Oliver: Coordinating since 2013

This whole pandemical situation has brought the whole world to a halt, causing many of us to be working from home or to have lost our jobs completely. For those of us who have had the privilege of keeping our jobs, many employers were mandated to send their employees to work from home with their laptops. During this time, many of us got the opportunity to do our jobs at home along side our beloved pets. In my case, my now eight-year-old cat Oliver became my new colleague. Since March of 2020, my fur baby has managed to adapt to a new routine quite quickly. While picking up some new habits of his own, as our time together became more prominent.

At the start of the pandemic, when working from home was still new, the idea of avoiding traffic was the best part of the situation. Travelling to and from work disappeared, giving us more time to focus on other aspects in our lives. As the morning hustle vanished, sleeping in became more of a habit. With this said, Oliver seemed to catch on to the changes quickly. Noticing that my sleep schedule differed, he began observing when it was time to login to my workstation in my home office. If there were days the snooze button was hit one too many times, he would make sure to come nudge me out of bed. No time to snooze with a little furry leader.

With the workspace and home life now combined, trying to keep some sense of normalcy was (and still is) mandatory. The idea of keeping the morning routine alive is important, by taking a shower and getting dressed in the same way one would when physically going to the office. Oliver did not let me down, once again he was on top of the situation making sure my schedule was kept as intact as possible. He made sure to keep an eye out on the time spent in the bathroom, before and during work. Supervision was a must, as he took his responsibility to keep me in check very seriously. As a house manager, he made sure being late was nonexistent.

Throughout the day, he always makes sure that everything is running smoothly and that work tasks are completed on time. His work ethics are on par, watching me from the distance to make sure there is progress and double checking the completed tasks are corrected in accordance to standards. There is nothing that goes unnoticed with Oliver, even lunch time is a process. When the time comes to take a break, he is the first one to make sure we take a moment to breath. Sometimes he even manages to steal some of my food, a well-deserved treat. After all, he does works hard to make sure things are running well throughout the day for his human.

Overall, Oliver is a hard-working cat with many attributes that make him a star fur-employee of the month. Looking at the current situation, going back to the office is still just a far thought for many employers. As several companies are still working on methods to follow government policies and procedure when gathering employees back into office spaces around the country. In the meantime, Oliver has consecutively won the employee of the month badge for the last 18 months in a row. His hard work and dedication to making my workday flow is outstanding. At the end of the day, knowing that one day working from the office will be reinstated, there is a fear that all the pets around the world will feel separation anxiety. Let’s not make that feeling happen for our beloved pets.