Quake3World

YourGrandpa wrote:

7zark7 wrote: How bout being a team player

How about it? That's not what I'd call being a team player. When you call in to take unplanned time off, you've let down the team.

That's why you don't call in sick when your tummy hurts or you have a slight cough. That's why it doesn't take an entire day to fix a flat tire or charge your car's battery. It's also why you don't shit-can the day because fluffy died.

None of those are good reasons to let down the "team".

If your team doesn't have a contingency to route around an occasional day off then it's a retarded and poorly managed team.

YourGrandpa wrote: You asked if it was a hamster. No, this is an open conversation about a pet. Hamsters are still pets, right? Why should I feel any different about a dog? After all, it's a pet. If taking a day off isn't acceptable for one, it shouldn't be for the other.

not quite. Let's take a broader look at this:

Jake lives in a house with many organisms. Some of them are members of his own species, and share much of their genetic information with his own. One is a worm which he feeds daily, another is a plant which he nurtures. He also takes care of a pair of tiny turtles, and has a few fish.

Jake has different relationships with all these organisms. He knows his brothers and sisters very well, and they share a lot of thought patterns together, which is facilitated by their ability to engage one another in a complex exchange of information - language.

Jake communicates with the goldfish, but in a very primitive way - the fish vaguely senses when Jake is feeding him, and Jake senses when the fish is in distress. When the fish dies, Jake will miss him a bit, but there will be not much of a shared history between them.

Jake also lives with a dog named Akira, and they've known each other since Jake was a baby, 15 years ago. Akira and Jake have shared many memories together - they've both taken care of each other when the other was feeling down, or ill. They've played together, and they can read each other in ways that Jake and his siblings cannot.

Jake also has a new baby sister, named fellatia.

So, there are two issues here:

which are the pets, and does the death of any one of them cause the same sense of loss and suffering in jake than any other?

If one of the fish died, and Jake had the same cognitive response to the death of Akira, would we not think Jake a bit mad?

You claim that you understand the deep relationships and emotional bonds that are formed between humans and other animals, yet clearly you do not, else you would not have difficulty understanding why the death of some animals causes enough grief in their companions so as to impel them to miss a day of work.

YourGrandpa wrote:

losCHUNK wrote:is it a hamster ?

So here we are drawing different conclusions to similar situations.

You asked if it was a hamster. No, this is an open conversation about a pet. Hamsters are still pets, right? Why should I feel any different about a dog? After all, it's a pet. If taking a day off isn't acceptable for one, it shouldn't be for the other.

I also see people talking about how improtant the job in question is. Again, this isn't about a specific job. But that shouldn't really matter. The idea that someone thinks it's ok to fuck off work for the day because they're not that important, is just plain shit. It also establishes that person as someone who isn't going anywhere quick.

loosing a hamster would be like loosing a gold fish, i dont know anyone who has built up strong bonds with either of these pets which is why it is a different matter

it might be down to a personel view, but its also the popular view which is why it would be difficult to understand why someone would want to take a day off because of it

YGP, I don't think you're an asshole. I just think you have less empathy in that area.

When I was a supervisor, I didn't base my opinions on isolated incidences. I looked for trends. The person that had excessive absences/lateness was under much more scrutiny (even if they were justified), than a person that had infrequent absences--even if they were for "trivial" reasons.

If you had to put the cat to sleep, that's different story. After all, you're doing a selfless act that requires a great deal of intestinal fortitude. Besides, that could take a considerable amount of time to do. But if you're still going to be balling your eyes out for the entire day, I'd have to question your reliability in stressfull situations.

YourGrandpa wrote:But if you're still going to be balling your eyes out for the entire day, I'd have to question your reliability in stressfull situations.

This would be fine in the military. Maybe even necessary. But for most regular jobs it just not necessary to be this strict (for lack of a better word).

YourGrandpa wrote:If you had to put the cat to sleep, that's different story. After all, you're doing a selfless act that requires a great deal of intestinal fortitude. Besides, that could take a considerable amount of time to do. But if you're still going to be balling your eyes out for the entire day, I'd have to question your reliability in stressfull situations.

Well, if my job had been curing cancer I might've sucked it up, but I was just a video game tester at the time....

losCHUNK wrote:is it a hamster ?

Methinks it is like a weasel.

YourGrandpa wrote:If you had to put the cat to sleep, that's different story. After all, you're doing a selfless act that requires a great deal of intestinal fortitude. Besides, that could take a considerable amount of time to do. But if you're still going to be balling your eyes out for the entire day, I'd have to question your reliability in stressfull situations.

i havnt balled my eyes out all day because of a loss of a pet, but i know that going to work wont help my frame of mind... a day off is plenty of time to reflect on whats happened, suck it up and start fresh tomorrow

if my job is important enough i would attend work and i have done this in the past plenty of times upon loosing human family members, even only for a few hrs.

but if they can live without me then why should i make my day any worse by taking shit off you ? ;]

Look, I know people take days off for various reasons. I also know that personal days are just that, personal days. I can, and do plan around absences of people every day. It's my job. I too am aware that employees should be evaluted based on there past performance and I do that.

To be clear, I wasn't looking for help with my job or anyones advice on how to do it. I was simply stating my opinion on people that use pet death as an excuse to skip out on work (be it on a personal/sick day or not). It's the excuse that I'm focused on and why that person thought it was valid.

A dead animal is a dead animal. There is nothing you can do to bring it back. So why miss work and possibly fuck up future opportunities when you could alway deal with the situation later? It's not like the animal is going anywhere and you should also be mature enough to control your emotions.

well we seen your opinion, you got a somewhat mixed reaction

reasons were given why that person might of felt the reason was valid and obviously the problem is that your opinions differ from his

and here we are again saying the same thing

I'm not trying to help you do your job. If you don't like the answers you're getting, go some place where everyone agrees with you.

You asked a question. You've received answers that indicate that while people understand your point, they don't agree with you.

People make attachments to animals. Some more intensely than others. You claim you understand it, but I don't believe you really do, because if you did, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

It also establishes that person as someone who isn't going anywhere quick.

It establishes no such thing. I don't agree with you.

Believe what you want to. I don't give a shit really. But it's why people keep calling you an asshole. You're making a value judgment on a person's reason for being out.

I too am aware that employees should be evaluted based on there past performance and I do that.

Good.

A dead animal is a dead animal... There is nothing you can do to bring it back... It's not like the animal is going anywhere

Substitute person for animal, and you're giving the same reasons why someone shouldn't attend a funeral. Granted, that's not what you meant, but that's how unsympathetic you're coming across to most everyone here.

So why miss work and possibly fuck up future opportunities opportunities when you could alway deal with the situation later?

But, like you said earlier, you judge people on their past performance. So a hard working, reliable worker would not have to worry about fucking up their future opportunities, even under someone like you, because their past experience would show they just have a soft spot for their pets and are fully qualified in every other way.

YourGrandpa wrote:
A dead animal is a dead animal. There is nothing you can do to bring it back. So why miss work and possibly fuck up future opportunities when you could alway deal with the situation later? It's not like the animal is going anywhere and you should also be mature enough to control your emotions.

On the same note a dead person is a dead person. Nothing you do can bring them back, yet people take time off for that. You might have some reasons why you would not aggree with that, but all the reasons you might come up with would be the same ones that a person who lost a pet would say as well. It's not just a dead animal if you took care of it for so many years. They tend to become another member of the family.

A dead animal is a dead animal... There is nothing you can do to bring it back... It's not like the animal is going anywhere

As has been pointed out twice before, this is a silly thing to say.

You're assuming that someone would take the day off work so that they could rescue their dead pet?

Get it through your head - they are undergoing emotional distress and need some space to come to terms with what has happened - this is the process of grieving.

Grieving is not about devising voodoo strategies to bring back a loved one.

YourGrandpa wrote:Look, I know people take days off for various reasons. I also know that personal days are just that, personal days. I can, and do plan around absences of people every day. It's my job. I too am aware that employees should be evaluted based on there past performance and I do that.

To be clear, I wasn't looking for help with my job or anyones advice on how to do it. I was simply stating my opinion on people that use pet death as an excuse to skip out on work (be it on a personal/sick day or not). It's the excuse that I'm focused on and why that person thought it was valid.

A dead animal is a dead animal. There is nothing you can do to bring it back. So why miss work and possibly fuck up future opportunities when you could alway deal with the situation later? It's not like the animal is going anywhere and you should also be mature enough to control your emotions.

If you think that anyone who takes a day off for a dead pet is simply making excuses not to work, then no, you're not evaluating people on past performance. You're trying to impose your morality and work ethic on other people.


Honestly, it sounds to me like the caliber of people you work with may have jaded you and made you cynical of people when it comes to work.

Again -- if the person has a personal day, and wants to take it for this, how could that possibly reflect on whether they do well in times of stress? There is a big difference between buckling under pressure, and just wanting or needing a day off.

Now, if an NFL quarterback didn't play his game because of a dead pet... or if a surgeon called in to work... or if a soldier went AWOL... or even if you were in the middle of some big project that was on a tight deadline and demanded you be there to continue, and you laid out of work..... then I would say maybe you aren't right for the line of work you chose.

But if you make that kind of generalized assumption about the character of everybody who takes a day off when their dog dies, then you're just an asshole.

did I say most everyone?

A dead animal is a dead animal... There is nothing you can do to bring it back... It's not like the animal is going anywhere

wait a min...

It's not like the animal is going anywhere

Am I hearing this correctly?

It's not like the animal is going anywhere

You mean to say that if it were a human animal that died, that human animal would be going to heaven or hell right? And that it's important to take time off work so that you can chant and whisper to an invisible force so as to influence the human animal's post-mortem journey?

And why couldn't you do this for a non-human animal?

yes you are being a heartless asshole.

but each situation requires its own consideration, not a generic "dead pet - day off work " response.

if you have some whining asshole, who takes a week off, every time one of their 50 goldfish dies, then perhaps you should consider kicking some ass.

if you have someone who lives alone and for the last decade their only companion outside of work, is their dog, then time off to sort their head out seems totally acceptable.

if the job is just a standard financially motivated exercise, ie. dont turn up for work, customers get pissed, then its not as much of a priority, as a lawyer defending someone facing a death sentence on the last day of court.

there cannot be a formula, if youre in a position of responsibility, you should know which workers are whining cunts, and which ones are not.

I was more fucked up over my dog dying than my grandparents dying. I was with that dog every day, at times when going through divorvce, it was the one constant thing in my life.

I was not however fucked up when my goldfish died.

I was mildly pissed off when my cats died.

sack the cunt, youll be doing him a favour

[xeno]Julios wrote:it's important to take time off work so that you can chant and whisper to an invisible force

this made me laugh.

horton wrote: there cannot be a formula, if youre in a position of responsibility, you should know which workers are whining cunts, and which ones are not.

Done. End of Demo. This is Managerial 101 stuff Grandpaps.

YourGrandpa wrote:The Discussion....

Someone's pet dies. That person calls into work to say they're not coming in because of it. My question is, how understanding should their supervisor be?

I'm of the opinion that it's an animal, it's already dead and there is nothing you can do. The person involved should collect themselves, go to work and deal with the problem in their off hours. Others would say that this is a valid reason to miss work because of the trauma associated with such a tragedy. This is the point where I ask why? Is grieving for an animal worth potentially screwing up your professional appeal? I'm of the opinion that people who can not separate themselves from their emotional bonds to an animal long enough to do their jobs are ultimately weak and you won’t be able to depend on them when times get rough.

Now I do truly understand the deep relationships that are formed between people and their pets. I've had pets all my life and I have two of them now. But when you are an adult, you should be able to maintain your composure long enough fulfill your professional obligations. Not run off like a child and cry in the corner.

What do you think?

I'd say asshole in this case because it is readily apparent that people who are really close to their pets view them as family members - perhaps forming an even stronger bond in some cases because the pet is completely loyal. Not everyone who has a pet experiences that kind of bonding, but it definitely exists. If a wife or kid or mom had died you wouldn't be giving the whole 'crying isn't going to bring it back' story. And don't tell me its an entirely different situation because in some cases it isn't. I don't think you need to offer the same kind of bereavement leave you'd give someone who lost a relative - but the bond between many owners and pets isn't something a person is just going to shrug off as soon as the dog is dead.

I'd also say that thinking someone can't handle their job when the going gets tough because they want a day off for a dead pet is total and complete tough guy bullshit.

In fact, that whole mindset reminds me of a hardcore bible thumping friend I know whose family goes through dogs and pets like there is no tomorrow - buy the puppies for the kids to play with, then fucking take the dogs out to the middle of nowhere and let them loose when they get too big, or take them and have them put to sleep for no other reason then he doesn't want to deal with them. His feelings are that they are just dumb animals god put on earth for our use, they have no capacity for emotion so why bother grieving if one gets hit by a car or feel sorry for it if it is chained to a pole for a month on end....not saying you would do any of that, but the way you spoke of this whole thing reminded me of it.

I was lucky, the last few pets I lost happened to be on a weekend, so I had a day to gather myself. I take it pretty hard when a pet dies, and as far as going to work it's a little tough because you don't want to start tearing up in front of your co-workers. I would say if the person is really busted up over it, it may be better to give them a day off to collect themselves, because they might not be very effective on the job anyway. It kind of depends on the person, some people don't get as deeply attached to their pets as others. Some people are more emotional and take stuff hard.

asshole