For “EmPAWyee” of the month, the worst co-worker I’ve ever had

Whenever I sit down at my desk, my dog Rosie lets out a little sigh. From her bed, positioned on the floor next to and slightly behind the pink armchair I work from, she shifts her body so her back is to me. She’s incensed whenever I do anything that keeps my hand more than 2 ft away from her snout, and she wants me to know it. After about an hour of work, Rosie, fed up with being deprived of attention, turns her big brown head to me and lets out an “errrr.” This is my alarm, every hour on the hour, reminding me to take a break—my own living enforcement of the Pomodoro method. I finish up what I’m doing, get on the floor next to her, and rub her belly until she she’s smiling again.

I first saw Rosie at 12:30 AM just under a year ago. It was just over six months into the pandemic and I completing my last semester of college while slowly losing my mind over the potential of getting sick. I’d been to the hospital three times already, my health anxiety inventing symptoms no doctor could find. My mother’s solution? I get a dog.

After 2 months searching and several unsuccessful adoption applications, a late night scroll brought me across Rosie. Her soulful eyes and grey snout stared out at me. “Rosie is a relaxed dog,” the advert read. “Content to go for long walks or sit by your side as you work on your laptop.” Perfect, I thought. This is my dog.

I loved the idea that Rosie would sit calmly at my feet as I clacked away at term papers. Truth be told, my life is more sedentary than active. I wasn’t prepared to adopt a dog who, ideally would we hiking mountains rather than napping next to me as I sent emails from whatever remote job I managed to secure. More than anything, I was looking for a dog who could help me redirect my “anxious about COVID” energy into “delirious with affection energy.” I couldn’t have chosen a better pup.

From the moment I picked her up, Rosie was a big ball of love. She’s famous for her rough tongued, swamp mouthed kisses. Her favorite thing to do is meet new people, to whom she’ll flash her toothless grin before presenting her naked belly to at any chance. Whenever someone in my family comes home from work or school, Rosie jumps up on her hind legs and puts her front paws on their chest, looking them directly in the eyes. When she sleeps in my bed, at some point in the night, she’ll wake herself up and move into the crook my body makes as I lay on my side. I wake up each morning to her warmth and her snores.

Her best quality is how much she wants people to know they’re loved. Her worst?! She is a TERRIBLE coworker. Last month my long stretch of being jobless post-graduation finally came to an end. I found the perfect gig, a work-from-home job at a start up whose ethics are in perfect alignment with my own. Instead of being excited for me, she started freezing me out. I’d wake up each morning, feed my dog and walk her. We’d play a little, running around the backyard and sunbathing together. By 8:30, the time I usually begin my work, she starts to get restless. She runs around, mouth open, panting and leaping from couch to couch as if to say “Look what I can do mom!!” Some says I’ll humor her, throwing her a literal bone or giving her extra belly rubs, but by the time the clock strikes 9, I have to sit at my desk and get down to business.

Each time Rosie sits by my feet and sighs sullenly behind my turned back, I remember the advert from the rescue. She certainly is not content to sit quietly by as I work, I think. Some days, fed up with my focus on the job (and not on her) she’ll stick her nose in the gap between my chair and my desk, her eyes pleading. My partner, a seasoned dog owner, always tells me to ignore her when she tries to distract me. For the most part I can keep my resolve, but sometimes, I begrudgingly give her my attention. I can see a self-satisfied flicker in her eye each time she gets me to stop working.

If I had to evaluate Rosie’s workplace performance, I’d give her a 1/10. She pulls focus, way too concerned with being the center of attention and not at all with a job well done. Her solution to most inconveniences is to cry, a habit we have (unsuccessfully) tried to train out of her. And her, let’s say, flatulence, has been know to make the work environment quite hostile indeed.

Rosie may be a horrible coworker, but I’m glad my anxiety induced insomnia led me to that rescue website that night. At the very least, I ended up with the best Pomodoro timer alive.