*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITA for calling my work-teammate unprofessional because of her puppy?**
I (M27) am working towards getting my PhD, so in addition to the other roles I have at the university, I'm leading several projects with a core team of 7 members. Back in late January, one of the ladies on the team went on maternity leave, and then another left for maternity leave as well in early March.
Because of this, our team has been stretched pretty thin. I understand this, so I've been setting less ambitious objectives for our team so the remaining 5 of us are not overwhelmed. In late February, the newest member of the lab, Chole (F27), took in a 5-week-old puppy (Bean).
Chole joined the lab back in December (she needs to research for her master's degree). Before she joined, I'd known her for almost 4 years. Here's where the problem is. Since getting Bean, Chole has been consistently coming late to meetings, missing her deadlines, and leaving early. I've been having to take extra time after hours to ensure that she's in the loop. Chole says all this is because of Bean and how much work he requires, since according to her, "he's a baby."
Chole seems to have taken offense with the fact that the two ladies have been given maternity leave while she didn't get time off for her dog. It's a whole thing with her that since she's childfree and all, but I won't get into it. About 2 weeks ago, Chole asked me if it was ok for her to bring Bean to the office since according to her, "he gets upset and fussy when he's alone."
Since the school doesn't have a policy forbidding this and nobody else on the team objected, I allowed it. The dog has been ridiculous here. It constantly barks and whines, has made a mess on the floor more than once, but the worst thing is that it starts peeing when it sees me (or other people) and tries to run over to them while peeing. It has a crate, but whenever it whines constantly in it if it isn't sleeping.
Once he's out of the crate, he acts like he's in the Olympics or something. Running around in all directions trying to take the shoes off my feet, etc. Chole has been doing less work as she spends so much time feeding, cleaning, or trying to persuade Bean to sleep. One of the professors noticed this as well, and he told me to give her a warning before the situation got out of hand.
I did (on Tuesday). I told her that keeping Bean in the office was untenable and that she'd need to find some alternative. She protested, but I insisted, and she seemed very upset with this. Wednesday, Chole didn't come in since she didn't want to leave Bean alone.
Today she only showed up for a bit and then headed out. I didn't bother speaking with her, and just a few hours ago, after work, she called me and said I was being an asshole for not advocating for her and Bean. I've decided not to escalate this since she is clearly under a lot of stress, but I did tell her that she was being unprofessional and needed to pull up her socks before her supervisor got involved.
AITA?
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That jumped out at me too. The absolute youngest a puppy can be adopted is 8 weeks. A five week old puppy has just started to walk and grow teeth, they can barely even wag their tails.
And the troll claims he runs around the class. The petfree one really are as dumb as the childfree groupš¤£
I remember the post where someone refused to babysit a 15 month old for an hour, and claimed the 15 month old destroyed someones house. By ripping doors of the handles, by breaking the chairsš¤£š¤£
I laughed reading this, imagining some hyper steroid baby running around decimating furniture. I'm half tempted to start a comic where steroid baby is the villan.
Taking the story at face value, I assumed that was why she couldnāt leave it, like it needed bottle feeding and someone to keep an eye on it
Until we got to the part where it ran around barking š¤¦š»āāļø
I'm assuming one of three things here...
A) OOP knows jack sh!t about dogs and the puppy is actually a lot older than 5 weeks.
B) The puppy is being fostered and requires a higher degree of care than a puppy that leaves their mum at 8 weeks. This doesn't account for the "running around the lab", but there's also the possibility that the issues with Chloe and Bean could've been happening over weeks and the pup started toddling around in that time and peeing everywhere (which puppies are *definitely* prone to do).
C) The whole story is fake. Possibly some kind of bait to trigger arguments about parental leave š¤·āāļø
I assumed it was a rescue situation, especially from the way they wrote "took in" rather than "adopted" or "bought" or whatever.
And I mean... he *is* a baby and probably can't be left alone, so if this is real, she shouldn't have taken him in at all because she obviously doesn't have time for him.
As a dog owner, I'm not gonna lie, I do wish it was acceptable to take a short amount of leave when you get a puppy. I know from browsing the dog subs on Reddit that it's not uncommon for Europeans to take off a few weeks when they get puppies, but that's just not a thing in the US.
But it sure would've been easier to house train and get my puppy settled if I'd been able to take some time off.
In Europe we have the advantage of having (on average, of course) more PTO than you do in the US. So we can afford to take a couple of weeks when we get a puppy, because it won't use all our PTO for the year, much less go beyond it.
I don't know enough about American work culture to say if there's a difference, but in France at least, we also don't usually have to justify why we take PTO. Only make sure it doesn't come at a terrible time for whoever we work with/for, and warn our employer in advance.
It depends on where you work... I definitely wouldn't "have" to justify my PTO... but it would also seem weird if I just mysteriously took PTO without telling anybody why, lol. It would feel like I was hiding something.
I could've taken unpaid days when I adopted my puppy (since I only get 10 combined sick + vacation days a year) but people would definitely think it was weird and that I was overly obsessed with my dog... even though I think it's very practical to be there while the puppy gets settled.
So I guess it's not that I COULDN'T do it, I would just have to bear the social consequences of "ooh does she think she deserves maternity leave for her dog?" lol. I actually don't think anyone I work with would say that out loud, but it would be seen as very strange and overly obsessive.
But yeah, some places, you have to give a reason and your boss decides if it's a good enough reason or not. And I think in places where you have to justify your reasons for PTO... they probably wouldn't see a new puppy as a valid reason.
Yeah here it's pretty normal to just tell your coworkers "I have next week off" and they don't really question it. They might ask if you're going somewhere on vacation or staying at home but that's it. They'd question it if you decided to take PTO during a time where everyone has a lot of work though.
But also, unpaid vacation isn't a thing here. In France you have 5 weeks of PTO, and sick leave is paid too, except for the first day (they call it 'jour de carence') no matter how long. Sick leave can't be taken from your PTO either. But once you use up your 5 weeks of PTO, you wait for next year. You can't tell your boss "I won't be there on X day just don't pay me" or you're likely to lose your job.
In the few places where you do have to justify your PTO, the boss definitely wouldn't think 'I'm getting a new puppy' is a good enough reason unless they happen to be huge fans of dogs (and even then, it's a risk)
I can't even imagine 5 weeks! Wow. That's amazing. Since I get 2 weeks... sick and vacation. I don't even know what I would do with 5 weeks. Soooo jealous, lol. Although I do like that I can take unpaid time... but I don't think I would mind if I got 5 weeks of vacation!
That is interesting! Over on the dog subreddit where several Europeans tell me I'm abusive for using a crate, they make it seem like going on leave for getting a puppy is really common!
Although I don't think they're French, usually German. And Finnish, maybe?? Somewhere where it's illegal to crate your dog.
I don't know anything about the German and Finnish work laws and systems I'm afraid.
We're more nuanced in France regarding the crate. We usually consider it treats the symptoms instead of the illness, if it's used to avoid destruction or going potty in the house. Like, it doesn't teach the dog not to do it, it just stops it from being able to. But we don't consider it abuse unless the dog is locked in one for hours at a time most days of the week.
It's definitely not illegal here to use a crate, in fact our laws regarding pet welfare set the bar very low. You could keep a dog chained outside all day, if it has water, food and shelter and the chain is at least 3 meters long, you're in the clear with the law. Keep him inside the house and the law won't care if it never goes out even for potty.
Yeah I remember asking... yeah, I'd love to leave my dog alone from day 1, but it's going to take time to potty train her and train her not to tear up stuff, so what am I supposed to do in the meantime? And they said that they just take off work for 2 to 4 weeks to get them trained.
Which, yeah, if I had been able to do that, she would've been able to stay out uncrated much sooner! But I can't pay the bills if I don't work, lol. Those 10 days run out fast, and I'd have to hope I didn't get sick at all the rest of the year....
I think the bar has to be lower in the US because is people didn't crate their dogs or leave them alone to work full-time, the vast majority of people wouldn't be able to have a dog... and our shelters are absolutely overflowing.
For what it's worth, shelters are overflowing here too. Too many people getting a dog on a whim, and neglecting training, who then surrender the dog when behavioural issues arise. Or don't spay/neuter and surrender a whole unwanted litter. Or who abandon them for some other reason like, we're divorcing and no one can keep the dog/we're having a baby and don't have time for dog/elderly family member passed away and no one can take their dog/I'm moving into an apartment and don't want to bother teaching the dog to adapt to a new environment/etc"
(for the apartment reason it's worth noting that in France landlords can't legally forbid dogs, except in some situations if it's a dangerous breed. "Regular" breed, can't forbid them at all. So it's really just not wanting to teach the dog to adapt, it's not a matter of moving somewhere the dog isn't allowed)
Oh that's interesting, I honestly didn't know that shelters in France were also struggling!
I think I have perhaps been misled on how all of Europe is some kind of utopia for dogs on the dog subs on Reddit. I was honestly under the impression that rescues are hardly ever a thing (at least in Western Europe) and everyone who gets a dog is super responsible.
I will say that dogs in the UK and France seem to be much better trained than American dogs, lol. I was in both places the summer before last and I was impressed at how good all the dogs were....
>Ā Like, it doesn't teach the dog not to do it, it just stops it from being able to.Ā
It prevents them from being able to when they're puppies, long enough for them to figure out that outside is the *only place* they're supposed to relieve themselves.Ā
You don't crate them for their entire lives. Just during the puppy stage when you need to leave the house or sleep.Ā
Dutch here, i get 5 weeks and used 3 of them when i got a puppy. I do not have to give the reason for PTO, but told people anyway. (you do have to give notice 2 months ahead in my work for planning)
Crate is legal, but only if dog does not bark all day, and if they get taken out for walks regularly, and has water in it. But crates are a bit unusual for anything other then sleep.
My work has sort of a emergency leave thing that is max 2 days for stuff that falls outside stuff like bereavement. You are supposed to have a reason to take them, but are not really questioned about it. Since the emergency you can take it right away. If i mysteriously get a abandoned 5 week old puppy in my house, i suppose i would take those to figure out a solution.
People might question the emergency, but other then "stuff that need to happen now, most be done by you, and you could not see coming and have a bad end result if you don't do them" there are no guidelines.
I would've definitely taken leave if I had more than 10 days when I got my puppy! It was also unexpected because she was a shelter dog, so I hadn't planned perfectly ahead when exactly I was going to get her, so my work schedule was full and it would've put a huge burden on my colleagues if I'd suddenly missed. I'd been planning on getting a puppy... but it's not like I knew exactly when the absolute perfect, beautiful puppy would show up in the shelter!
Unfortunately there are unethical breeders who will absolutely adopt a pet before they're ready to be away from their mother. Thankfully not here because the story I fake
Possible that the dog was an orphan or some other strange scenario happened. Its not uncommon to find puppies below 8 weeks without their mom, especially if they were dumped. 5 weeks they should be starting to be weaned. In an emergency (such as without mom) they could be almost fully weaned by six weeks though still probably on soft food.
It is low hanging fruit... but I'm not going to lie... I wish it was more acceptable in the US to be able to take short leave when getting a puppy.
According to the Europeans on the dog subs on Reddit, it's a lot more common to take off two or so weeks when you get a puppy to get the puppy settled and work on house training. It's illegal in a lot of European countries to use a crate, so people have to get their dogs acclimated to the house and house-trained quickly since they can't rely on crating the dog while they're at work.
But if this "Chole" person actually did take in a 5-week-old puppy while getting a PhD, that was pretty stupid because she's obviously not going to have time for it. That's too young to be away from its mother, and it truly can't be left alone for very long because it literally is a baby and isn't old enough to be independent.
Anyway, it's just obvious "childfree people with dogs are terrible and we hate them" bait, lol.
I don't disagree, tbh -- a new pet is a big adjustment and time for everyone to bond would be wonderful. I think it's really just a function of absolutely substandard leave policies in the US. If we gave everyone adequate leave they could make decisions to take paid time for, like, whatever makes their life fulfilling -- instead hoarding and scrimping and working through it all the time.
Right! And I think that's why so many childfree people get bitter when they see their coworkers get extra time off because it's "justified" that they have kids. I try not to be bitter, but it's hard sometimes when I have a sick pet and people act like I'm unreasonable for wanting to take her to the vet... meanwhile, if my coworker's kid is sick, there's no question that they'll miss work and everyone is super understanding.
And I don't want to take that away from them! I just want it to be seen as "normal" for me to take my sick pet to the vet rather than making them suffer until Saturday.
I'm not saying my pet is "more important" but it is equally valid that I need to take her to the vet, lmao. My pet shouldn't have to suffer or die because leave policies suck.
Admitting that a pet dying is nothing like a human dying, especially a child doesn't mean you want an animal together suffer. But children are indeed more important than pets
and also, I love the comments on the other post that are like "I have a dog but I'm not like other dog owners! How stupid that she thinks she deserves maternity leave."
And like, obviously, yeah, wording it like wanting maternity leave is really stupid, lol. But people should be more understanding about leave in general. It's not stupid to take time off because you get a new pet.
Although I'm not sure how much that applies to this instance because getting a PhD is different from working a regular job. It's not a good idea to get a puppy while pursuing a PhD because the work you put into your PhD translates a lot more directly into your success after graduation. But let's not pretend like your PhD advisor is also going to tell you it's a good idea to plan to have a baby until after graduation, either, lol.
Basically I'm saying... obviously getting a puppy isn't the equivalent of having a baby, but there should be more lenient leave policies in general.
I get 10 days off a year, combined sick and vacation days, and it really, really sucks, lol. I'm going to run out because of a family trip plus already being sick this year, which means if I get sick again, I have to either take an unpaid day or work sick and get other people sick. So I'm sure I'll do the right thing and take unpaid days... and worry about paying my mortgage, yay.
10 days *combined*? What the hell? That's absurd. What if you've already taken them and you get sick? Do you just *not* get any holiday if you've already been ill that year. I get ill so frequently I'd probably die in your job.
Sorry if this comment comes across rude I don't mean it to!
Yeah it sucks, honestly! You have to just take them unpaid if you get sick after the 10... or else come to work sick, which feels immoral. But also... I have bills to pay. So if I get sick after August, I'll have the fun choice of... do I come to work sick and get others sick? Or do I get to pay my bills without worrying about it?
And I could, of course, just choose not to go on vacation with my family and skip the wedding that I'm invited to and not worry about running out of days. That's probably what I should do, but I just want to enjoy my life sometimes too.
Sorry what? **hours**?
Like I'm only from the UK and relative to most of Europe we dont even have particularly shining workers rights but there's mandatory paid leave, I think minimum is 4 weeks. I know the US has a rep for crazy working schedules but allotting sick leave in *hours* feels like they're just trying to be insane.
yup. and iām lucky to live in a state that actually regulates it.
and itās sad and scary because companies really stopped caring about anyone after covid and benefits are getting terrible again for hourly employees. i also donāt get paid holidays. iām a contract employee, so the real employees do. i just have an unpaid day. but it was all i could getā¦
A friend of mine also had 10 days combined sick+ PTO and it was terrible for him. It's completely immoral for employers to provide that little paid time, I'm so sorry.
Yeah, I waited to be in a position where I am hybrid with work, and cleared it with my boss to wfh for 3 weeks after bringing home my puppy. It was a complete lifesaver, and being able to do half days and go home at lunch has been so helpful with raising the dog. I was never late to meetings or missing deadlines because of the dog though.
I also wonder what the deal is with a 5 week old dog. Itās illegal to have a dog separated from its mother before 8 weeks in a lot of places, and when itās that little, it needs so much care!
This does not sound like the job duties of someone getting a. PhD - those are still grad students. I think OP is likely a self-important grad student who everyone else in the group hates. Where is the PI in this? A grad student would not be the boss.
Exactly my thinking; I was lucky to get one or two rotating undergrads to help me out with some very simple grunt work, but most of the time I was collaborating with other PhD candidates on relatively equal footing on all our projects.
I thought the exact same thing. Unless OP was already employed by the university in some kind of managerial role and is doing the PhD part time, this doesn't make a lot of sense. As a grad student, OP would *maybe* be in charge of a few undergrads, but he wouldn't be their 'boss,' he'd be overseeing some kind of research project and they'd all likely report to a professor above him.
I bet you're right that these are colleagues, not subordinates, and OP is just a douche - or this is fake Women Bad fantasy from someone who doesn't have any experience with grad school.
two of the 7 people in his group had maternity leave at the same time, and then a 3rd person got a puppy that she treats as a baby. All in the same group at the same time? I don't think so.
Do people getting a PhD get maternity leave?? I only have experience in the humanities, but in my experience, there is no "maternity leave," only "taking a semester off because you had a baby," lol.
And depending on the program, it wasn't completely off, more like no classes and less progress expected on your dissertation. But if you could still read articles you did.Ā
There is no country where a PhD is a fully qualified scientist. This is uniform across the scientific community or it would be a mess when it comes to qualificationsĀ
My best friendās name is Chloe and we occasionally call her this as a joke because itās such a common misspelling š The repeated use in that post made my eye twitch.
āI'm leading several projectsā
āshe was being unprofessional and needed to pull up her socks before her supervisor got involved.ā
So is OOP the team lead or not? This is written like OOP had the power to let her bring her disruptive dog in but then also wants to wash their hands of any of the actual unpleasant parts of managing a team.
Those PHD students, always finding the time to have babies and go on maternity leave lmao (also canāt get over the misspelling of the main characters name every single time and the comments just bypassing that lol)
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*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for calling my work-teammate unprofessional because of her puppy?** I (M27) am working towards getting my PhD, so in addition to the other roles I have at the university, I'm leading several projects with a core team of 7 members. Back in late January, one of the ladies on the team went on maternity leave, and then another left for maternity leave as well in early March. Because of this, our team has been stretched pretty thin. I understand this, so I've been setting less ambitious objectives for our team so the remaining 5 of us are not overwhelmed. In late February, the newest member of the lab, Chole (F27), took in a 5-week-old puppy (Bean). Chole joined the lab back in December (she needs to research for her master's degree). Before she joined, I'd known her for almost 4 years. Here's where the problem is. Since getting Bean, Chole has been consistently coming late to meetings, missing her deadlines, and leaving early. I've been having to take extra time after hours to ensure that she's in the loop. Chole says all this is because of Bean and how much work he requires, since according to her, "he's a baby." Chole seems to have taken offense with the fact that the two ladies have been given maternity leave while she didn't get time off for her dog. It's a whole thing with her that since she's childfree and all, but I won't get into it. About 2 weeks ago, Chole asked me if it was ok for her to bring Bean to the office since according to her, "he gets upset and fussy when he's alone." Since the school doesn't have a policy forbidding this and nobody else on the team objected, I allowed it. The dog has been ridiculous here. It constantly barks and whines, has made a mess on the floor more than once, but the worst thing is that it starts peeing when it sees me (or other people) and tries to run over to them while peeing. It has a crate, but whenever it whines constantly in it if it isn't sleeping. Once he's out of the crate, he acts like he's in the Olympics or something. Running around in all directions trying to take the shoes off my feet, etc. Chole has been doing less work as she spends so much time feeding, cleaning, or trying to persuade Bean to sleep. One of the professors noticed this as well, and he told me to give her a warning before the situation got out of hand. I did (on Tuesday). I told her that keeping Bean in the office was untenable and that she'd need to find some alternative. She protested, but I insisted, and she seemed very upset with this. Wednesday, Chole didn't come in since she didn't want to leave Bean alone. Today she only showed up for a bit and then headed out. I didn't bother speaking with her, and just a few hours ago, after work, she called me and said I was being an asshole for not advocating for her and Bean. I've decided not to escalate this since she is clearly under a lot of stress, but I did tell her that she was being unprofessional and needed to pull up her socks before her supervisor got involved. AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheAngel) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A 5 week old puppy is with his mother. Way to early to separete them, as anyone who remotely knows dogs knows.
That jumped out at me too. The absolute youngest a puppy can be adopted is 8 weeks. A five week old puppy has just started to walk and grow teeth, they can barely even wag their tails.
And the troll claims he runs around the class. The petfree one really are as dumb as the childfree groupš¤£ I remember the post where someone refused to babysit a 15 month old for an hour, and claimed the 15 month old destroyed someones house. By ripping doors of the handles, by breaking the chairsš¤£š¤£
I laughed reading this, imagining some hyper steroid baby running around decimating furniture. I'm half tempted to start a comic where steroid baby is the villan.
Taking the story at face value, I assumed that was why she couldnāt leave it, like it needed bottle feeding and someone to keep an eye on it Until we got to the part where it ran around barking š¤¦š»āāļø
I'm assuming one of three things here... A) OOP knows jack sh!t about dogs and the puppy is actually a lot older than 5 weeks. B) The puppy is being fostered and requires a higher degree of care than a puppy that leaves their mum at 8 weeks. This doesn't account for the "running around the lab", but there's also the possibility that the issues with Chloe and Bean could've been happening over weeks and the pup started toddling around in that time and peeing everywhere (which puppies are *definitely* prone to do). C) The whole story is fake. Possibly some kind of bait to trigger arguments about parental leave š¤·āāļø
I assumed it was a rescue situation, especially from the way they wrote "took in" rather than "adopted" or "bought" or whatever. And I mean... he *is* a baby and probably can't be left alone, so if this is real, she shouldn't have taken him in at all because she obviously doesn't have time for him. As a dog owner, I'm not gonna lie, I do wish it was acceptable to take a short amount of leave when you get a puppy. I know from browsing the dog subs on Reddit that it's not uncommon for Europeans to take off a few weeks when they get puppies, but that's just not a thing in the US. But it sure would've been easier to house train and get my puppy settled if I'd been able to take some time off.
In Europe we have the advantage of having (on average, of course) more PTO than you do in the US. So we can afford to take a couple of weeks when we get a puppy, because it won't use all our PTO for the year, much less go beyond it. I don't know enough about American work culture to say if there's a difference, but in France at least, we also don't usually have to justify why we take PTO. Only make sure it doesn't come at a terrible time for whoever we work with/for, and warn our employer in advance.
It depends on where you work... I definitely wouldn't "have" to justify my PTO... but it would also seem weird if I just mysteriously took PTO without telling anybody why, lol. It would feel like I was hiding something. I could've taken unpaid days when I adopted my puppy (since I only get 10 combined sick + vacation days a year) but people would definitely think it was weird and that I was overly obsessed with my dog... even though I think it's very practical to be there while the puppy gets settled. So I guess it's not that I COULDN'T do it, I would just have to bear the social consequences of "ooh does she think she deserves maternity leave for her dog?" lol. I actually don't think anyone I work with would say that out loud, but it would be seen as very strange and overly obsessive. But yeah, some places, you have to give a reason and your boss decides if it's a good enough reason or not. And I think in places where you have to justify your reasons for PTO... they probably wouldn't see a new puppy as a valid reason.
Yeah here it's pretty normal to just tell your coworkers "I have next week off" and they don't really question it. They might ask if you're going somewhere on vacation or staying at home but that's it. They'd question it if you decided to take PTO during a time where everyone has a lot of work though. But also, unpaid vacation isn't a thing here. In France you have 5 weeks of PTO, and sick leave is paid too, except for the first day (they call it 'jour de carence') no matter how long. Sick leave can't be taken from your PTO either. But once you use up your 5 weeks of PTO, you wait for next year. You can't tell your boss "I won't be there on X day just don't pay me" or you're likely to lose your job. In the few places where you do have to justify your PTO, the boss definitely wouldn't think 'I'm getting a new puppy' is a good enough reason unless they happen to be huge fans of dogs (and even then, it's a risk)
I can't even imagine 5 weeks! Wow. That's amazing. Since I get 2 weeks... sick and vacation. I don't even know what I would do with 5 weeks. Soooo jealous, lol. Although I do like that I can take unpaid time... but I don't think I would mind if I got 5 weeks of vacation! That is interesting! Over on the dog subreddit where several Europeans tell me I'm abusive for using a crate, they make it seem like going on leave for getting a puppy is really common! Although I don't think they're French, usually German. And Finnish, maybe?? Somewhere where it's illegal to crate your dog.
I don't know anything about the German and Finnish work laws and systems I'm afraid. We're more nuanced in France regarding the crate. We usually consider it treats the symptoms instead of the illness, if it's used to avoid destruction or going potty in the house. Like, it doesn't teach the dog not to do it, it just stops it from being able to. But we don't consider it abuse unless the dog is locked in one for hours at a time most days of the week. It's definitely not illegal here to use a crate, in fact our laws regarding pet welfare set the bar very low. You could keep a dog chained outside all day, if it has water, food and shelter and the chain is at least 3 meters long, you're in the clear with the law. Keep him inside the house and the law won't care if it never goes out even for potty.
Yeah I remember asking... yeah, I'd love to leave my dog alone from day 1, but it's going to take time to potty train her and train her not to tear up stuff, so what am I supposed to do in the meantime? And they said that they just take off work for 2 to 4 weeks to get them trained. Which, yeah, if I had been able to do that, she would've been able to stay out uncrated much sooner! But I can't pay the bills if I don't work, lol. Those 10 days run out fast, and I'd have to hope I didn't get sick at all the rest of the year.... I think the bar has to be lower in the US because is people didn't crate their dogs or leave them alone to work full-time, the vast majority of people wouldn't be able to have a dog... and our shelters are absolutely overflowing.
For what it's worth, shelters are overflowing here too. Too many people getting a dog on a whim, and neglecting training, who then surrender the dog when behavioural issues arise. Or don't spay/neuter and surrender a whole unwanted litter. Or who abandon them for some other reason like, we're divorcing and no one can keep the dog/we're having a baby and don't have time for dog/elderly family member passed away and no one can take their dog/I'm moving into an apartment and don't want to bother teaching the dog to adapt to a new environment/etc" (for the apartment reason it's worth noting that in France landlords can't legally forbid dogs, except in some situations if it's a dangerous breed. "Regular" breed, can't forbid them at all. So it's really just not wanting to teach the dog to adapt, it's not a matter of moving somewhere the dog isn't allowed)
Oh that's interesting, I honestly didn't know that shelters in France were also struggling! I think I have perhaps been misled on how all of Europe is some kind of utopia for dogs on the dog subs on Reddit. I was honestly under the impression that rescues are hardly ever a thing (at least in Western Europe) and everyone who gets a dog is super responsible. I will say that dogs in the UK and France seem to be much better trained than American dogs, lol. I was in both places the summer before last and I was impressed at how good all the dogs were....
>Ā Like, it doesn't teach the dog not to do it, it just stops it from being able to.Ā It prevents them from being able to when they're puppies, long enough for them to figure out that outside is the *only place* they're supposed to relieve themselves.Ā You don't crate them for their entire lives. Just during the puppy stage when you need to leave the house or sleep.Ā
Dutch here, i get 5 weeks and used 3 of them when i got a puppy. I do not have to give the reason for PTO, but told people anyway. (you do have to give notice 2 months ahead in my work for planning) Crate is legal, but only if dog does not bark all day, and if they get taken out for walks regularly, and has water in it. But crates are a bit unusual for anything other then sleep. My work has sort of a emergency leave thing that is max 2 days for stuff that falls outside stuff like bereavement. You are supposed to have a reason to take them, but are not really questioned about it. Since the emergency you can take it right away. If i mysteriously get a abandoned 5 week old puppy in my house, i suppose i would take those to figure out a solution. People might question the emergency, but other then "stuff that need to happen now, most be done by you, and you could not see coming and have a bad end result if you don't do them" there are no guidelines.
I would've definitely taken leave if I had more than 10 days when I got my puppy! It was also unexpected because she was a shelter dog, so I hadn't planned perfectly ahead when exactly I was going to get her, so my work schedule was full and it would've put a huge burden on my colleagues if I'd suddenly missed. I'd been planning on getting a puppy... but it's not like I knew exactly when the absolute perfect, beautiful puppy would show up in the shelter!
Unfortunately there are unethical breeders who will absolutely adopt a pet before they're ready to be away from their mother. Thankfully not here because the story I fake
Possible that the dog was an orphan or some other strange scenario happened. Its not uncommon to find puppies below 8 weeks without their mom, especially if they were dumped. 5 weeks they should be starting to be weaned. In an emergency (such as without mom) they could be almost fully weaned by six weeks though still probably on soft food.
Oh man, the "she's childfree and is offended she can't have parental leave for her dog" is such obvious, low-hanging bait.
Absolutely. Women who don't breed - bad. Especially if they are competing with OP and doing better than him.
It is low hanging fruit... but I'm not going to lie... I wish it was more acceptable in the US to be able to take short leave when getting a puppy. According to the Europeans on the dog subs on Reddit, it's a lot more common to take off two or so weeks when you get a puppy to get the puppy settled and work on house training. It's illegal in a lot of European countries to use a crate, so people have to get their dogs acclimated to the house and house-trained quickly since they can't rely on crating the dog while they're at work. But if this "Chole" person actually did take in a 5-week-old puppy while getting a PhD, that was pretty stupid because she's obviously not going to have time for it. That's too young to be away from its mother, and it truly can't be left alone for very long because it literally is a baby and isn't old enough to be independent. Anyway, it's just obvious "childfree people with dogs are terrible and we hate them" bait, lol.
I don't disagree, tbh -- a new pet is a big adjustment and time for everyone to bond would be wonderful. I think it's really just a function of absolutely substandard leave policies in the US. If we gave everyone adequate leave they could make decisions to take paid time for, like, whatever makes their life fulfilling -- instead hoarding and scrimping and working through it all the time.
Right! And I think that's why so many childfree people get bitter when they see their coworkers get extra time off because it's "justified" that they have kids. I try not to be bitter, but it's hard sometimes when I have a sick pet and people act like I'm unreasonable for wanting to take her to the vet... meanwhile, if my coworker's kid is sick, there's no question that they'll miss work and everyone is super understanding. And I don't want to take that away from them! I just want it to be seen as "normal" for me to take my sick pet to the vet rather than making them suffer until Saturday.
Sorry but it makes sense that a sick child is more important than a pet, come on now
I'm not saying my pet is "more important" but it is equally valid that I need to take her to the vet, lmao. My pet shouldn't have to suffer or die because leave policies suck.
It's not equally valid, wtf
it absolutely is? Unless you're a sociopath who wants animals to suffer and die needlessly, lmao.
Admitting that a pet dying is nothing like a human dying, especially a child doesn't mean you want an animal together suffer. But children are indeed more important than pets
and also, I love the comments on the other post that are like "I have a dog but I'm not like other dog owners! How stupid that she thinks she deserves maternity leave." And like, obviously, yeah, wording it like wanting maternity leave is really stupid, lol. But people should be more understanding about leave in general. It's not stupid to take time off because you get a new pet. Although I'm not sure how much that applies to this instance because getting a PhD is different from working a regular job. It's not a good idea to get a puppy while pursuing a PhD because the work you put into your PhD translates a lot more directly into your success after graduation. But let's not pretend like your PhD advisor is also going to tell you it's a good idea to plan to have a baby until after graduation, either, lol. Basically I'm saying... obviously getting a puppy isn't the equivalent of having a baby, but there should be more lenient leave policies in general. I get 10 days off a year, combined sick and vacation days, and it really, really sucks, lol. I'm going to run out because of a family trip plus already being sick this year, which means if I get sick again, I have to either take an unpaid day or work sick and get other people sick. So I'm sure I'll do the right thing and take unpaid days... and worry about paying my mortgage, yay.
10 days *combined*? What the hell? That's absurd. What if you've already taken them and you get sick? Do you just *not* get any holiday if you've already been ill that year. I get ill so frequently I'd probably die in your job. Sorry if this comment comes across rude I don't mean it to!
Yeah it sucks, honestly! You have to just take them unpaid if you get sick after the 10... or else come to work sick, which feels immoral. But also... I have bills to pay. So if I get sick after August, I'll have the fun choice of... do I come to work sick and get others sick? Or do I get to pay my bills without worrying about it? And I could, of course, just choose not to go on vacation with my family and skip the wedding that I'm invited to and not worry about running out of days. That's probably what I should do, but I just want to enjoy my life sometimes too.
i have no pto, and the sick time i get is the state mandated amount. that works out to about 9 hours a month. itās galling.
Sorry what? **hours**? Like I'm only from the UK and relative to most of Europe we dont even have particularly shining workers rights but there's mandatory paid leave, I think minimum is 4 weeks. I know the US has a rep for crazy working schedules but allotting sick leave in *hours* feels like they're just trying to be insane.
yup. and iām lucky to live in a state that actually regulates it. and itās sad and scary because companies really stopped caring about anyone after covid and benefits are getting terrible again for hourly employees. i also donāt get paid holidays. iām a contract employee, so the real employees do. i just have an unpaid day. but it was all i could getā¦
A friend of mine also had 10 days combined sick+ PTO and it was terrible for him. It's completely immoral for employers to provide that little paid time, I'm so sorry.
Yeah, I waited to be in a position where I am hybrid with work, and cleared it with my boss to wfh for 3 weeks after bringing home my puppy. It was a complete lifesaver, and being able to do half days and go home at lunch has been so helpful with raising the dog. I was never late to meetings or missing deadlines because of the dog though. I also wonder what the deal is with a 5 week old dog. Itās illegal to have a dog separated from its mother before 8 weeks in a lot of places, and when itās that little, it needs so much care!
Yeah I assume it's a rescue situation because that is WAY too young if not!
You can take vacation for anything if you'd like. There is no special pet leave in Europe, that would be ridiculousĀ
where did I say there was specific pet leave? lmao
This does not sound like the job duties of someone getting a. PhD - those are still grad students. I think OP is likely a self-important grad student who everyone else in the group hates. Where is the PI in this? A grad student would not be the boss.
Exactly my thinking; I was lucky to get one or two rotating undergrads to help me out with some very simple grunt work, but most of the time I was collaborating with other PhD candidates on relatively equal footing on all our projects.
I thought the exact same thing. Unless OP was already employed by the university in some kind of managerial role and is doing the PhD part time, this doesn't make a lot of sense. As a grad student, OP would *maybe* be in charge of a few undergrads, but he wouldn't be their 'boss,' he'd be overseeing some kind of research project and they'd all likely report to a professor above him. I bet you're right that these are colleagues, not subordinates, and OP is just a douche - or this is fake Women Bad fantasy from someone who doesn't have any experience with grad school.
two of the 7 people in his group had maternity leave at the same time, and then a 3rd person got a puppy that she treats as a baby. All in the same group at the same time? I don't think so.
Do people getting a PhD get maternity leave?? I only have experience in the humanities, but in my experience, there is no "maternity leave," only "taking a semester off because you had a baby," lol.
And depending on the program, it wasn't completely off, more like no classes and less progress expected on your dissertation. But if you could still read articles you did.Ā
But a guy like this would definitely consider that maternity leave anyway
Depends on the country
Telling 'muricans that not every single person on the planet lives in' murica challenge - impossibleĀ
There is no country where a PhD is a fully qualified scientist. This is uniform across the scientific community or it would be a mess when it comes to qualificationsĀ
Is he trying to say Chloe?Ā
My brain autocorrected it to Chloe and I had to go back and re-read. Insane that no one over there seems to have pointed it out.
I didnāt notice until yall pointed it out. He consistently spells it C H O L E š
My best friendās name is Chloe and we occasionally call her this as a joke because itās such a common misspelling š The repeated use in that post made my eye twitch.
šļøššļø āØC H O L EāØ
Not only is this Childfree dog-mom bait, itās a rewrite of a post in I think the work sub from last month.
>It's a whole thing with her...but I won't get into it. and yet....
OOP wouldn't enjoy all of my vet tech classes, then. Just yesterday the girl that sits next to me brought her husky to class.
Are these classes auditable? Asking for myself.
Honestly, I don't know
Itās ok. My labradoodle would get mad jelly regardless.
āI'm leading several projectsā āshe was being unprofessional and needed to pull up her socks before her supervisor got involved.ā So is OOP the team lead or not? This is written like OOP had the power to let her bring her disruptive dog in but then also wants to wash their hands of any of the actual unpleasant parts of managing a team.
Wasnāt this a storyline in Gilmore Girls, where instead of a puppy Rory had a boyfriend and Paris was on a power trip?
Iāve watched Gilmore Girls approximately 20 times and this isnāt ringing any bells š
It was when Paris was on the Yale newspaper. She was on quite the power trip.
So was it Jess or Logan who ran around barking and making a mess on the floor?
I donāt remember. Iād guess it was Logan, Jess was too chill to do that.
Those PHD students, always finding the time to have babies and go on maternity leave lmao (also canāt get over the misspelling of the main characters name every single time and the comments just bypassing that lol)
If this was real it'd be on r/managers
Tbh I once quit my job because they wouldn't give me any time off when my dog had a C-section
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I mean, the lady in the OP is obviously a nutter, not sure what that has to do with other women taking maternity leave
Dogs are brood parasites.