背景介绍：
宠物在现代社会中的地位日益提升，不仅成为家庭的重要成员，也逐渐被接纳进入工作场所。从西奥多·罗斯福的斗牛犬到现代政治家、企业家的宠物，宠物与工作环境的融合已成为一种趋势。特别是在新冠疫情之后，随着居家办公的普及，宠物在工作生活中的角色更加凸显，引发了关于宠物友好型办公室的广泛讨论与实践。
What to do
about pets in the office
办公室里的宠物该何去何从
Dogs can bring
both joy and chaos
狗狗既能带来欢乐，也能带来混乱
Theodore Roosevelt’s bull terrier once chased the French ambassador up a tree.
Commander, President Joe Biden’s German shepherd, had to be
rusticated
after
repeatedly biting Secret Service officers. Sir Gavin Williamson, a British
politician, refused to remove a tarantula he kept in a glass tank from the
office. He defended the presence of Cronus by insisting the “clean, ruthless
killer” was “part of the team”.
西奥多·罗斯福的斗牛犬曾迫使法国大使攀上树梢避难。指挥官（总统乔·拜登的德国牧羊犬）在多次咬伤特勤局官员后，无奈被送往乡下安置。英国政治家加文·威廉姆森爵士则坚决拒绝将饲养于玻璃缸中的狼蛛克洛诺斯移出办公室，他为其辩护，称这位“干净而冷酷的猎手”是“团队不可或缺的一员”。
Pets, more commonly dogs than spiders,
have long been a feature of all sorts of workplaces. Google’s code of conduct
states that “Affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our
corporate culture.” Ben & Jerry’s, an ice-cream company, dishes out treats
to pooches at its reception desk. Over the decades dogs have wandered around The Economist’s head office in London and snoozed on the
carpet.
宠物，尤其是狗（而非蜘蛛等异类），长久以来一直是各类工作场所的一道独特风景。谷歌的行为准则明确指出：“对犬类伙伴的关爱是我们企业文化的重要组成部分。”冰淇淋品牌本和杰里在前台特设狗狗美食区，而《经济学人》的伦敦总部，几十年来一直是狗狗们闲逛打盹的温馨之地，地毯上常可见它们慵懒的身影。
Pets have become an even bigger part of
work life since the covid-19 pandemic. Searches for pet-friendly offices on job
platforms have rocketed. One in five American families acquired a pet during
lockdowns; two-thirds of households now have at least one.
自新冠疫情爆发以来，宠物在工作与生活中的地位愈发凸显。宠物友好型办公室在招聘平台上如雨后春笋般涌现。五分之一的美国家庭在封锁期间迎来了新宠物；如今，三分之二的美国家庭至少拥有一只宠物。
For those working from home, a pet dog is a trusty companion between (or during) Zoom calls and an excuse to go for walks. Those who want to go into the office may find that their pets cannot be left alone and that doggy day-care is frightfully expensive. That leaves managers under increasing pressure to let them in. How welcoming should they be?
对于居家办公者而言，宠物狗不仅是 Zoom 会议间隙（乃至会议中）的忠实伴侣，也是外出散步的最佳理由。而那些渴望回归办公室的员工，可能会发现宠物无法独自留守，且狗狗日托费用高昂得令人咋舌，这促使管理者面临日益增长的允许宠物入室的压力。宠物应享有何种程度的欢迎？
Apart from, perhaps, in operating theatres
or sausage factories, there are obvious benefits to a permissive approach.
Welcoming pets can act as a recruitment or retention tool; a few especially
fond owners admit online that they have left their full-time jobs in order to
spend more time with their furry friends. Letting people bring their pets in
can also be a way to entice workers to spend more time at the office.
或许，除了剧院或香肠工厂等特定场所外，包容宠物的做法显然益处多多。宠物友好的工作环境可作为吸引并留住人才的利器；一些宠物爱好者在网络上坦言，他们已放弃全职工作，只为能有更多时间陪伴爱宠。允许员工携宠上班，也是促使员工更多留在办公室的一种策略。
Dogs in the workplace can boost morale and
productivity, and not only those of their owners. Marc Benioff, the boss of
Salesforce, named Koa, his now-deceased golden retriever, the company’s “chief
love officer”.
工作场所的狗狗不仅能提升狗主人的士气与生产力，对整个团队的士气与生产力亦有积极影响。Salesforce 的掌门人马克·贝尼奥夫曾任命其已故金毛猎犬科阿为公司“首席爱心官”。
Petting colleagues’ pooches can also lead to
serendipitous
conversations, and reduce feelings of isolation. Experiments suggest that employees are more likely to perceive those in a team as friendly if there’s a dog in the vicinity than if there isn’t. That can be a route to fruitful collaboration across the organisation.
轻抚同事的狗狗不仅能引发偶然的交谈，还能有效缓解孤独感。实验证明，相较于无狗环境，员工更倾向于认为有狗的团队中成员更加友善，这或许能为整个组织内部的高效合作开辟新径。
The problem for managers, though, is that
some people hate dogs, even if they keep their loathing to themselves. They
might be allergic to them, or especially sensitive to canine smells and sounds;
a few might even prefer cats, for some
unfathomable
reason.
然而，管理者面临的一大挑战是，有人对狗狗深恶痛绝，即便他们内心的不满深藏不露。这些人可能对狗过敏，或对犬类的气味与叫声异常敏感；更有甚者，出于某种难以言喻的原因，他们或许更偏爱猫咪。
Not all dogs are trained in office
etiquette
: those that are left unsupervised may roam freely, chew on co-workers’ belongings or make a mess on the carpet. Some owners could do with a bit of training, too: many
infuriate
their colleagues by bumbling away in baby talk to their pets.
并非所有狗狗都接受过办公室礼仪的训练：无人看管的狗狗可能会随意游荡，偷吃同事的零食，或将地毯弄得一塌糊涂。部分宠物主人同样需要引导：许多宠物主人在与宠物交流时过于忘我，这引起了同事的不满。
What should managers do? Unfettered
openness can make the dog-phobic uncomfortable and unhappy. At the other end of
the scale, a few big companies like PwC and HSBC have instituted no-pooch
policies in recent years. That may ensure there is no barking havoc in the
office, but forgoes the benefits of welcoming pets.
管理者应如何应对？无限制的开放会让恐狗症患者感到拘束与不安。另一方面，普华永道、汇丰银行等大型企业近年来实施了禁狗政策，虽确保了办公室免受吠叫与破坏的困扰，却也放弃了宠物友好带来的诸多益处。
The ideal is to seek middle ground.
Google, for instance, bans dog-owning staff (“Dooglers”) from bringing in noisy
pets and limits furry incursions if other employees are allergic. Beyond a few
company-wide rules, such as banning dangerous breeds and ensuring dogs are
vaccinated and office-trained, individual departments could be left to decide
their own policies in consultation with their teams. Some areas could be
designated as pooch-free zones. A dog roster could be agreed among staff.
理想的解决方案是寻求折中之道。例如，谷歌禁止员工携带吵闹的宠物进入公司，并在其他员工过敏时限制宠物进入。除了一些全公司适用的规则，如禁止携带危险犬种、确保狗狗接种疫苗并接受办公室礼仪训练外，各部门可在与团队协商后制定各自的政策。部分区域可设为无狗区，员工可共同商定狗狗名册。
This approach works only if people feel
free to pipe up when they are uncomfortable, in the knowledge that their
managers will act accordingly. As it turns out, such autonomy matters as much
for dog-owners as it does for their colleagues.
此方法奏效的前提是，人们在感到不适时能自由表达，且确信管理者会采取相应措施。事实证明，这种自主权对狗主人及其同事同样重要。
A survey of owners done in 2021 by Elisa Wagner and Miguel Pina e Cunha, then both of the Nova School of Business and Economics in Portugal, suggests that taking a pet into the office can become a burden if employees lack the freedom to decide when they can take breaks from their work.
葡萄牙新星商业与经济学院的 Elisa Wagner 和 Miguel Pina e Cunha 在2021年对业主进行的一项调查显示，若员工缺乏决定何时休息的自由，带宠物上班可能会成为一种负担。
Opening up the office to dogs might seem
like an easy way to make the workplace seem more flexible. In fact, it takes a
flexible workplace to make a dog-friendly approach succeed.
向狗狗开放办公室看似是让工作场所更显灵活的简单举措。实则，要让狗狗友好的政策取得成功，需要的是一个灵活的工作场所。
rusticate
[
ˈ
r
ʌ
st
ɪ
ke
ɪ
t] v. 隐居乡村；过田园生活
serendipitous
[
ˌ
ser
ə
n
ˈ
