A while ago I wrote a page about taking your cat to work. I queried why it happened so infrequently. The workplaces I have been in all my life were pretty cold at an emotional level, almost hostile if I am honest. Looking back I don’t how I put up with it. Since building this website (with the participation of others) I have visited Google offices several times. They are amazing offices, very relaxed and a home from home but even they lack a soul that a cat brings to the workplace. In fact they bring much more including some fun and emotional warmth. For me that is important, making the workplace somewhere that you enjoy going to. Surely it must make an employee more productive? Provided the cat was not too much of a distraction.
I went in search of “cat in the workplace pictures” as a follow up. And guess, what? I could hardly find any. Almost the only workplace that has a cat is the office at home. There are a lot of home workers these days so you will see cats in home offices. Here is a nice example.
Cat at workplace home office. Photo by pescatello.
Below is another nice picture of a cat in the workplace. This is an example of a cat actually working 🙂
Source: Uploaded by user via Trine on Pinterest
Please note that the pictures below are embedded files from Pinterest. They may disappear one day. If so you’ll understand why they are no longer on the page as I have no control over that event.
The next are all cats and books – either a library or book shop. Cats and books go brilliantly together.
Library cat
Book shop cat
Book shop cat
Book shop cat
Perhaps one of the most celebrated cats in the workplace was (still is?) Station Master cat in Japan. She helped improve customer service and company profits.
Look, if the Prime Minister of the UK can have a cat at No 10 Downing Street so can lots of other workplaces. He is Larry the mouser of Downing Street fighting with the Foreign Office cat Palmerston. He was rehomed from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.
Larry and Palmerston fighting recently. Photo: STEVE BACK.
A cat in a workplace usually refers to a home office, shop, café or industrial unit but rarely the conventional office. Isn’t it time for a change?
A couple of pages relating to cats at work are:
Cats thrive in closed work environments where they have a somewhat free reign. Google “hotel cat” so see some examples of cats living it large in swanky metropolitan hotels. A couple even have job titles!
http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/110104-algonquin-matilda-jm_5978.grid-6×2.jpg
What I would call enlightened and progressive thinking with a touch of gentleness and humanity – the places who give their resident cats a job title. There was one in the paper today. A ginger tabby who walked into Linton Zoo and looked after the lion cubs and other newborn animals. He was the nurturer-in-chief. He died very recently. He is sorely missed by the zoo staff.
A City of Phoenix worker was arrested and jailed for abuse on a dog. Just wanted to share an example at how Arizonian’s view of animal abuse changed over the last 30 years for the better. Poor dog. Animal cruelty makes me so mad!
Cats and warehouses make a lot of sense to me, but it makes just as much sense having them around at any business. Cats attract good people. I would certainly go out of my way to frequent a shop that had a cat or two to greet me each visit. We’re dog-sitting this weekend! I’d rather it be a cat or two, but any animal my sister can breath around is better than no animal at all. Look for dog at work photos. I bet you’ll find more. Not that it’s right or anything. I just see them more frequently on Pinterest and Flickr.
Nice thought Dan. If there is a cat in a business it is more likely the business will be managed by a decent employer as you say. Therefore it should be a good place to work. And warehouses, theatres, storage facilities should all employ a cat as you suggest. It has to be a win-win. But people aren’t imaginative enough. They play safe too much.
Apparently Larry was caught sleeping on the job – literally a mouse scampered past sleeping Larry. Apparently he also has a girlfriend now too from just up the road. I’m glad they keep him around regardless. 🙂
LOL. I am very surprised (not) to hear that Larry was sleeping on the job. He should get a verbal warning. A fat lot of good it would do though. Larry would defend himself by saying that his presence alone improved the work environment. Mousing is a bonus.
lol, yes, true. The bit about the girlfriend comes from reports of them being seen together hanging out in St James’ Park. She’s called Maisy, I think she’s on Larry’s Facebook page, she’s a tabby. Apparently Larry doesn’t particularly like men but he did rather like President Obama. He also has a ‘co-worker’ – another tabby called Frey from a couple houses up who seems a bit better at catching mice than Larry. I think Freya is the Chancellor’s cat. Larry and Freya have been seen scrapping recently. It is said the prime minister officially gave Freya a shared responsibilty as Chief Mouser because of that time a mouse ran past and Larry just opened one eye and didn’t move when alerted to the fact since he was asleep to begin with. I guess he felt Larry needed an extra set of paws but its is also said that Larry is not happy about Freya and is quite open about the fact 🙂
There’s a good page about the Nations Chief Mouser’s of past til present. I will email you the link Michael.
It worries me that there are many people who don’t like cats, some even hate them, so who is to say in a place where there are a lot of employees, that the cat wouldn’t be slyly ill treated by some?
Our late dad used to work at a Wagon Works, repairing trains and there were a lot of cats there, neutering wasn’t done much those days and kittens were often dumped there and he although he didn’t like cats, would feed the ones in his department. But some of the men who worked there were unkind to them.
So small businesses where everyone agreed to treat the cats kindly, yes, but I don’t think it’s fair on cats otherwise.
But I look at things from the cats point of view and most cats don’t like travelling so yes resident cats in small businesses maybe, but then think about holiday times when the place is closed down and the cat alone.
Only my opinion of course but I don’t think it’s right although it’s better then being homeless of course.
I basically agree with your comment Ruth. Its far from ideal but there are far worse form of homelessness so they must count their blessings. Its hard to know or not if somebody is privately treating them badly. This would probably show in the cats behaviour to strangers. Cats with less trust have been treated badly usually. I do worry about over trusting cats though so its just a dangerous world for any cat out there. A workplace gives them a focus and hopefully regular feeding and at least one person who cares about them at least enough to feed them. Better than total homelessness as you rightly said.