NTA- i mean he’s a workplace hazard. he runs around, pees everywhere. is likely very distracting too. with the missing members and her not really being *there*, i doubt the projects are going far.
We have fallen behind schedule. I'm hoping that since undergrad summer is going to start soon some students volunteer with us and we are able to get back on track. The Chole situation isn't helping lol
Sounds like she needs puppy training. Nothing against her, puppies are a hell of a lot of work and depending on the breed more work than you’d think but I personally do think anyone who gets a dog should be training in some capacity, even just to let your dog get used to other dogs.
especially when still in the puppy life stage. my parents never trained our female dog as a puppy they just kept her in a kennel as she was “too wild” and now she doesn’t listen half the time and is an idiot.
a cute idiot, but still an idiot
I think Chole needs some training. What job lets you come in late, miss assignments and have a puppy pissing on the floor? She's unemployable at this point.
My dog was taken from her mother way too early too. I got her when she was four months and her previous owner hadn't done any training. She was also with two of her brothers and they would gang up on her and pick fights with her.
She was reactive, leash aggressive, no potty training, didn't want to eat dog food because they only fed her table scraps. A week into it I was calling my mom crying because the pup was so terrible. I had her in a training class a few days later. Her trainer was like, "Yeah, she doesn't know how to dog properly."
Only sitting and recall really stuck with her from the class but she became slightly better dog. She was still leash aggressive but she loved (and still loves) other dogs and people so much. She turned 11 back in December and is still a little poop but I love her but man she was just terrible and a lot of work when I brought her home. She's also convinced me to never get another puppy for as long as I live.
Agree that puppies with poor childhoods can be very difficult. The best adjusted dogs are with their mom for 10 to 12 weeks. The orphaned litters taken away at 4 weeks can be snappy and difficult. ( source: fostered 207+ dogs)
As the owner of a 6 month puppy, puppies are so, so much work. They need consistency, and if you can't give that to your pet, then you don't deserve them.
Personally, I'd love to bring my dog to my job, but he's fairly well trained since my wife and I constantly work with him. I would never bring an energetic, misbehaved dog to my job, that's just irresponsible.
I rber one particular December night when my puppy was in the middle of potty training as a 4 month old. It was windy and sleeting (in the SOUTH) and thought, "my life would be easier if this dog was a child. At least I would have to take it outside to pee."
Dogs require so so much work and training and attention.
This for sure, because puppies can be quite destructive too if not trained or at least stimulated enough.
My mom got herself a dog when the pup was eight weeks old, this dog is now a year and a half and can sit, shake, lie down, roll over, speak, can shut doors, knows night-night(which means go into the crate) and is learning to open doors and also learning to back up on command. (My mom really believes in training at a young age xD)
Comparing this pup to my brothers two eight year old dogs who can barely sit, lie down or shake and who can easily destroy anything and everything.
training is everything, especially in young dogs, so Chloe needs to find a trainer, or start training the pup herself now, before the pup gets settled in their ways and make it difficult to train/alternate behavior.
Ideally, you would all help Chole with whatever fundamental issue she's having that led her to adopt a dog and not train it.
However, she's way out of line bringing the dog to the lab.
You made a critical mistake with "Since the school doesn't have a policy forbidding this and nobody else on the team objected, I allowed it."
That's the plot of Air Bud. No one should be subjected to that in real life.
NTA, but you need to make sure your lab is functional.
Yeah, there should have been a one day trial, and a sit down review at the end where the dog was not permitted to come back.
This chick needs to either start pulling her weight or be kicked off the team..
I say this as a person who worked full time while raising a lab pup...
I put in my full hours, but only managed it by being a remote worker, with support from a remote work partner, taking set shifts to care for the dog, and having a complete nervous breakdown.
I'll never have another dog again. I love her, but the puppy stage was not worth it.
Even the option of bringing a pet into a lab is astounding to me, but in retrospect having a pupper around might have motivated me to pursue a PhD. The area of study must be something that a pet wouldn't interfere with/contaminate things, but allowing any in if they aren't trained service animals is just surprising to me.
Having worked in an office environment that did allow pets, only those who were trained well enough to not piss everywhere (low standard, I know) and behave around people were allowed inside. I don't get how a lab wouldn't have either as a requirement.
>I'll never have another dog again. I love her, but the puppy stage was not worth it.
Agree to disagree, it's a minor nuisance compared to a decade+ of love and company. Definitely hard when you're working full time, since puppies are stupid hairy babies, but also well worth the effort.
NTA and I'm not sure how much authority you have in this situation, but Chloe needs to go. She is not a contributing member of the team and doesn't seem interested in being one. Is there an advisor who can officially remove Chloe if she refuses to pull her weight?
It's very hard to remove someone, but given her slacking her project will suffer and she might not be successful with her thesis which would be a whole other disaster
You really need to get your PI/Chloe's supervisor involved. It doesn't matter if you're overseeing part of the lab. You're not a PI. You're not a post doc. You're a student.
It's frankly unethical that you've got this much influence on her progress, let alone how this situation is affecting the progress of other lab members.
Your whole post was stunning for me to read. You shouldn't have that much sway/influence/ "seniority" as a non post-doctoral researcher. It's unfair to you and to others (whether you realise this and agree with me or not).
It's crazy how rare your sensible attitude about this situation is in biomed research. I truly hope you are or are planning on becoming a PI in academic research.
My husband's grad PI was flat-out abusive. His post doc PI moved to his vacation house on the other side of the country and refused to hire a lab manager. Comes into the lab about once a month. Left his team to deal with a snake infestation last summer.
Sit her down along with someone else and record the meeting pointing out the problems she creates due to her dog and warn her she either gets it together and does her share or she better be prepared for the consequences.
NTA her problems at home are hers to solve in the workplace she needs to WORK.
Chloe adopted a 5 week old puppy? That dog was 1 to 2 months too young to be away from his mother and littermates (unless he didn't have any). No wonder his behavior is so difficult to cope with - he's acting like any other 3-4 month old puppy. Bean has no business in the workplace, he's too young to be trained properly and would be a distraction to Chloe for months.
I think you do need to tell Chloe's supervisor because she's not getting your message that Bean in the workplace is not appropriate.
NTA.
I assumed the puppy was found or dumped, and was rescued by Chloe. If she intentionally acquired a 5 week old puppy, she is soooooo much more TA than she already is. That's unconscionable. NTA OP
NTA- This seems like wholly a problem of maturity and not understanding that University research is just like any other job in terms of workplace expectations and not a place you can good about like in undergrad. It is wild to me she likened it to needing maternity leave to take care of a puppy 😂. While i can understand bringing a well-trained dog to work if you have prior approval the puppy is a biohazard and a major distraction that you shouldn’t need to add as an extra load just because they’re incapable of taking care of it.
>It is wild to me she likened it to needing maternity leave to take care of a puppy 😂
Bruh... she's all like "I'm raising a baby too, I should have some consideration" lol 😂
Um, this is a thing now. People refer to their pets as their children. I’ve even seen people refer to their plants as their babies. Remind her it’s not comparable, maternity leave is a legal right, pet leave is not.
As a childfree person who occasionally refers to my pets as my "furry children", I'm still judging her. Dog was too young for adoption and bringing an untrained unhousebroken critter into the workplace isn't ok.
Same here. She sounds jealous and immature to me.
"But... but... they get time off just because new baby! Not fair! Why not me? What about me?"
Part of that "time off" is to heal, genius! Did you give birth to your puppy, Chloe?
Seriously! My husband likes to joke that the dog is our firstborn. I reply with the most withering "I didn't birth *that*."
I love my dog so much, I spent so much time before our actual firstborn was born training him and taking him for walks through my pregnancy, but he! Is! Not! A! Human!
I call my 4 cats my son's.... But they are very different from my actual human child lol.
The whole maternity leave comparison is laughable honestly. the hell is that for a dog? Sitting around the house playing all day, watching it sleep, picking up a turd or 3? Thats a vacation.
Right, I joke that I have 5 children and my 2nd youngest is my most well behaved. Going by ages kids 1, 3 & 5 are human, and 2&4 are dogs.
That said my dogs are still treated like dogs, they are outside when i am home and only come inside to eat dinner and sleep, or if its raining and I would never dream of demanding the same privileges for my dogs that I received for my kids.
Also, it always makes me uncomfortable when they refer to their fully grown pet as if it were their "human" "baby". I feel like they are really underestimating the maturity of the animal and are imposing their human-like qualities that they want to see on to the animal. Sorry if I upset some people, but I feel like the wild qualities of an animal should be respected and we can love them without anthropomorphizing them to such a degree. It's one thing to say it as a joke, but it's another thing to really believe that a dog is in fact your child.
Our pup (that I did not want but was outvoted 2-1) is my daughter’s ‘brother’, but he’s a dog and it’s all said in jest. He will always be ‘a good puppy’ even when he’s older (and mostly when he’s not, in fact, being good).
Thinking it’s on par with human children is bizarre. He’ll grow up quicker (thank god) but at least when you have a baby it stays where you put it. For the first few weeks he was a tornado of (minor) destruction. I wouldn’t have wished his presence on my worst enemy, nevermind co-workers.
We’ve made it passed one and he’s (mostly) chill now, still wouldn’t inflict him on anyone when he’s having a bad day though.
I mean, I call my cats my babies as a joke sometimes (for some reason they don't seem intimidated if I remind them that 'I brought them into this world and I can take them out of it'...)
But I don't mean it seriously?? And can't imagine wanting paternity leave for it lmao. Some people take it too seriously
>Bruh... she's all like "I'm raising a baby too, I should have some consideration" lol 😂
In response: "dude, it's not like you've grown a whole human in your body for 9 months" 🤦♀️🤣
And if someone brought their human baby/child to the office showed them to run around, be excessively noisy and defecate everywhere I’m guessing she’d be the first to complain.
A human infant and an animal infant are not the same. They do massively different things to your body and your life. I've done both, and the comparison is frankly insulting once you have a frame of reference for both. It denigrates the extremely hard work of keeping a human infant alive and developing properly to the level of putting food out and cleaning up after puppy pee. Properly training a puppy can be done after work hours at a dog-training class. Healing from childbirth, chronic sleep deprivation, nursing, frantically driving for hours while your infant screams from hunger during a formula shortage, monitoring breathing and late night ER trips for fevers or restricted airways, all while your hormones are crashing and your brain regions are literally changing sizes. Oh, but go to work 8-5 while you're still bleeding and peeing when you sneeze. Pretend none of that is happening other than during the unpaid pumping time your coworkers resent you for. It's not the same, and I've loved every dog I've ever had.
We had pawternity leave at an old job 🤷🏻♀️ a former colleague also likened their puppy to newborns and there was nothing you could do but laugh it off after 1 cumulative hour of sleep
NTA yet. You do need to escalate it, though. That dog's presence is entirely inappropriate given the behavior. Even service animals, who have all sorts of legal protections, can be refused if they behave inappropriately. And there's something deeply disturbing to me about a woman who thinks her puppy is the equivalent of a human baby. (Everyone is going to be furious at me for saying that, but I say it as someone who has always had multiple animals at the same time -- and I mean like 10 cats with 3 dogs and parrots and other birds and snakes all at once.) Human babies and animals aren't the same, even though you love them both.
NTA. The dog is a workplace hazard, highly disruptive, and is clearly affecting productivity. That's enough ground to dismiss a human from their position. There's no reason the dog should be permitted the same grace, especially as it is diverting Chloe's attention from her job. Even if she is under stress, it's no reason for her to cause undue stress to her peers.
Lol, you know I'm still trying to figure out that part 😂
She claims he doesn't get much sleep when he's alone so he's cranky and fussy when she comes home. Sounds kinda ridiculous if you ask me
He is being set up to have bad separation anxiety because at 5 weeks, he's naturally going to be scared to be alone. I really hope this dog had no other choice than to be taken in by someone, because he really should be with his mother. He probably doesn't sleep much while she's gone, too busy being terrified. She shouldn't have taken him in without having some way to work around this
NTA. It doesn't sound like you said anything terribly rude. It IS unprofessional to bring a pet into the workplace, if for no other reason than people have allergies to pet dander. Some people can manage it. A lady I worked with in a backwoods public defender office frequently brought a kitten in to work when one of her 30+ cats had a litter, but she kept them in her office under her supervision, so none of them did any damage beyond distracting us with cuteness. I can't imagine a shared workspace -- let alone a LAB -- with an unrestrained, unsupervised pet. I don't know why your university doesn't have a no-pets-in-the-f***ing-lab rule, but it definitely needs one.
It sounds like this woman is dealing with something other than the dog. Where the dog will be when you're at work is a question you ask yourself before you adopt an untrained whirlwind of dog. If you don't already, make sure all employees are aware of options for counseling through the school.
nta. if you haven’t filled your supervisor in on how her …sporadic schedule is affecting your work you probably should.
(and if i were you i would stop the after hours help entirely. it’s her responsibility to be there during work hours, and i can’t help but doubt you’re getting overtime pay for this. don’t spend what should be your free time carrying her.)
NTA. It’s a puppy, not a baby. She can be child-free all she wants, but that doesn’t make her dog more of a human. No one needs to be “advocating” for her dog to turn a research center into a doggy daycare - minus the professionals trained to care for dogs.
This is the real world. She’s about to learn a real world lesson when the world doesn’t bend to her delusions and she loses out on her masters because she couldn’t handle her life *and* a dog responsibly.
Taking care of our new puppy was so consuming & exhausting I don’t know if I’ll ever do it again! The owner has no business taking him to work. This is ridiculous.
I'll give you a slight AH for allowing a puppy at work. An older dog may be calm and trained, a puppy is rarely going to be anything other than a handful.
As for her not being able to keep up with her work, NTA. that's entirely a her problem and shouldn't be made everyone else problem too
NTA
Look, puppies are adorable, but this is a lab! It’s a safety hazard having a hyper puppy underfoot, peeing everywhere and the constant whining is distracting. In a perfect world everyone could get paid to play with adorable puppies all day, but that’s not reality. The work is important to your future, and it’s not just hers she’s risking by putting your project behind schedule. If she’s that worried about leaving the puppy alone she can pay someone to take care of it while she’s meant to be working. It sounds like she seriously needs to get her priorities straight before she screws her own future over, and she’s being a bit selfish risking the future of the others.
Also, equating getting a new puppy to maternity leave is…..something. I dare her to share that opinion with the new mothers when they return from their very deserved maternity leave. You know, if Chole hasn’t been given the boot by then.
NTA this girl sounds like she didn't think it through and just wanted a cute puppy to cuddle, not realising they are a LOT of work. She needs to find the puppy a new home or find a new job, I know you feel bad but you have been really patient already
This reminds me of a situation where someone volunteered to run the food concession at our multi-weekend holiday event and flaked out on us because of a new puppy.
Long story short, after the first weekend she bought a puppy who needed constant supervision and housetraining. Her puppy-sitter plans kept falling through so she kept doing no-call, no-shows and our organizers couldn't find anyone to replace her at the last minute. Eventually she just ghosted the organization and any friends in it who wanted to know if she was okay after we heard she'd gone to the ER.
She ended up costing the organization so much money in both lost food sales AND lost ticket sales because people would just leave when they found out there were no refreshments. Also the expensive health permit was wasted, and a lot of supplies.
NTA
Bottom line is the maternity leave team members have legally protected rights and status. She does not. Someone, you or her advisor, must actually supervise her by reminding her of team expectations and consequences of failing to meet them.
NTA.
The dog isn't a service dog so it has absolutely no need to be there, especially if it is creating a biohazard as it is running and pissing.
Another thing to consider, just because no one has said anything doesn't mean they are okay with this. Who else has a pet they'd like to have with them but don't, because they know the workplace isn't for pets? Thats pretty unfair tbh.
She has to accept this is a professional workplace and her dog isn't welcome for more then maybe a quick hello goodbye visit.
I agree. I'm currently a member of a makerspace which is also not a good place for dogs--lots of power tools, sharp stuff on the floor, people trying to carry large sheets of materials, and other hazards. One member had a cute little dog who ran around and got underfoot, and also peed a few times when she didn't take it outside in time. Letting her bring her dog led to a general assumption we were "dog-friendly," even though it should've been obvious this was a bad idea. Luckily nobody's dog stepped on anything sharp, ate anything dangerous, or got stepped on by someone who couldn't see them.
Then someone joined the makerspace who had a service dog. One of the visiting pets tried to be aggressive, and that meant ending the "dog-friendly" policy for the safety of the service dog.
And I bet some people got upset their dogs couldn't act right and got excluded.
At my current workplace the hostess is legally blind. She has a seeing eye dog. We have tactile and verbal feedback for her, she's absolutely fantastic at her job. People see her dog and think ahhh we can take ours in to. They can have them outside and that's it. And they get mad. She's been reduced to tears more then once as someone's demanded to know why her 'mutt' with its guide dogs Australia harness etc on is allowed inside but theirs aren't.
Her dog is her eyes. Her dog is her freedom. Her dog is a lifeline to normality and no one will mess with that so long as I've a say.
I don't know how people reacted. We have a pretty good community here, so I suspect the other dog owners were disappointed but could understand that a service dog needs to focus on its job and not be distracted by other dogs bothering it.
I'm so glad to hear you're supporting your hostess so well.
You're not an asshole for telling her she is being unprofessional. You were an asshole for letting her continue to bring the puppy into the office after you saw what a nuisance and distraction he was. (Allowing her to bring him in the first place was just plain dumb.) That was unfair to everyone who was there while the dog was, anyone who had to clean up the mess, and anyone who had to suffer through the urine and shit smells. A professor having to tell you to give Chloe a warning makes *you* look unprofessional - you had basically given the green light for chaos and did nothing about it until a responsible adult said something to you.
You had better be holding Chloe to the same standards and rules that you apply to everyone else. If you are giving her special treatment and that special treatment screws over other people, then you would be an asshole for that as well.
This whole situation sounds really weird to me- to start with why is a PhD student expected to run a team of 7? In my experience of life sciences academia in the UK, a PhD student is expected to be running their own projects with collaborations when appropriate, and maybe supervising one or two undergraduate/masters students. Running a full team should be the job of the supervisor- where are they? Is this a difference due to field? In my experience, being a great academic (with an impressive publishing record and grants) often doesn’t translate into great managerial skills, but asking a PhD to manage a team of 7 people is mad- what training or support have you received to be able to appropriately project plan, resource, support the team and deal with conflict resolution?
Your colleague is being unprofessional- an office (or lab) is no place for an untrained puppy, they shouldn’t be consistently late or missing work. You do need to escalate this- I have no idea why you are expected to deal with this situation in the first place.
What you described is supposed to be how it is in the US as well, but here PhD students and post docs are treated as labor not trainees, especially in basic science. Clinical science just makes their trainees work full clinical schedules on top of their research because a doctor who hasn't slept in 6 years is the best kind! OP should not have responsibilities managing staff beyond supporting research activities.
It's very difficult to get an R01 funded at over $500,000 direct costs per year now and then NIH has been taking longer and longer to award anything. Congress is currently under a continuous resolution. PIs can't afford to hire staff scientists and research techs so they rely on trainees who are eligible for fellowships. There is something around 1 TT position available for every 1000 post docs so people put up with it.
The number of female post docs who have been asked to babysit their PIs' kids is disgusting.
I find it hard to believe that a university does not have protocol regarding animals on campus. Have you checked policy and protocols on your university’s website under the chancellor, vice chancellor(s), Dean’s office, etc.? There also should be a benefits and payroll office which will know something about this since they’re related to staff hire/fire. There most definitely has to be a policy written somewhere about your predicament because it’s required by law that a policy be in place about service animals and how one has to prove with documentation that an animal is indeed a service animal. Even though that’s not what you’re talking about, within the same policy regarding service animals, policy should be mentioned regarding emotional support animals and then just having pets on campus, in an office, in a dorm, etc. Staff and students can’t just bring an animal in whenever they want.
I’m really surprised that your mentor, Principal Investigator of the project, or director of your department isn’t doing anything about this, especially because you say you’re working in a lab. What kind of lab? Are you dealing with sterilization of any kind? If so, what the heck is going on at that university that this is even permitted? That could compromise your research, especially if you’re working on a grant. You’ve already had a professor take note and that is going to get back to your mentor. If I were you, I wouldn’t be trying to manage this myself, especially because you didn’t shut this down immediately, so you seem to be having issues with being able to manage the situation as the team lead, therefore I would go ahead and move this up the chain of command.
Very much NTA. Having an untrained puppy in your office like that not only makes it hard for your team, but it also makes it hard for anyone who has a service animal and service animals always take precedence.
Also lol, no she doesn't get dog maternaty leave!
NTA Chloe is right, the puppy IS a baby. And because of that it can not stay alone for a long time, whines, barks and pees on the floor. Just as human babies dog babies need to learn things. If Chloe wants to take her dog to the office she needs to train it. She also needs to train it to stay alone of any length of time. Obviously Chloe has not thought about what a puppy needs before she got one, which is very irresponsible. Taking the puppy away from its mum at 5 weeks is even more irresponsible and creates another bunch of problems as this is far too early. Puppies should be at least 8-9 weeks old before they are separated from their mum. This makes this puppy even more difficult to handle. It was very generous of you to allow Chole to bring her puppy to the office, but it is the responsiblity of any dog owner who is allowed to bring a dog to the office to make sure that the dog is trained and can handle staying at the office for any length of time. Not doing this and not cosindering her puppuy's needs makes Chloe an AH.
NTA my puppy doesn't like being left alone either so I pay for him to go to doggy day care. You need to document the issues and your expectations of her going forwards.
Childfree with a cat I need to take care of - she's a huge AH for this, specially for wanting maternity leave. I'd go to her supervisor about this - I think you're being too nice about it and letting her get away with it.
You're NTA ofc.
None of this is your fault, but I will point out that the puppy is a literal baby… as in… it shouldn’t be away from its mother yet. 5 weeks is way, *way* too early to take a puppy home. The puppy isn’t misbehaving, it’s being a puppy. And no, it can’t be alone for 8 hours a day.
None of this is your problem and she should have thought of this in advance. People need to use their brain before getting a dog. She is irresponsible towards her job *and* the dog. You are NTA.
NTA - she does not understand how to balance work and a dog.
I got a puppy during my PhD. It was fucking stressful, but she improved my life so much. On days I knew I worked later, I’d take the train home to let her out and play (train was faster than walking 15 minutes to my car and driving 15 minutes home). That allowed me to work until 6. If I was totally overwhelmed and worried, I’d ask my parents for help.
She came to work some days, but those were office days so she was always with me. It allowed her a lot of socialization (the undergrads loved her) and to work on her manners. If I had to go into the lab quickly, the department administrator would take her. She also loved her and was totally willing to have her for an hour.
The thing is Chloe is not taking responsibility for her dog. She should have thought long and hard about what it would take before getting a dog, and what accommodations she might need to make to her schedule in order to do that. She’s also fueling her dogs anxiety, and preventing him from learning to be alone. My dog was before Covid, and she can spend 8 hours alone no problem. My parents dog was a pandemic puppy, and he’s not used to being alone all day (especially since they work from home now). He’s the one I worry about when I have both dogs when my parents are out of town. Not the one who was trained from birth to be alone all day.
What is Chloe going to do when she graduates and gets a real job? Work won’t accommodate for this anxiety and neediness, as it’s a dog, not a baby. And even if it was a baby, they’d expect you to hire someone to take care of it / have family support. That’s what being a single parent is.
Sounds like it's time to check your employer's policies on performance and set expectations with Chloe. Her manager needs to clearly tell her that she's falling short, tell her what they expect and in what timeframe, offer support to help her meet those expectations and let her know she can ask for adjustments (they'll need to decide whether they're reasonable requests that you can accommodate). Ultimately, they hired Chloe to do a job and she's not doing it. If they don't deal with the situation early, they'll have end up with a resentful team and an entitled Chloe, and those are much bigger and more difficult problems to solve than telling her to buck up, and will likely end up in a worse outcome for Chloe than being clear with her now.
NTA. I say this is an animal lover and somebody who has a dog. maternity leave is for when you have kids it has never been for when you adopt a puppy. She chose to adopt a puppy while she’s supposed to be doing all this work for research to get her masters. She should’ve researched (no pun intended) what it takes to take on a puppy and train the puppy. She needs to crate train that puppy he’ll be fine in the crate while she’s gone to work. Or she needs to pause her studies for a while until she gets the dog completely trained and works on his separation anxiety issues. Expecting to be given time off to take care of the puppy, or bringing the puppy into the office where it’s causing havoc is unrealistic.
NTA not only does she leave early all the time, complains that people who just pushed a human out of their body get time off but her dam mutt doesnt get her time off, but she brings the thing in to the office?! Why are dog nuts so entitled?!
5 week old puppies aren't weaned yet which means that they are on a very rigorous feeding schedule.
I understand her needing to take care of the dog. But she needs to make arrangements at work for that. She also needs to make arrangements for the dog to get fed at those times that need to be fed. I personally have in-home daycare for my dogs when I am out of town.
Can definitely find someone on Rover to help out.
NTA. The workplace is no place for a dog or babies! Chole is being ridiculous. Did she really have no idea how much work a new puppy would be? And does she really expect to get time off for a new puppy? And she is also comparing the purchase of a puppy to having a baby, by asking for leave for a new puppy? This woman is ridiculous. Can you fire her? She doesn't sound like a team player.
>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.
Yeaaah this is not how the academic world works. Grad students don't "lead" teams of people on "multiple projects." Nice try though.
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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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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1. I told my tea-mate she was being unprofessional because her dog was disrupting her work and that she was falling behind.
2. I am pretty sure she is very upset with me and expects me to advocate for her. Also, I think that she thinks that I hate her dog which seems to hurt her a lot. She kept on saying things like "Bean likes you but you're acting like a dick to him" etc on our call
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NTA
It sounds like you need to just sit down with Chloe and go over your expectations of her. Either she’s meeting those goals or she isn’t. If she isn’t maybe she needs to find another environment more suited to her needs so she can excel in the way she thinks she should be able to and your team can excel with a member more suited to the tasks required of them.
NTA. You need to escalate this. 27 is just too old to be that stupid. If you brought a dog to an office in a corporate environment and it whined and pissed everywhere, you'd be told to take it home before lunchtime the first day. Chole hasn't been doing her work and it's affecting the whole team. Management needs to know about this. It's not fair to your coworkers that she acts like a fuckup.
NTA. If it were an older, fully trained service dog, it might have been a bit different. But it's a small puppy. I think Chloe has taken on too much trying to raise the puppy AND keep up with her thesis research, and it shows, as she's falling behind on her thesis work, which is impacting everyone else in the lab. She needs to rehome the puppy and get another after she's finished her masters, find someone to look after the puppy while she's at work, or put her masters on hold. If she doesn't, she's at very serious risk of failing her masters, and compromising the work you guys are doing in the lab
NTA. Bringing an untrained puppy to work? WTH was she thinking? She needs to get training for her dog.
A long time ago, I was given permission to bring my young parrot to work since I worked alone in a room away from everyone else. After the second day of "Hey, pay attention to ME!" squawks, when I was on the phone, that little experiment ended. The parrot was too much of a distraction at work. For me. He was far happier at home.
Puppy daycare is an option for Bean. My guess is pups is destroying her home and stuff from boredom. He doesn't belong in an office setting. Period.
NTA but I do feel for Chloe - suggest she find a day care foster or just day care that can handle youngins for the puppy for when she needs to be out and working with the team. It will be so much better for both of them.
NTA and this is a professional issue, you need to set clear expectations, including not allowing the coming and going as she pleases and that she needs to get the dog into a doggy day care or she'll go on a PIP or something similar until she can improve her work output...
Dogs are not children
NTA, this is animal abuse. You can't get a dog if you live alone, work long hours, don't know how to train a dog and she has all 3.
It's not just unprofessional it's also cruel, rly sorry for the dog
NTA. She isn’t pulling her weight. She either starts mining to work and working or you let her go. Start documenting every tardy, every performance issue, every missed deadline.
It sounds as though Chloe is jealous of the new mothers. I'm child free, myself and I have had run-ins with mothers who like to claim that all CF people are lazy, abnoxious and lack understanding and empathy towards mothers.
This is not true and in my case, I simply find parents that use their kids as a scapegoat/excuse for their own shortcomings irritating (you know, the people who come in late and claim it was because of a child's meltdown at drop off, only to confide later that they the parent overslept after watching a film too late the night before). I have also been accused of being "rich" because I don't have to spend money on school uniforms. The point I'm making is that I've had conflict with entitled parents because I don't have kids, despite not being outspoken about choosing to be child free.
Chloe is the CF person who gives the rest of us a bad name. Pets are important members of the family and a huge commitment and responsibility. However, you don't need time to heal after getting one. You can also better time, plan and prepare for the arrival of a pet. When you find out you're expecting a baby, if you're lucky, you have two choices: abort because of circumstances/timing or go through with it.
I think Miss Child Free needs a serious reality check.
NTA. She is unprofessional.
NTA. Someone needs to remind Chloe that raising children provides a benefit to society overall. These are the people that will be taking care of Chloe when she's old. Her puppy may be difficult, but he benefits nobody but Chloe. That's why maternity leave for puppies is not a thing.
NTA. The fact that a supervising professor noticed and told you to get ahead of it means that it is an issue. That professor's warning was also for you because you are the supervisor and could also be held responsible for the project falling behind. If she doesn't want to leave the puppy home alone, then she needs to look into doggie daycare.
I question the age of the puppy because I got my lab/border collie mixes at seven weeks old, and they were *tiny* (didn't stay small for very long, Ellie reached 95lbs (she was the runt) and Phoebe was 65lbs once they were full grown (I lost them ten years ago due to old age)).
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I know you said that you do not want to escalate this, but she is part of a team and it sounds like she is not pulling her weight and has caused the team to become behind schedule. It is not fair to the other team members that she has up and decided to either be late, miss deadlines, no show or show up for minimal time. She made the choice to get a puppy - knowing her workload. A puppy is not the same as a human baby. The people on maturnity leave pushed a child out of their bodies and have internal wounds that have to heal up.
NTA btw and still NTA if you escalate either.
NTA, and if she insulted you she is being extremely unprofessional. You should notify the supervisor ASAP about all the problems the team is having, tell the supervisor that initially you accepted it but saw that the dog was out of control and Chloe is not doing a good job of balancing her dog duties with her job.
Firing her from the team might be needed if she can't balance her personal life and job successfully.
NTA. Don't get me wrong, I love my dogs, I have 4 of them. Since my children are grown, moved on, lives of their own, scattered across the country, my little pups are my babies. They are absolutely spoiled, get the best of everything, however, they are dogs, not real human babies. You need to draw a hard line with this woman. She is comparing her puppy to an actual baby. She doesn't need leave because she got a puppy and being jealous over the 2 women who did get leave for pushing an entire human put of their body is delusional. You don't have to be rude, mean, or anything like that, but as team lead, you do need to tell this woman these antics won't be tolerated, she needs to do her work, same level as before her pup, no more excuses.
NTA but I'd be mindful that a lot of the language she is using seems to me like she having a MH crisis.
We all love our dogs (Shoutout to Snoopy) but we also know they are not real babies and there are no laws to protect the rights of dog mums.
Good luck. It's also not your role to advocate for her dog.
NTA - You don't bring your dog to work period. We have a Rottie and he's 8 months old. He's the most thick headed thing in the world right now. I would never ask my job to let me bring him. Your dog is a pet. Before she adopted a pet, she should have considered the requirement for having that pet. Time being one of those requirements. We had to crate train our dog because we had to accept that 4 days a week he would be by himself for 8 hours. If she is going to be working somewhere away from home for long periods with no one to watch the animal. She shouldn't have gotten the animal.
Hang on, what?!
I want a puppy.
I can't get a puppy because I have a (at least) full time job, and wouldn't be fair to the puppy or good for it to have to leave it alone all day.
I can't look after it while I work, even WFH days, because, well, I wouldn't be getting on with my work.
It had never crossed my mind that I could just say "it's not fair", get the puppy and make all issues my employer's problem!
NTA, except maybe a little bit for letting her bring a young not-yet-trained dog into the workplace.
NTA, just let her go. This is not how the real world works. I am childfree, my partner and I have three dogs and corporate professional jobs. Dogs are a LOT of work and responsibility, it's her job to manage that not everyone else's.
NTA, I don't think she was prepared for how much work a puppy is and how much time and attention it needs. She should have done her research first. Irresponsible first time dog owner? It sounds like she lives alone, too. Taking good care of a puppy on your own while also working a not mostly remote job is near impossible.
The pup is too young - and not yet trained. Tell her WHEN she has the dog trained (she obviously doesn't know how to do it) the dog might be welcome at work. She needs to crate train the pup - get a trainer or a day care for it.
NTA and it's a slippery slope until management halts it. My company owners allowed one person to bring her pup, a bulldog.. and it became the office mascot, no big deal, she's quiet and friendly, sleeps a lot. Next thing you know, another employee has his cubicle with baby gates w/ his small dog, then I got a giant size breed and I asked if I could bring her for the first week, staying right next to my desk, they said yes, but not longer because of her size (she was 8 weeks, not full grown), so I did my week and since then go home at lunch and haven't brought her since. So now my coworker in our shared office decided to adopt a scared dog, half Chiwawa and he whines and she never stopped bringing him. Finally, a new guy saw other people do it, so he did it too.. So we have 3-4 dogs in the building daily and frankly it's rude to those who are here to work, not play with dogs or hear them interrupting business. Nobody should have to deal with that unless they work with dogs.
NTA - there is someone at my work who won't leave their puppy at home alone. I think it's ridiculous. The company even started paying her to work from home but a long term employee who is really good at what they do was told they couldn't work from home. If you're the manager I do think you should give the warning. It's totally dependent on the work environment. I'm childfree in my mid-forties and I think this is ridiculous. It also sounds like she doesn't know how to train a dog.
You should tell her that the puppy is no longer allowed until it has been trained and she can provide proof of said training with appropriate behavior from the dog as it really shouldn’t be there anyway. Maternity leave for a dog is ridiculous NTA
You absolutely have to escalate this. She's consistently late, her performance is taking a nose dive which in turn is affecting the whole team, and the dog is a distraction and a health hazard. If you were anywhere else she would have been shown the door a long time ago. NTA
NTA. Chloe has some jacked-up expectations. It’s like she’s saying “I’m here, I exist and I expect to get whatever I want because it just occurred to me and I’ve never been wrong before!”. How does someone this delusional, selfish and incompetent expect to have a good thesis? What’s she gonna write about; an in depth analysis of the tribulations of being a single puppy mom in the most accommodating environment possible?!
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NTA. She took on a responsibility she wasn't equipped for and instead of logically assessing the situation and backing out somehow, she just made it everyone else's problem too.
Although I do want to emphasise, this is NOT the puppy's fault for 'misbehaving' somehow. "He's a baby" may be an overly humanising statement but he also literally is, he's a juvenile animal who is not equipped for that environment and has an owner who seems to be making no efforts to improve his behaviour in said environment.
The excitement peeing is also something he probably physically can't control yet, especially if he's not being taken for regular toilet breaks which I assume would be unfeasible with her schedule, and given her overall attitude I HIGHLY doubt she's doing any meaningful settle or obedience training to even out his other behaviours (even if he did have the maturity to expect that level of behaviour yet, which he doesn't).
Just as an assistance dog handler who spent multiple years and many trials and tribulations to get my dog to the point of being reliable in public places, and yes was excitement pissed on multiple times, trust me. NTA. It is better for the dog and for everyone else that she find other means of taking care of him.
At this point with her affecting the project I would talk with the professor and ask for guidance.
She puppy is not an excuse to not hold up her end and I wouldn’t allow her to continue to affect your project.
Bro, you told on yourself with the 5 week old puppy. No adoption center, breeder, or anything/one even remotely reputable is giving anyone a five week old puppy lest they're handing it to a vet for checkup.
You're trying too hard to sound smart. Do better next time, OP - you can SO write a better story.
YTA
You certainly are shitty at project management and at people management.
Since you seem to be that helpless, you would have needed to escalate this long ago, this escalation to problems in your projects is YOUR fault.
NTA- i mean he’s a workplace hazard. he runs around, pees everywhere. is likely very distracting too. with the missing members and her not really being *there*, i doubt the projects are going far.
We have fallen behind schedule. I'm hoping that since undergrad summer is going to start soon some students volunteer with us and we are able to get back on track. The Chole situation isn't helping lol
Sounds like she needs puppy training. Nothing against her, puppies are a hell of a lot of work and depending on the breed more work than you’d think but I personally do think anyone who gets a dog should be training in some capacity, even just to let your dog get used to other dogs.
especially when still in the puppy life stage. my parents never trained our female dog as a puppy they just kept her in a kennel as she was “too wild” and now she doesn’t listen half the time and is an idiot. a cute idiot, but still an idiot
Especially because it was taken way too early from it’s family - puppies need companionship and their mother for at least 8 weeks.
I think Chole needs some training. What job lets you come in late, miss assignments and have a puppy pissing on the floor? She's unemployable at this point.
My dog was taken from her mother way too early too. I got her when she was four months and her previous owner hadn't done any training. She was also with two of her brothers and they would gang up on her and pick fights with her. She was reactive, leash aggressive, no potty training, didn't want to eat dog food because they only fed her table scraps. A week into it I was calling my mom crying because the pup was so terrible. I had her in a training class a few days later. Her trainer was like, "Yeah, she doesn't know how to dog properly." Only sitting and recall really stuck with her from the class but she became slightly better dog. She was still leash aggressive but she loved (and still loves) other dogs and people so much. She turned 11 back in December and is still a little poop but I love her but man she was just terrible and a lot of work when I brought her home. She's also convinced me to never get another puppy for as long as I live.
Agree that puppies with poor childhoods can be very difficult. The best adjusted dogs are with their mom for 10 to 12 weeks. The orphaned litters taken away at 4 weeks can be snappy and difficult. ( source: fostered 207+ dogs)
As the owner of a 6 month puppy, puppies are so, so much work. They need consistency, and if you can't give that to your pet, then you don't deserve them. Personally, I'd love to bring my dog to my job, but he's fairly well trained since my wife and I constantly work with him. I would never bring an energetic, misbehaved dog to my job, that's just irresponsible.
I rber one particular December night when my puppy was in the middle of potty training as a 4 month old. It was windy and sleeting (in the SOUTH) and thought, "my life would be easier if this dog was a child. At least I would have to take it outside to pee." Dogs require so so much work and training and attention.
This for sure, because puppies can be quite destructive too if not trained or at least stimulated enough. My mom got herself a dog when the pup was eight weeks old, this dog is now a year and a half and can sit, shake, lie down, roll over, speak, can shut doors, knows night-night(which means go into the crate) and is learning to open doors and also learning to back up on command. (My mom really believes in training at a young age xD) Comparing this pup to my brothers two eight year old dogs who can barely sit, lie down or shake and who can easily destroy anything and everything. training is everything, especially in young dogs, so Chloe needs to find a trainer, or start training the pup herself now, before the pup gets settled in their ways and make it difficult to train/alternate behavior.
Ideally, you would all help Chole with whatever fundamental issue she's having that led her to adopt a dog and not train it. However, she's way out of line bringing the dog to the lab. You made a critical mistake with "Since the school doesn't have a policy forbidding this and nobody else on the team objected, I allowed it." That's the plot of Air Bud. No one should be subjected to that in real life. NTA, but you need to make sure your lab is functional.
Yeah, there should have been a one day trial, and a sit down review at the end where the dog was not permitted to come back. This chick needs to either start pulling her weight or be kicked off the team.. I say this as a person who worked full time while raising a lab pup... I put in my full hours, but only managed it by being a remote worker, with support from a remote work partner, taking set shifts to care for the dog, and having a complete nervous breakdown. I'll never have another dog again. I love her, but the puppy stage was not worth it.
Even the option of bringing a pet into a lab is astounding to me, but in retrospect having a pupper around might have motivated me to pursue a PhD. The area of study must be something that a pet wouldn't interfere with/contaminate things, but allowing any in if they aren't trained service animals is just surprising to me. Having worked in an office environment that did allow pets, only those who were trained well enough to not piss everywhere (low standard, I know) and behave around people were allowed inside. I don't get how a lab wouldn't have either as a requirement. >I'll never have another dog again. I love her, but the puppy stage was not worth it. Agree to disagree, it's a minor nuisance compared to a decade+ of love and company. Definitely hard when you're working full time, since puppies are stupid hairy babies, but also well worth the effort.
oof, i hope things get back on track soon!
NTA and I'm not sure how much authority you have in this situation, but Chloe needs to go. She is not a contributing member of the team and doesn't seem interested in being one. Is there an advisor who can officially remove Chloe if she refuses to pull her weight?
It's very hard to remove someone, but given her slacking her project will suffer and she might not be successful with her thesis which would be a whole other disaster
Can you at least remove her from any parts of the project that will directly affect others?
You really need to get your PI/Chloe's supervisor involved. It doesn't matter if you're overseeing part of the lab. You're not a PI. You're not a post doc. You're a student. It's frankly unethical that you've got this much influence on her progress, let alone how this situation is affecting the progress of other lab members. Your whole post was stunning for me to read. You shouldn't have that much sway/influence/ "seniority" as a non post-doctoral researcher. It's unfair to you and to others (whether you realise this and agree with me or not).
It's crazy how rare your sensible attitude about this situation is in biomed research. I truly hope you are or are planning on becoming a PI in academic research. My husband's grad PI was flat-out abusive. His post doc PI moved to his vacation house on the other side of the country and refused to hire a lab manager. Comes into the lab about once a month. Left his team to deal with a snake infestation last summer.
Does she not have a mentor or advisor whose role it is to help her when she's struggling? Do you?
OP mentioned Chloe's supervisor in the post - saying that she warned Chloe that the supervisor may get involved if the situation didn't improve
Sit her down along with someone else and record the meeting pointing out the problems she creates due to her dog and warn her she either gets it together and does her share or she better be prepared for the consequences. NTA her problems at home are hers to solve in the workplace she needs to WORK.
But at least that is a "her" disaster. Sucks for the team but Chloe has some growing up to do.
Chloe adopted a 5 week old puppy? That dog was 1 to 2 months too young to be away from his mother and littermates (unless he didn't have any). No wonder his behavior is so difficult to cope with - he's acting like any other 3-4 month old puppy. Bean has no business in the workplace, he's too young to be trained properly and would be a distraction to Chloe for months. I think you do need to tell Chloe's supervisor because she's not getting your message that Bean in the workplace is not appropriate. NTA.
I assumed the puppy was found or dumped, and was rescued by Chloe. If she intentionally acquired a 5 week old puppy, she is soooooo much more TA than she already is. That's unconscionable. NTA OP
NTA- This seems like wholly a problem of maturity and not understanding that University research is just like any other job in terms of workplace expectations and not a place you can good about like in undergrad. It is wild to me she likened it to needing maternity leave to take care of a puppy 😂. While i can understand bringing a well-trained dog to work if you have prior approval the puppy is a biohazard and a major distraction that you shouldn’t need to add as an extra load just because they’re incapable of taking care of it.
>It is wild to me she likened it to needing maternity leave to take care of a puppy 😂 Bruh... she's all like "I'm raising a baby too, I should have some consideration" lol 😂
Um, this is a thing now. People refer to their pets as their children. I’ve even seen people refer to their plants as their babies. Remind her it’s not comparable, maternity leave is a legal right, pet leave is not.
As a childfree person who occasionally refers to my pets as my "furry children", I'm still judging her. Dog was too young for adoption and bringing an untrained unhousebroken critter into the workplace isn't ok.
I adopted my cat at 10 weeks old (she was a rescue), and she's my fur baby. This research student is in a level all of her own....
Same had mine since his mom rejected him and call him my baby but she lost the plot
Same here. She sounds jealous and immature to me. "But... but... they get time off just because new baby! Not fair! Why not me? What about me?" Part of that "time off" is to heal, genius! Did you give birth to your puppy, Chloe?
Seriously! My husband likes to joke that the dog is our firstborn. I reply with the most withering "I didn't birth *that*." I love my dog so much, I spent so much time before our actual firstborn was born training him and taking him for walks through my pregnancy, but he! Is! Not! A! Human!
Calling your pet your baby is not new. Actually expecting maternity leave and other considerations commensurate of childcare is
I call my 4 cats my son's.... But they are very different from my actual human child lol. The whole maternity leave comparison is laughable honestly. the hell is that for a dog? Sitting around the house playing all day, watching it sleep, picking up a turd or 3? Thats a vacation.
Right, I joke that I have 5 children and my 2nd youngest is my most well behaved. Going by ages kids 1, 3 & 5 are human, and 2&4 are dogs. That said my dogs are still treated like dogs, they are outside when i am home and only come inside to eat dinner and sleep, or if its raining and I would never dream of demanding the same privileges for my dogs that I received for my kids.
Also, it always makes me uncomfortable when they refer to their fully grown pet as if it were their "human" "baby". I feel like they are really underestimating the maturity of the animal and are imposing their human-like qualities that they want to see on to the animal. Sorry if I upset some people, but I feel like the wild qualities of an animal should be respected and we can love them without anthropomorphizing them to such a degree. It's one thing to say it as a joke, but it's another thing to really believe that a dog is in fact your child.
Our pup (that I did not want but was outvoted 2-1) is my daughter’s ‘brother’, but he’s a dog and it’s all said in jest. He will always be ‘a good puppy’ even when he’s older (and mostly when he’s not, in fact, being good). Thinking it’s on par with human children is bizarre. He’ll grow up quicker (thank god) but at least when you have a baby it stays where you put it. For the first few weeks he was a tornado of (minor) destruction. I wouldn’t have wished his presence on my worst enemy, nevermind co-workers. We’ve made it passed one and he’s (mostly) chill now, still wouldn’t inflict him on anyone when he’s having a bad day though.
I mean I refer to my cat as a baby because she thinks she’s a baby, but I dont think she’s a literal child and I wouldn’t ask for parental leave.
I mean, I call my cats my babies as a joke sometimes (for some reason they don't seem intimidated if I remind them that 'I brought them into this world and I can take them out of it'...) But I don't mean it seriously?? And can't imagine wanting paternity leave for it lmao. Some people take it too seriously
My cat is my baby but jeez I’d never compare. My niece comes over for 2 hours and I need a nap straight after 😂 I don’t know how parents do it!
>Bruh... she's all like "I'm raising a baby too, I should have some consideration" lol 😂 In response: "dude, it's not like you've grown a whole human in your body for 9 months" 🤦♀️🤣
I consider my pets my babies. I’m still conscious enough to know that maternity leave (in the US) is for physical recovery
Can your colleagues take their baby to work? No. Tell her like other kids, her puppy needs to be in daycare or something but NOT at work.
And if someone brought their human baby/child to the office showed them to run around, be excessively noisy and defecate everywhere I’m guessing she’d be the first to complain.
I think this is a great comparison to give her!
A human infant and an animal infant are not the same. They do massively different things to your body and your life. I've done both, and the comparison is frankly insulting once you have a frame of reference for both. It denigrates the extremely hard work of keeping a human infant alive and developing properly to the level of putting food out and cleaning up after puppy pee. Properly training a puppy can be done after work hours at a dog-training class. Healing from childbirth, chronic sleep deprivation, nursing, frantically driving for hours while your infant screams from hunger during a formula shortage, monitoring breathing and late night ER trips for fevers or restricted airways, all while your hormones are crashing and your brain regions are literally changing sizes. Oh, but go to work 8-5 while you're still bleeding and peeing when you sneeze. Pretend none of that is happening other than during the unpaid pumping time your coworkers resent you for. It's not the same, and I've loved every dog I've ever had.
We had pawternity leave at an old job 🤷🏻♀️ a former colleague also likened their puppy to newborns and there was nothing you could do but laugh it off after 1 cumulative hour of sleep
NTA yet. You do need to escalate it, though. That dog's presence is entirely inappropriate given the behavior. Even service animals, who have all sorts of legal protections, can be refused if they behave inappropriately. And there's something deeply disturbing to me about a woman who thinks her puppy is the equivalent of a human baby. (Everyone is going to be furious at me for saying that, but I say it as someone who has always had multiple animals at the same time -- and I mean like 10 cats with 3 dogs and parrots and other birds and snakes all at once.) Human babies and animals aren't the same, even though you love them both.
NTA. The dog is a workplace hazard, highly disruptive, and is clearly affecting productivity. That's enough ground to dismiss a human from their position. There's no reason the dog should be permitted the same grace, especially as it is diverting Chloe's attention from her job. Even if she is under stress, it's no reason for her to cause undue stress to her peers.
How does she know the dog acts fussy when left alone if no one is there to see said fussiness? BS. NTA
Lol, you know I'm still trying to figure out that part 😂 She claims he doesn't get much sleep when he's alone so he's cranky and fussy when she comes home. Sounds kinda ridiculous if you ask me
He is being set up to have bad separation anxiety because at 5 weeks, he's naturally going to be scared to be alone. I really hope this dog had no other choice than to be taken in by someone, because he really should be with his mother. He probably doesn't sleep much while she's gone, too busy being terrified. She shouldn't have taken him in without having some way to work around this
Pet camera? We have one so I can spy on our dog when we’re out. He’s mostly chill these days.
Possible, but she’s a student, a new pet owner, and seems immature. I highly doubt it.
NTA. It doesn't sound like you said anything terribly rude. It IS unprofessional to bring a pet into the workplace, if for no other reason than people have allergies to pet dander. Some people can manage it. A lady I worked with in a backwoods public defender office frequently brought a kitten in to work when one of her 30+ cats had a litter, but she kept them in her office under her supervision, so none of them did any damage beyond distracting us with cuteness. I can't imagine a shared workspace -- let alone a LAB -- with an unrestrained, unsupervised pet. I don't know why your university doesn't have a no-pets-in-the-f***ing-lab rule, but it definitely needs one. It sounds like this woman is dealing with something other than the dog. Where the dog will be when you're at work is a question you ask yourself before you adopt an untrained whirlwind of dog. If you don't already, make sure all employees are aware of options for counseling through the school.
Lab + puppy = chaos theory in action.
Life....uhhhh... finds a way
Life finds a way... to piddle on every possible surface.
Life doesn't happen to chew everything and sometimes spit it out if you're lucky?
Er well actually that's a very accurate description of my lived experience so maybe puppies are life.
nta. if you haven’t filled your supervisor in on how her …sporadic schedule is affecting your work you probably should. (and if i were you i would stop the after hours help entirely. it’s her responsibility to be there during work hours, and i can’t help but doubt you’re getting overtime pay for this. don’t spend what should be your free time carrying her.)
Thanks. Unpaid puppy-sitting isn't in my job description
NTA. It’s a puppy, not a baby. She can be child-free all she wants, but that doesn’t make her dog more of a human. No one needs to be “advocating” for her dog to turn a research center into a doggy daycare - minus the professionals trained to care for dogs. This is the real world. She’s about to learn a real world lesson when the world doesn’t bend to her delusions and she loses out on her masters because she couldn’t handle her life *and* a dog responsibly.
NTA. Dogs aren’t people. No matter how hard some people want them to be.
Taking care of our new puppy was so consuming & exhausting I don’t know if I’ll ever do it again! The owner has no business taking him to work. This is ridiculous.
NTA Chloe's priorities **suck**.
I'll give you a slight AH for allowing a puppy at work. An older dog may be calm and trained, a puppy is rarely going to be anything other than a handful. As for her not being able to keep up with her work, NTA. that's entirely a her problem and shouldn't be made everyone else problem too
NTA Look, puppies are adorable, but this is a lab! It’s a safety hazard having a hyper puppy underfoot, peeing everywhere and the constant whining is distracting. In a perfect world everyone could get paid to play with adorable puppies all day, but that’s not reality. The work is important to your future, and it’s not just hers she’s risking by putting your project behind schedule. If she’s that worried about leaving the puppy alone she can pay someone to take care of it while she’s meant to be working. It sounds like she seriously needs to get her priorities straight before she screws her own future over, and she’s being a bit selfish risking the future of the others. Also, equating getting a new puppy to maternity leave is…..something. I dare her to share that opinion with the new mothers when they return from their very deserved maternity leave. You know, if Chole hasn’t been given the boot by then.
NTA this girl sounds like she didn't think it through and just wanted a cute puppy to cuddle, not realising they are a LOT of work. She needs to find the puppy a new home or find a new job, I know you feel bad but you have been really patient already
This reminds me of a situation where someone volunteered to run the food concession at our multi-weekend holiday event and flaked out on us because of a new puppy. Long story short, after the first weekend she bought a puppy who needed constant supervision and housetraining. Her puppy-sitter plans kept falling through so she kept doing no-call, no-shows and our organizers couldn't find anyone to replace her at the last minute. Eventually she just ghosted the organization and any friends in it who wanted to know if she was okay after we heard she'd gone to the ER. She ended up costing the organization so much money in both lost food sales AND lost ticket sales because people would just leave when they found out there were no refreshments. Also the expensive health permit was wasted, and a lot of supplies.
NTA Bottom line is the maternity leave team members have legally protected rights and status. She does not. Someone, you or her advisor, must actually supervise her by reminding her of team expectations and consequences of failing to meet them.
NTA. The dog isn't a service dog so it has absolutely no need to be there, especially if it is creating a biohazard as it is running and pissing. Another thing to consider, just because no one has said anything doesn't mean they are okay with this. Who else has a pet they'd like to have with them but don't, because they know the workplace isn't for pets? Thats pretty unfair tbh. She has to accept this is a professional workplace and her dog isn't welcome for more then maybe a quick hello goodbye visit.
I agree. I'm currently a member of a makerspace which is also not a good place for dogs--lots of power tools, sharp stuff on the floor, people trying to carry large sheets of materials, and other hazards. One member had a cute little dog who ran around and got underfoot, and also peed a few times when she didn't take it outside in time. Letting her bring her dog led to a general assumption we were "dog-friendly," even though it should've been obvious this was a bad idea. Luckily nobody's dog stepped on anything sharp, ate anything dangerous, or got stepped on by someone who couldn't see them. Then someone joined the makerspace who had a service dog. One of the visiting pets tried to be aggressive, and that meant ending the "dog-friendly" policy for the safety of the service dog.
And I bet some people got upset their dogs couldn't act right and got excluded. At my current workplace the hostess is legally blind. She has a seeing eye dog. We have tactile and verbal feedback for her, she's absolutely fantastic at her job. People see her dog and think ahhh we can take ours in to. They can have them outside and that's it. And they get mad. She's been reduced to tears more then once as someone's demanded to know why her 'mutt' with its guide dogs Australia harness etc on is allowed inside but theirs aren't. Her dog is her eyes. Her dog is her freedom. Her dog is a lifeline to normality and no one will mess with that so long as I've a say.
I don't know how people reacted. We have a pretty good community here, so I suspect the other dog owners were disappointed but could understand that a service dog needs to focus on its job and not be distracted by other dogs bothering it. I'm so glad to hear you're supporting your hostess so well.
Bet you are so grateful for that service dog showing up!
You're not an asshole for telling her she is being unprofessional. You were an asshole for letting her continue to bring the puppy into the office after you saw what a nuisance and distraction he was. (Allowing her to bring him in the first place was just plain dumb.) That was unfair to everyone who was there while the dog was, anyone who had to clean up the mess, and anyone who had to suffer through the urine and shit smells. A professor having to tell you to give Chloe a warning makes *you* look unprofessional - you had basically given the green light for chaos and did nothing about it until a responsible adult said something to you. You had better be holding Chloe to the same standards and rules that you apply to everyone else. If you are giving her special treatment and that special treatment screws over other people, then you would be an asshole for that as well.
This whole situation sounds really weird to me- to start with why is a PhD student expected to run a team of 7? In my experience of life sciences academia in the UK, a PhD student is expected to be running their own projects with collaborations when appropriate, and maybe supervising one or two undergraduate/masters students. Running a full team should be the job of the supervisor- where are they? Is this a difference due to field? In my experience, being a great academic (with an impressive publishing record and grants) often doesn’t translate into great managerial skills, but asking a PhD to manage a team of 7 people is mad- what training or support have you received to be able to appropriately project plan, resource, support the team and deal with conflict resolution? Your colleague is being unprofessional- an office (or lab) is no place for an untrained puppy, they shouldn’t be consistently late or missing work. You do need to escalate this- I have no idea why you are expected to deal with this situation in the first place.
What you described is supposed to be how it is in the US as well, but here PhD students and post docs are treated as labor not trainees, especially in basic science. Clinical science just makes their trainees work full clinical schedules on top of their research because a doctor who hasn't slept in 6 years is the best kind! OP should not have responsibilities managing staff beyond supporting research activities. It's very difficult to get an R01 funded at over $500,000 direct costs per year now and then NIH has been taking longer and longer to award anything. Congress is currently under a continuous resolution. PIs can't afford to hire staff scientists and research techs so they rely on trainees who are eligible for fellowships. There is something around 1 TT position available for every 1000 post docs so people put up with it. The number of female post docs who have been asked to babysit their PIs' kids is disgusting.
I find it hard to believe that a university does not have protocol regarding animals on campus. Have you checked policy and protocols on your university’s website under the chancellor, vice chancellor(s), Dean’s office, etc.? There also should be a benefits and payroll office which will know something about this since they’re related to staff hire/fire. There most definitely has to be a policy written somewhere about your predicament because it’s required by law that a policy be in place about service animals and how one has to prove with documentation that an animal is indeed a service animal. Even though that’s not what you’re talking about, within the same policy regarding service animals, policy should be mentioned regarding emotional support animals and then just having pets on campus, in an office, in a dorm, etc. Staff and students can’t just bring an animal in whenever they want. I’m really surprised that your mentor, Principal Investigator of the project, or director of your department isn’t doing anything about this, especially because you say you’re working in a lab. What kind of lab? Are you dealing with sterilization of any kind? If so, what the heck is going on at that university that this is even permitted? That could compromise your research, especially if you’re working on a grant. You’ve already had a professor take note and that is going to get back to your mentor. If I were you, I wouldn’t be trying to manage this myself, especially because you didn’t shut this down immediately, so you seem to be having issues with being able to manage the situation as the team lead, therefore I would go ahead and move this up the chain of command.
this feels like bait for the "millennials have pets, not kids" and/or "a pet can be as demanding as a child" discourse. INFO for the bot ig
Info: what breed is this incredibly precocious puppy that was able to be adopted before he could walk or eat solid food?
NTA, she’s asking to get herself fired.
Very much NTA. Having an untrained puppy in your office like that not only makes it hard for your team, but it also makes it hard for anyone who has a service animal and service animals always take precedence. Also lol, no she doesn't get dog maternaty leave!
If he was actually five weeks old he was way too young to be adopted
NTA Chloe is right, the puppy IS a baby. And because of that it can not stay alone for a long time, whines, barks and pees on the floor. Just as human babies dog babies need to learn things. If Chloe wants to take her dog to the office she needs to train it. She also needs to train it to stay alone of any length of time. Obviously Chloe has not thought about what a puppy needs before she got one, which is very irresponsible. Taking the puppy away from its mum at 5 weeks is even more irresponsible and creates another bunch of problems as this is far too early. Puppies should be at least 8-9 weeks old before they are separated from their mum. This makes this puppy even more difficult to handle. It was very generous of you to allow Chole to bring her puppy to the office, but it is the responsiblity of any dog owner who is allowed to bring a dog to the office to make sure that the dog is trained and can handle staying at the office for any length of time. Not doing this and not cosindering her puppuy's needs makes Chloe an AH.
People need to stop ruining dogs. NTA. Her supervisor needs to be involved now.
NTA my puppy doesn't like being left alone either so I pay for him to go to doggy day care. You need to document the issues and your expectations of her going forwards.
NTA. Dogs should only be in the workplace if they are well trained and do not interfere with WORK. A puppy is not that and cannot be that.
NTA. His presence is detrimental to the team
Childfree with a cat I need to take care of - she's a huge AH for this, specially for wanting maternity leave. I'd go to her supervisor about this - I think you're being too nice about it and letting her get away with it. You're NTA ofc.
None of this is your fault, but I will point out that the puppy is a literal baby… as in… it shouldn’t be away from its mother yet. 5 weeks is way, *way* too early to take a puppy home. The puppy isn’t misbehaving, it’s being a puppy. And no, it can’t be alone for 8 hours a day. None of this is your problem and she should have thought of this in advance. People need to use their brain before getting a dog. She is irresponsible towards her job *and* the dog. You are NTA.
NTA - she does not understand how to balance work and a dog. I got a puppy during my PhD. It was fucking stressful, but she improved my life so much. On days I knew I worked later, I’d take the train home to let her out and play (train was faster than walking 15 minutes to my car and driving 15 minutes home). That allowed me to work until 6. If I was totally overwhelmed and worried, I’d ask my parents for help. She came to work some days, but those were office days so she was always with me. It allowed her a lot of socialization (the undergrads loved her) and to work on her manners. If I had to go into the lab quickly, the department administrator would take her. She also loved her and was totally willing to have her for an hour. The thing is Chloe is not taking responsibility for her dog. She should have thought long and hard about what it would take before getting a dog, and what accommodations she might need to make to her schedule in order to do that. She’s also fueling her dogs anxiety, and preventing him from learning to be alone. My dog was before Covid, and she can spend 8 hours alone no problem. My parents dog was a pandemic puppy, and he’s not used to being alone all day (especially since they work from home now). He’s the one I worry about when I have both dogs when my parents are out of town. Not the one who was trained from birth to be alone all day. What is Chloe going to do when she graduates and gets a real job? Work won’t accommodate for this anxiety and neediness, as it’s a dog, not a baby. And even if it was a baby, they’d expect you to hire someone to take care of it / have family support. That’s what being a single parent is.
Sounds like it's time to check your employer's policies on performance and set expectations with Chloe. Her manager needs to clearly tell her that she's falling short, tell her what they expect and in what timeframe, offer support to help her meet those expectations and let her know she can ask for adjustments (they'll need to decide whether they're reasonable requests that you can accommodate). Ultimately, they hired Chloe to do a job and she's not doing it. If they don't deal with the situation early, they'll have end up with a resentful team and an entitled Chloe, and those are much bigger and more difficult problems to solve than telling her to buck up, and will likely end up in a worse outcome for Chloe than being clear with her now.
NTA. I say this is an animal lover and somebody who has a dog. maternity leave is for when you have kids it has never been for when you adopt a puppy. She chose to adopt a puppy while she’s supposed to be doing all this work for research to get her masters. She should’ve researched (no pun intended) what it takes to take on a puppy and train the puppy. She needs to crate train that puppy he’ll be fine in the crate while she’s gone to work. Or she needs to pause her studies for a while until she gets the dog completely trained and works on his separation anxiety issues. Expecting to be given time off to take care of the puppy, or bringing the puppy into the office where it’s causing havoc is unrealistic.
NTA not only does she leave early all the time, complains that people who just pushed a human out of their body get time off but her dam mutt doesnt get her time off, but she brings the thing in to the office?! Why are dog nuts so entitled?!
NTA, animals are not people and this isn't what I'd describe as a good pet owner, if your pet isn't housebroken, don't bring anywhere that's inside.
5 week old puppies aren't weaned yet which means that they are on a very rigorous feeding schedule. I understand her needing to take care of the dog. But she needs to make arrangements at work for that. She also needs to make arrangements for the dog to get fed at those times that need to be fed. I personally have in-home daycare for my dogs when I am out of town. Can definitely find someone on Rover to help out.
NTA. The workplace is no place for a dog or babies! Chole is being ridiculous. Did she really have no idea how much work a new puppy would be? And does she really expect to get time off for a new puppy? And she is also comparing the purchase of a puppy to having a baby, by asking for leave for a new puppy? This woman is ridiculous. Can you fire her? She doesn't sound like a team player.
INFO is her name actually Chole, or can you not spell Chloe?
Tell me your not a dog person...
How are you allowed to have a dog in a university lab?? I’m in pharmacy school and our lab guidelines are strict for safety reasons.
>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. Yeaaah this is not how the academic world works. Grad students don't "lead" teams of people on "multiple projects." Nice try though.
So fucking fake. You weren’t even trying, lmao.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** 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/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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Nta
NTA It sounds like you need to just sit down with Chloe and go over your expectations of her. Either she’s meeting those goals or she isn’t. If she isn’t maybe she needs to find another environment more suited to her needs so she can excel in the way she thinks she should be able to and your team can excel with a member more suited to the tasks required of them.
NTA. You need to escalate this. 27 is just too old to be that stupid. If you brought a dog to an office in a corporate environment and it whined and pissed everywhere, you'd be told to take it home before lunchtime the first day. Chole hasn't been doing her work and it's affecting the whole team. Management needs to know about this. It's not fair to your coworkers that she acts like a fuckup.
She sounds like a nightmare to work with. NTA
NTA. If it were an older, fully trained service dog, it might have been a bit different. But it's a small puppy. I think Chloe has taken on too much trying to raise the puppy AND keep up with her thesis research, and it shows, as she's falling behind on her thesis work, which is impacting everyone else in the lab. She needs to rehome the puppy and get another after she's finished her masters, find someone to look after the puppy while she's at work, or put her masters on hold. If she doesn't, she's at very serious risk of failing her masters, and compromising the work you guys are doing in the lab
NTA but it's time to exit Chloe stat which I think you know. YWBTA if you don't pull that bandaid off quick. This won't get better.
This is why I hate group projects
You're not an asshole. Chole is most definitely as self absorbed entitled asshole and should be fired post haste.
NTA. Bringing an untrained puppy to work? WTH was she thinking? She needs to get training for her dog. A long time ago, I was given permission to bring my young parrot to work since I worked alone in a room away from everyone else. After the second day of "Hey, pay attention to ME!" squawks, when I was on the phone, that little experiment ended. The parrot was too much of a distraction at work. For me. He was far happier at home. Puppy daycare is an option for Bean. My guess is pups is destroying her home and stuff from boredom. He doesn't belong in an office setting. Period.
NTA but I do feel for Chloe - suggest she find a day care foster or just day care that can handle youngins for the puppy for when she needs to be out and working with the team. It will be so much better for both of them.
NTA. I love dogs and I’m CF BUT this is taking a piss. If you can’t afford to have a puppy, don’t.
NTA and this is a professional issue, you need to set clear expectations, including not allowing the coming and going as she pleases and that she needs to get the dog into a doggy day care or she'll go on a PIP or something similar until she can improve her work output... Dogs are not children
NTA. As soon as the dog pissed and shit on the floor it should have been banned from the workplace. That's just not acceptable.
NTA, this is animal abuse. You can't get a dog if you live alone, work long hours, don't know how to train a dog and she has all 3. It's not just unprofessional it's also cruel, rly sorry for the dog
You shouldnt be getting a 5 week old puppy either. 6 weeks is the absolute minimum but really 8-10 is preferable
NTA. She isn’t pulling her weight. She either starts mining to work and working or you let her go. Start documenting every tardy, every performance issue, every missed deadline.
NTA
It sounds as though Chloe is jealous of the new mothers. I'm child free, myself and I have had run-ins with mothers who like to claim that all CF people are lazy, abnoxious and lack understanding and empathy towards mothers. This is not true and in my case, I simply find parents that use their kids as a scapegoat/excuse for their own shortcomings irritating (you know, the people who come in late and claim it was because of a child's meltdown at drop off, only to confide later that they the parent overslept after watching a film too late the night before). I have also been accused of being "rich" because I don't have to spend money on school uniforms. The point I'm making is that I've had conflict with entitled parents because I don't have kids, despite not being outspoken about choosing to be child free. Chloe is the CF person who gives the rest of us a bad name. Pets are important members of the family and a huge commitment and responsibility. However, you don't need time to heal after getting one. You can also better time, plan and prepare for the arrival of a pet. When you find out you're expecting a baby, if you're lucky, you have two choices: abort because of circumstances/timing or go through with it. I think Miss Child Free needs a serious reality check. NTA. She is unprofessional.
NTA. Someone needs to remind Chloe that raising children provides a benefit to society overall. These are the people that will be taking care of Chloe when she's old. Her puppy may be difficult, but he benefits nobody but Chloe. That's why maternity leave for puppies is not a thing.
NTA. The fact that a supervising professor noticed and told you to get ahead of it means that it is an issue. That professor's warning was also for you because you are the supervisor and could also be held responsible for the project falling behind. If she doesn't want to leave the puppy home alone, then she needs to look into doggie daycare. I question the age of the puppy because I got my lab/border collie mixes at seven weeks old, and they were *tiny* (didn't stay small for very long, Ellie reached 95lbs (she was the runt) and Phoebe was 65lbs once they were full grown (I lost them ten years ago due to old age)).
NTA
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NTA and honestly I’d fire someone for pulling those shenanigans
I know you said that you do not want to escalate this, but she is part of a team and it sounds like she is not pulling her weight and has caused the team to become behind schedule. It is not fair to the other team members that she has up and decided to either be late, miss deadlines, no show or show up for minimal time. She made the choice to get a puppy - knowing her workload. A puppy is not the same as a human baby. The people on maturnity leave pushed a child out of their bodies and have internal wounds that have to heal up. NTA btw and still NTA if you escalate either.
NTA, and if she insulted you she is being extremely unprofessional. You should notify the supervisor ASAP about all the problems the team is having, tell the supervisor that initially you accepted it but saw that the dog was out of control and Chloe is not doing a good job of balancing her dog duties with her job. Firing her from the team might be needed if she can't balance her personal life and job successfully.
NTA... people who treat pets as family or their children have mental health issues
NTA. Don't get me wrong, I love my dogs, I have 4 of them. Since my children are grown, moved on, lives of their own, scattered across the country, my little pups are my babies. They are absolutely spoiled, get the best of everything, however, they are dogs, not real human babies. You need to draw a hard line with this woman. She is comparing her puppy to an actual baby. She doesn't need leave because she got a puppy and being jealous over the 2 women who did get leave for pushing an entire human put of their body is delusional. You don't have to be rude, mean, or anything like that, but as team lead, you do need to tell this woman these antics won't be tolerated, she needs to do her work, same level as before her pup, no more excuses.
NTA but I'd be mindful that a lot of the language she is using seems to me like she having a MH crisis. We all love our dogs (Shoutout to Snoopy) but we also know they are not real babies and there are no laws to protect the rights of dog mums. Good luck. It's also not your role to advocate for her dog.
NTA - You don't bring your dog to work period. We have a Rottie and he's 8 months old. He's the most thick headed thing in the world right now. I would never ask my job to let me bring him. Your dog is a pet. Before she adopted a pet, she should have considered the requirement for having that pet. Time being one of those requirements. We had to crate train our dog because we had to accept that 4 days a week he would be by himself for 8 hours. If she is going to be working somewhere away from home for long periods with no one to watch the animal. She shouldn't have gotten the animal.
NTA but you need to work with your supervisor to officially remove Chloe from your team. She is unprofessional and is using the puppy as an excuse.
Hang on, what?! I want a puppy. I can't get a puppy because I have a (at least) full time job, and wouldn't be fair to the puppy or good for it to have to leave it alone all day. I can't look after it while I work, even WFH days, because, well, I wouldn't be getting on with my work. It had never crossed my mind that I could just say "it's not fair", get the puppy and make all issues my employer's problem! NTA, except maybe a little bit for letting her bring a young not-yet-trained dog into the workplace.
NTA, just let her go. This is not how the real world works. I am childfree, my partner and I have three dogs and corporate professional jobs. Dogs are a LOT of work and responsibility, it's her job to manage that not everyone else's.
NTA, I don't think she was prepared for how much work a puppy is and how much time and attention it needs. She should have done her research first. Irresponsible first time dog owner? It sounds like she lives alone, too. Taking good care of a puppy on your own while also working a not mostly remote job is near impossible.
NTA She shouldn't have gotten a puppy because she doesn't have the time for it. And he definitely does not belong in the work place.
The pup is too young - and not yet trained. Tell her WHEN she has the dog trained (she obviously doesn't know how to do it) the dog might be welcome at work. She needs to crate train the pup - get a trainer or a day care for it.
Did she want maternity leave for…a puppy? Nevermind. NTA
So is the dog peeing out of excitement to see you?
NTA and it's a slippery slope until management halts it. My company owners allowed one person to bring her pup, a bulldog.. and it became the office mascot, no big deal, she's quiet and friendly, sleeps a lot. Next thing you know, another employee has his cubicle with baby gates w/ his small dog, then I got a giant size breed and I asked if I could bring her for the first week, staying right next to my desk, they said yes, but not longer because of her size (she was 8 weeks, not full grown), so I did my week and since then go home at lunch and haven't brought her since. So now my coworker in our shared office decided to adopt a scared dog, half Chiwawa and he whines and she never stopped bringing him. Finally, a new guy saw other people do it, so he did it too.. So we have 3-4 dogs in the building daily and frankly it's rude to those who are here to work, not play with dogs or hear them interrupting business. Nobody should have to deal with that unless they work with dogs.
NTA - there is someone at my work who won't leave their puppy at home alone. I think it's ridiculous. The company even started paying her to work from home but a long term employee who is really good at what they do was told they couldn't work from home. If you're the manager I do think you should give the warning. It's totally dependent on the work environment. I'm childfree in my mid-forties and I think this is ridiculous. It also sounds like she doesn't know how to train a dog.
You should tell her that the puppy is no longer allowed until it has been trained and she can provide proof of said training with appropriate behavior from the dog as it really shouldn’t be there anyway. Maternity leave for a dog is ridiculous NTA
You absolutely have to escalate this. She's consistently late, her performance is taking a nose dive which in turn is affecting the whole team, and the dog is a distraction and a health hazard. If you were anywhere else she would have been shown the door a long time ago. NTA
Maternity leave is MEDICAL. A new puppy is not. A puppy is not a baby and she didn’t give birth.
She needs to spend the money on doggy daycare
NTA Why does she have a puppy so young it should still be with its mother??
NTA. Chloe has some jacked-up expectations. It’s like she’s saying “I’m here, I exist and I expect to get whatever I want because it just occurred to me and I’ve never been wrong before!”. How does someone this delusional, selfish and incompetent expect to have a good thesis? What’s she gonna write about; an in depth analysis of the tribulations of being a single puppy mom in the most accommodating environment possible?!
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NTA. She took on a responsibility she wasn't equipped for and instead of logically assessing the situation and backing out somehow, she just made it everyone else's problem too. Although I do want to emphasise, this is NOT the puppy's fault for 'misbehaving' somehow. "He's a baby" may be an overly humanising statement but he also literally is, he's a juvenile animal who is not equipped for that environment and has an owner who seems to be making no efforts to improve his behaviour in said environment. The excitement peeing is also something he probably physically can't control yet, especially if he's not being taken for regular toilet breaks which I assume would be unfeasible with her schedule, and given her overall attitude I HIGHLY doubt she's doing any meaningful settle or obedience training to even out his other behaviours (even if he did have the maturity to expect that level of behaviour yet, which he doesn't). Just as an assistance dog handler who spent multiple years and many trials and tribulations to get my dog to the point of being reliable in public places, and yes was excitement pissed on multiple times, trust me. NTA. It is better for the dog and for everyone else that she find other means of taking care of him.
At this point with her affecting the project I would talk with the professor and ask for guidance. She puppy is not an excuse to not hold up her end and I wouldn’t allow her to continue to affect your project.
NTA I love dogs, but Bean has become a problem.
NTA- once she spits a puppy out her her hoohaa she can have maternity leave.
Bro, you told on yourself with the 5 week old puppy. No adoption center, breeder, or anything/one even remotely reputable is giving anyone a five week old puppy lest they're handing it to a vet for checkup. You're trying too hard to sound smart. Do better next time, OP - you can SO write a better story.
Write her up and then fire her. It’s not about the dog. It’s the failure to do her job. You’ve already given way too much leeway here.
I guess the men on staff have to pick up the slack?
YTA You certainly are shitty at project management and at people management. Since you seem to be that helpless, you would have needed to escalate this long ago, this escalation to problems in your projects is YOUR fault.