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Comment by yetfeo | Hacker News Reader

How do dog friendly work places deal with employees that are allergic to dogs?

As someone allergic to dogs I was wondering exactly the same thing. I assume this simply makes it impossible to work there if you have a dog allergy since (even with an isolated office) any contact with coworkers who are around dogs all day would be enough to get my eyes itching and my nose running pretty badly.

Edit: Note that I don't think this is necessarily bad - not having people allergic to dogs be able to join up is a price they are probably willing to pay because the perk is a huge factor for keeping dog owner employees happy.

I'm also allergic to dogs (and cats), and so policies like these would just make me go somewhere else. I don't particularly understand what advantage there is in bringing a dog to work anyway... yes, you probably love your pets but the same goes for children, that doesn't mean they should be with you when you work.

Would you like to be left alone without a toilet for like 10-11 hours a day, 5-days-a-week? Then you know why some people insist on taking their dog to the office ;)

Dog walkers are a simple option.

Seems silly to have a dog if you're just going to leave it at home for 10-11 hours a day, 5 days a week.

Honest question, would you feel the same way if you replace dog by baby in your sentence?

Edit: Hopefully, "at home" would then mean "at the daycare", otherwise it's a bit irresponsible...

A dog is not equal to a child. Not in any remote way.

Yes, but I realize this is horribly politically incorrect because everyone has a right to reproduce, even if its at everyone elses cost. It seems especially if its at everyone elses cost.

In another post I bring up the excellent point that the proper solution to the 11 hours in the office problem isn't making the 11 hours more bearable by Fing off for several hours per day, but perhaps only spending 8 hours in the office per day. Or less.

My wife did half days at home for almost a decade while the kids were little. They trusted her to work at home during an emergency at 3am, so leaving work in the afternoon to pick up the kids at school then working at home from 3pm till 6 or whatever was no big stretch of the imagination, even for "big corp" "dilbertian" management. This is obviously only applicable to cubie/desk jobs not manual labor.

It took me a bit too long to figure out that you weren't implying they use their dog as a toilet...!

> yes, you probably love your pets but the same goes for children, that doesn't mean they should be with you when you work.

Well, it's actually not that uncommon to have an office kindergarten (at least in the part of Europe I live in, no idea how it is in the US), for some people, it's a big perk, as it allow people that would otherwise have to choose between an office life and a family life to have both.

I (fortunately) never met anybody allergic to dogs, so I have no idea how sever it is — would you get allergic reaction by just meeting me without the dog? If yes, then the dog rules don't really matter, as you will be allergic to me anyway.

Still, in coworking spaces I would just leave my dog at home and try to agree on some 4h-4h working schedule so my dog isn't alone longer than 6-7 hours.

It would probably be enough to make people allergic to dogs say "oh, ok, sparkfun isn't the place for me" - as a hayfever suffer I know I will never risk working somewhere next to farm fields (and therefor probably SF's new location as a good example possibly), it's just one of those things you (sadly) factor in. I do wonder if there is legislation in any country that would over rule this bit of company culture though...

IANAL, and I'm not sure about US law, but this could be a problem for any laws against disability discrimination, if a dog allergy is counted as a disability (it could be, the UK legal definition is pretty broad).

On the one hand, I don't think the law should be heavy-handed about this. Nothing wrong with variety, and smaller companies should be able to try things.

On the other, its not people's choice to be allergic to something, and maybe that shouldn't prevent them from taking employment where they are otherwise a good fit. And what about if an employee develops a dog allergy? Do they have to quit, or does the company ban all dogs?

A tribunal to sort out these issues seems like a really good idea, and hopefully will find a way through these issues that preserves the culture. Kudos to Sparkfun for trying!

I'm not allergic to dogs I just hate them. This is totally unacceptable behavour by an employer.

If this is true I'd want nothing further to do with that company.

If this is true I'd want nothing further to do with that company.

Good for you! And good for the company too, now they can hire someone else in your place who is fine with dogs.

This is totally unacceptable behavour by an employer.

To you. To someone else, it is laudable behavior. Not everyone has the same views you or I do, and that's okay. We just take our business elsewhere and life goes on. No need to get too worked up about a business (owner) who runs the business the way they see fit (within the law).

I was wondering if this would be legal (I'm in the UK). Obviously they don't have an issue but we have pretty strict equality rules and I'm not sure culture would be a valid excuse to allow such exclusion.

Muslims find dogs offensive, so I doubt you could get away with it.

It's not just allergies. I'm partially sighted & have very little peripheral vision. Some people have brought their dogs into our office & there have been times where I have accidentally "kicked" the dog simply because I have not seen it on the floor (and was not expecting a dog there anyway).

I like dogs & don't mind having them in the office but I certainly think it needs to be made very clear where the line lies when it comes to "me or the dog" issues.

>there have been times where I have accidentally "kicked" the dog simply because I have not seen it on the floor (and was not expecting a dog there anyway).

I think every dog owner in existence has pulled this one. I always feel a combination of "I'm a monster" and "Maybe this will teach you not to be underfoot".

Probably the same way an office full of smokers deals with it. If everyone agrees it's not a problem than it's not a problem. If even one person disagrees then you follow the rules.

I believe it is also the same for food allergies at school. If one child has a peanut allergy, birthday cakes are out.

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