Should kids and/or dogs be allowed in an office?

I am okay with occasional kids in the office, when school is closed and a parent has no alternative. But they can’t be disruptive.

Since I live in an area with a lot of startups= “dog friendly” workspaces are popular, but I am not a fan of them.

@zenvelo I actually don’t mind the dogs or kids if well behaved, but there seems to be a disconnect on the definition of ‘well behaved’ or ‘responsible parent/ pet owner’.

I have multiple examples of both btw, I suppose I’m a little bewildered by the fact we all seem to define well behaved so incredibly differently. Especially in work space.

A well behaved dog, yes.
Kids, fuck no. They need to be chained to a wall in sound-proofed cellar.

Like @zenvelo, I think kids on rare occasions should be allowed in. As far as dogs, I know this is a trend but just as with dogs on planes, I think that can be a disregard for colleagues who are allergic or who just don’t like dogs. I feel that there should have to be agreement among colleagues that dogs are accepted and behavioral standards for the dogs should be set.

No dogs in the office. If a small business wants to allow it, that’s up to them, but over 10 employees, and I say forget it. I don’t want to work with dogs around. I worked for one person at their home, and they had a little dog, and the dog almost never came around, and the place didn’t smell like dog at all, so it was fine. Where I stored my cars for a while they had a couple of dog in the office, but I think the dogs were the business owners dog, I don’t think any employee could bring their own dog.

As far as children, I think infants should be allowed, especially if it’s difficult for the employee to work from home. If I ran a business and my employee had a new baby I would be happy to make it easy for her or him to work as long as they were getting the work done, and it didn’t interfere or inconvenience other employees.

Children who are schoolage it would be great if there is a daycare at work for them. If it’s just random once in a while that a parent needs to bring their child, and he child behaves, I don’t see any problem with it.

Some jobs you can’t. An office is very different than working retail or in a hospital or in a restaurant. In front of the public is different than being in an office. Sometimes it’s still ok, it depends.

As long as kids and dogs are under control and well behaved, yes.
Problem is , some shitty parents and pet owners don’t recognize their kid or dog as chronically badly behaved (because of parenting) and make excuse for the individual bad behavior events by blaming other people or circumstances.

The question clearly, depends on the office, the dogs and the kids.

We crossed paths with a dog named Henry and his owners at ACE Hardware yesterday. He was just a big puppy but uncomfortably reactive to me as I walked by. In no sense could he have been considered a support dog, not even one in training!
Well Rick, the damn dog whisperer, is coming up behind me and finds new best friends.
I turned back and the owners are eager to talk about Henry, who is shifting uneasily in his harness.
He is 4 months old and was gifted to them my someone who told him he is a Great Pyrenees puppy….but he had the colored face of a Springer Spaniel. The rest of him was all white and he had HUGE puppy feet! So yes and no. Big puppy, big dog.
I enjoyed seeing a pretty dog (not a little yapper!) but that particular dog just doesn’t belong in a public building where he has no control over his comfort level.
Rick loved him, but pegged him as budding aggressive. :( And Rick knows dogs.

No dogs in my office – they would bother the cats!

I think if kids visit an office, like to see where mommy or daddy works, it’s ok now and then. If a kid is briefly at the office, like the parent had a rare issue where they needed to take the kid with them and then someone else was going to pick the kid up, it’s ok but it gets out of hand if everyone does it. My daughter never came to my office except once on Christmas eve a few years ago for about two hours. Nobody was doing any work anyway, and then my mom came and picked her up later on in the morning. She was about 8 so she could sit and behave. Little screaming toddlers don’t belong.

Animals I don’t mind but then again, I’m not allergic.

Kids and animals are both a distraction to the parent who has to watch them, which is not good for office productivity.

Kids are also a liability. If a kid got hurt at work, the job is responsible, which is another negative.

Pretty sure this question wouldn’t even have been asked 40 years ago when men were was still predominately the ones in the work force.

I don’t agree except with very brief visits as it distracts from office work and besides the animals and the children want to be outside enjoying the day.

It depends on the type of office too.
Around here, a lot of the family owned Chinese restaurants basically have their kids living at the restaurant.

It’s fine. I’d love to have an office animal, they reduce stress. Sometimes people have to bring their kids in, but they are well behaved and stay in the individual offices.

When I worked for our local news paper they had an office cat. I loved it, too.

A kitty I would like. The cat sleeps most of the day anyway. A lot of people don’t like cats though, or can be allergic.

I actually love our office dog, but a few people don’t seem to know how to act right. Stomping at him, grabbing him by the collar, and these fools own dogs!

As far as kids, I love them, too, but if grandma has to have them here, maybe not allow him to bounce a ball off the office walls for an hour…lol

Thus the question….how can you not know these things are wrong? Boggles the mind at times. We are kind of debating the pro’s and con’s right now.

I can’t believe a grown ass adult would do that! People are stupid.

@Dutchess_III It’s difficult for my friend to know how to handle it, aka the dog mom.

She wants to continue bringing him to socialize, since he was a tail tucker and very velcro dog.

But now that he’s gaining confidence, people don’t realize his courage is still new.

Any suggestions are appreciated, as you can’t really scold your co-worker too much when you’re lucky to bring your dog to work with you.

Tail tuckers scare me. They’re scared. When they’re scared they tend to bite.

Not sure what kind of suggestion you’re looking for…..

@KNOWITALL A dog that has issues should not be brought to a workplace. There are other places she can use to try to socialize the dog. IMHO, the only dog that should be brought to work is a totally socialized couch potato. Workplaces should not be therapy outlets for dogs.

I think she’s having a hard time figuring out how to tell the gal that she shouldn’t bring her dog in….

No, we want the dog, we just want our coworkers to stop antagonizing him like flipping idiots.

OIC. Well, I have to agree with @janbb. That kind of dog doesn’t really belong there.

As for the other, I honestly think I’d straight up tell the assholes to stop bullying the damn dog. They wouldn’t do that shit if the dog was bigger, stronger and more confident.

From the time I was 9 until 13; I’d go into work on 10 Saturdays a year. I’d inventory the stationary closet (pens, pencils, erasers, pads of paper and boxes of paper clips . . . etc). When I turn 11 my dad moved to new office building, now I distributed mail and inter-office memos to wire in-baskets on Saturday. Also learned how to run the teletype printer from the punched paper tapes they received, that included cleaning the holes on the punch tape reader.
My dad worked in a aerospace and defense company in the fifties and sixties. Went to three plane crashes (on floor in backseat under a blanket). I’d home with “fire foam”, used by the fire department, my mom would me and my dad heck.

Cool. You couldn’t do that today @Tropical_Willie.