Reply to I hate to write this but some of you nannies need to get your act together.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I acknowledge that there are people who are not “animal” people - yet they still have a pet.
Maybe they did so for their spouse, or their child.
Then when the pet dies, the person may not be emotionally affected.

On the other hand, there could be a person who lives alone, perhaps has no close family + friends.
Their pet may fill an empty void in their heart.
So when said pet passes away, the individual may grieve deeply.

Each situation is unique along w/the circumstances.
To collectively claim that a person who is too grief-stricken to come into their job should be automatically canned is plain cruel.[/quote]

Nope.  I would definitely say that I'm an animal person.

My mother and I ran the cat portion of a rescue for 3 years, fostering non-lactating adults, older juveniles and pregnant females (temporarily, while we waited for a foster home to open after a lactating mom weaned).  We found foster homes for pregnant moms, litters of kittens with lactating moms, and special needs cats.  When we had litters come in without the mother, we switched off around the clock to feed the babies and keep them alive.  We did intakes for every single cat that came into the rescue, decided on how much work they would need before placement, what to do when there were medical cases, what home environment each cat should have, etc.  We worked with the local humane society and animal control to save as many cats as possible from death row (by running adoption events through animal control for just death row as well as pulling as many animals as we could from death row on their last day to foster and adopt out), did intake and pick up during mobile low cost spay-neuter days in low income neighborhoods (to free up techs to actually work with the animals, so that more could be altered in a single day), helped run the local trap/treat/release for ferals with the object of decreasing kittens while keeping the colony stable so that others didn't move in, etc.  We worked with rescues nationally to transfer any recognizable breed into breed-specific rescues and helped the rescue runs that take vans of animals from high-kill areas to states that have lower numbers of animals needing adoption (and therefore more people who can/will adopt).  We had all of the non-rescue volunteer fosters drop off drop off litters the night before adoption events, and we spent from 4 am to 10 pm on adoption days working nonstop, all to adopt out as many cats and kittens as we could.  We worked with the long-term fosters on socialization (which sometimes involved sitting without moving, even when attacked or sprayed during an intake evaluation), and I still have scars on my arms from immobilizing nearly feral cats for vaccines.  My mother and I had to make the decisions about when a cat or kitten had had enough and should be put to sleep, and we continually did fundraising with local businesses with the goal to never put an animal to sleep due to lack of funds for medical care.

My mother's bottle baby was 1 week old when she came into the rescue.  We handfed all four in the litter, and three survived (75% survival was amazing, but we were still torn up over the one who died).  Two were adopted out easily, but Gwen bonded to my mother and my mother didn't want to let her go.  She walked on a leash, took baths with my mother, rode inside her hood on her neck/shoulder, etc.  When we moved and transferred all of the long-term fosters, my mother officially adopted Gwen.  When my siblings and I were gone, it was just my mother and Gwen.  Gwen passed a few years ago, put to sleep for a quieter death when she stopped eating and using the bathroom, after 21 years with my mother.  My mother was a mess, just like she was when her brother died when I was a young child.  The difference is that she knew she could take days off when her brother died, to help her mother arrange his funeral.  She did NOT take time off for Gwen, as the arrangements for a pet are much quicker and easier.

Taking time off after a death has nothing to do with grief.  It has everything to do with whether you are the one making arrangements.  Presumably, if you spouse, child or parent died, you'll be involved in the funeral process.  It's less likely that you'll be directly involved with the planning for a grandparent, grandchild, aunt or uncle, niece or nephew, but most people would want to attend the funeral, even if they're on the other side of the country.  Some people attend funerals for all cousins, some only attend for people that they were close to, some don't attend any.  However, businesses have to create guidelines for everyone, not decide on each individual basis.  Therefore most have bereavement leave either as a generic amount or as a tiered number of days depending on separation (and the presumed likelihood that you'll be involved with the funeral planning).  Special cases can still ask for more time, not for grief, but for time to handle the planning.

My grandmother was executor for her grandmother, great-aunt and mother.  She needed extra days off from school for to handle the logistics of her grandmother's and great-aunt's funerals, not because she needed to grieve longer.  When her son died, she was a basketcase for two days, and my mother handled the necessary preparations, but when her bereavement days were over, she went back to work.  She was on autopilot for at least 6 months, in a fog and not understanding, because nobody expects a healthy man in his 20s to go to sleep and never wake up.

I am executor for my grandmother, mother, father, sister and brother.  I am crystal clear with my employers (during contract negotiations) about needing 2 weeks off if any of them pass, because I'm out-of-state and would need to be present for some of the arrangements; the likelihood is much higher for my grandmother and sister, but I'm realistic enough to know that things happen.  As much as I love animals, I wouldn't need 2 weeks; for a human death I would need two weeks to arrange the funeral, deal with the VA, contact all the relatives, arrange sleeping quarters and transportation for those unable to arrange it themselves, etc.

This comes down to understanding that days off are for dealing with logistics, not grieving.  Most people don't get over a death in the day to 2 weeks they have off from a job.  Heck, people don't "get over" a death, unless they had little to no attachment to the one who died.  But life moves on, and that's what I teach kids, both when their pets die and when their grandparents pass.  Feelings are valid, but everyone still has to continue with the rest of their lives.[/quote]

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