will be closing the store in March. A sad loss for Grnad Ave in St. Paul.

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      2. Yes, there’s a used bookstore here with TWO felines…

        Our neighbor and his wife run a small engine shop; they take two dogs with them to work every day. There are also two cats here at home, and two different cats that live at the shop. I stop in there a couple of times a month (for eggs, but that’s another story), and one cat is always acting as receptionist.

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      3. The DMV license bureau in Inver Grove Heights has a little dog “on staff.” S(he) has a pillow on one of the guest chairs and just hangs out. A very mellow pup.

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    3. Never underestimate heating and cooling. Uncomfortable employees are unhappy employees. (I’ve used that excuse myself for the lack of AC back in my shop… hasn’t helped yet.)

      I am so lucky that I am able to set my own schedule and basically, be my own boss. If everyone could just be responsible for their own actions and, even while working in teams, if we could not be micro-managed and just be allowed to get our work done in a timely manner.

      Don’t be afraid to let the worker bee’s have some fun. Whether it’s a foos-ball table or nap chamber.
      Give people the tools they need and let them do their jobs.

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  4. Would love a picture of Rhiannon by your desk. I think it’s amazing (and wonderful) that there are so many days you can do this, VS. It probably wouldn’t work so well for cats…

    If I was working in an office again, I would make sure all computers had adjustable height, and treadmills if desired. My coffee kiosk would have choices like really good coffee, home-made chai, and croissants, brioche, etc. along with Kind bars and lots of good fruit. There’d be a 3:00 stretch and dance option…

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    1. I didn’t get a picture but it wouldn’t have looked a lot like the picture at the top of the blog. I took the big cushion in with me today so she would have a comfortable place to lay down. I brought her home over lunch and she fell asleep in the car on the way home. If you never had a dog then you don’t realize that a dog falling asleep in a car is an unheard-of event. But she had a wonderful time while she was here.

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      3. Our dog Humphrey never misses a trip in the truck. And he’ll settle into the back seat, look around for a few minutes but then just lays down and sleeps.
        Kelly says it’s more about going with me than going for a ride.
        He’s never had an interest in putting his head out the window or anything.

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  6. As someone still working in Corporate America, I would love naps, free healthy food, treadmill desks, etc. Those are great ideas. What I would really love is 3 times the pay, free health insurance and work 30 hours a week. Then you can actually have a life and be able to save money after paying bills.

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  7. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    Once upon a time, when I was the boss, I found that most of what Ben says, works. Trust the employees to do their jobs, give them a lot of attention and flexibility to make the job work, and most people produce good work.

    Micromanaging is a B-A-D idea. Once, when I neeeded to get a certain concept across about how some tasks needed to be done as part of the jobs, I broke the tasks down and paid people to do them until they understood how those tasks, which were somewhat invisible, were vital to a part of the process. Everybody HATED it that I did this. But it worked and got me out of the role of nagger-in-chief. Interestingly, the person who was the biggest offender of not doing the tasks, hated it the most because she felt that particular task was a strength. That was not how I saw it. Even showing her the facts did not break her sense of herself. Denial is a powerful thing.

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    1. Love that! However, as a result of having worked six years in a law firm, I shudder at that top step right in front of the door. It’s an accident – and a liability law suit – waiting to happen.

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  9. For me personally, being treated with fairness and respect was important. So was work that was meaningful, had some variety to it, and presented challenges. Sure, a decent salary, and reasonable benefits were part of the equation for long-term satisfaction, but no amount of money would make me feel good about compromising my own ethical standards. Quality of coworkers also mean a lot. Being part of a team that has fun together and is focused on accomplishing a shared goal is huge.

    One of the more fun and challenging positions I had was as the supervisor of the evening trayline at Northwestern Hospital. Institutional food is generally not much fun, and when you’re sick and the same slop appears on your tray day after day, it’s especially important that it is presented as enticing as possible. I took it as a special challenge to have every person who worked on that trayline with me buy into that proposition. If the tray in front of us was going to be presented to our sister, our best friend, grandma, or mom, would we be satisfied with it? If not, we needed to redo what didn’t meet our standards.

    The personnel on that trayline were all students. Some were high school seniors, others nursing students, and all part-time, but it was amazing to see how these “kids” rose to that challenge. It was not a glamorous job by any means, nor was it well paid, but once these students put themselves in the shoes (or hospital gowns) of the patients, the mundane chore of dishing up the evening meal (probably the highlight of many a patents’ day) had meaning. So did showing up cheerful in a clean uniform.

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