Allergic to office pet

[Anonymous]

yeah, sorry, that's not the way the law works. if working from home would hurt his career, that's not an adequate accommodation.

What proof do you have that working from home would hurt his career?

[Anonymous]

Nephew is an adult right? Why is this any of your concern? Let him solve his own work problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

yeah, sorry, that's not the way the law works. if working from home would hurt his career, that's not an adequate accommodation.

What proof do you have that working from home would hurt his career?

DP. If everyone is in the office, you miss out on the talk about what is happening that no one puts in emails. Maybe internal job openings? Re-orgs? This gives advantage to the people in the office. (They also have the opportunity to make themselves look silly in the office but that’s another matter.) Working remotely whether from home or the little 2-10 person remote office can limit your job prospects internally. BTDT and seen it happen plenty to friends ans colleagues. It is the trade-off to working remotely.

Those convos might happen at the water cooler or other serendipitous human encounters. Do you have serendipitous convos much with co-workers working remotely?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m very allergic to dogs but I have a small hypoallergenic dog that’s bathed weekly. I can still be around dogs as long as they’re hypoallergenic, bathed often and I don’t touch them. You’d think an office dog would be non shedding?

To be fair though I’m very allergic to cockroaches and my federal agency would do nothing about it. I was a snotty sneezing mess at work. I was told it’s against the law to spray in federal buildings (they’d have to shut down the building and send everyone home) I had visible cockroaches on my desk every morning. They set out little sticky traps and that was all they’d do. They said the old dc sewers were the issue. I think workplaces just don’t give AF about allergies. I got a new job after 2 years of dealing with that mess. Annoying.

Had a similar situation in one of my first jobs. Awful.

Hopefully a Claritin or similar will work for OP’s nephew.

[Anonymous]

I would be looking for another job and also looking for legal representation.

[Anonymous]

I'd contact a lawyer. Working from home isn't a reasonable accommodation in this instance. Working from home places the employee in isolation and reduces visibility and upward mobility. It's a form of disability discrimination.

What is inherently reasonable, however, is the removal of the pet unless this is a business directly associated with and requiring its presence. For example, if it's a dog grooming place that's not reasonable.

At a minimum, go ahead and drop a complaint with your local human rights commission or the EEOC, though the EEOC is pretty backlogged right now.

[Anonymous]

Here's the optimistic scenario: the new employee wins the right to kick the dog out of the office, and everyone else in the office including the owner hates the new employee. Then the employee still suffers lack of career growth, files a lawsuit on grounds of retaliation, maybe wins, leaves the company, and still has a stunted career.

The alternative is to appreciate the incredibly valuable perk of working from home (avoiding commute time and cost), while making an effort to engage with coworkers virtually or at off-site meals and drinks and walks, developing valuable networking skills and being appreciated for being a real team player.

[Anonymous]

Talk to the employees about arranging seating so the employees who don't want to interact with the dog can be separated from it

But also this story seems super fake. There's a dog that independently rides the elevator between floors? The employees NEED the dog to come to their desks, because they can't go take a walk to visit the dog?

There's no conference room that can be made a dog free workspace?

[Anonymous]

Allergy meds. Or work from home or find a new job.

[Anonymous]

I would have thought 1/3 floors being dog free is a great option. If people want to interact with the dog they can go to the other 2/3 floors. I would continue pushing for that, but otherwise i have no idea. Air purifiers around the allergic area? Paid for by the company obv.

[Anonymous]

No real solution but the workplace dog thing drives me crazy and I cannot wait for that trend to end. I’d encourage him to find another job because that seems like the least of the company’s issues

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's the optimistic scenario: the new employee wins the right to kick the dog out of the office, and everyone else in the office including the owner hates the new employee. Then the employee still suffers lack of career growth, files a lawsuit on grounds of retaliation, maybe wins, leaves the company, and still has a stunted career.

The alternative is to appreciate the incredibly valuable perk of working from home (avoiding commute time and cost), while making an effort to engage with coworkers virtually or at off-site meals and drinks and walks, developing valuable networking skills and being appreciated for being a real team player.

I'll bet a substantial number of other employees would be thrilled the dog was no longer at the office. But you are correct the owner would hate OP's nephew. Dog people are crazy.