No say in the workplace? It’s a dog’s life

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In this guest post, Text 100 Sydney’s resident fox terrier/Maltese/shi-tzu Wilson Costello discusses the importance of extending key leadership roles to office dogs.

My human Anne recently wrote about the need for Chief Communications Officers in the modern-day boardroom. All well and good, but I think we’re missing the point here. No matter how much we pontificate over issues of balance, expertise and transparency, one fact remains: the members of the C-suite are always human. Yet as man’s best friends, we office dogs play a critical role in the making of business decisions at every level.

We have human executive aplenty, but the CCO – or Chief Canine Officer – only exists in a handful of B-grade kids’ films and my imagination. And we need to address this Rottweiler in the room before it’s too late. Professional pooches need a paw at the board if we want humans to respect us for our bark and our bite.

Why? The world has changed, for humans and canines alike. Information overload, demanding clients, the terrible irony of “work/life balance” – let’s face it, the working world is a dog’s breakfast. In this morass of deadlines and multitasking, we office-dogs are quite often the last line of defence between modern madness and your sanity. Our job is making you happy, and all evidence suggests we’re pretty good at it.

Believe me, being squeezed and poked and called a “cute widdle puppy-doggie” all day is no easy task. It takes stamina, empathy, and a long-abiding patience cultivated over millennia spent loyally at your heel. But we persist because we believe in the importance of our work, even if it so often goes unrecognized by our colleagues.

Companies which think they don’t need this sort of support are, frankly, barking up the wrong tree. Look at some of the biggest corporate collapses in human history: Enron, Lehmann Brothers, the Roman Empire. Did any of them realise the value of having a dog in the workplace? I don’t think so (particularly the Romans, who used us for everything – from border patrols to tasty sacrifices - except occupational therapy). You humans may think teaching us to fetch, stay and play dead is entertaining enough, but we can teach you a thing or two as well.

We don’t want to be top dog in the boardroom, but you humans need to throw us a bone here. In this dog-eat-dog world where  even a sleep-deprived chipmunk can become a global cult phenomenon, professional canines need to stand, sit and roll over on equal footing with their human counterparts. We know how to ease your anxieties, spark your creativity, and lift your spirits in a way no number of lolcats can ever do. Why shouldn’t we sit in the boardroom as well as the kennel?

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on the Text100 Sydney blog, Digital Comms Down Under.