Dog Phobia At Work... A Strange One.

[Smowball]

My best friends daughter has recently started working at a small family run business, in their office. There are several other people in the office with her. She also has a severe dog phobia, always has had. She told them about it on her application form when she joined.
Last week she was at her desk and turned round to be met face to face with a German Shepherd literally sat behind her chair. She completely freaked out, ran to the toilets sobbing and called her mum as she didn’t know what to do. Mum says to go to the boss and ask what was going on. Short answer was this other member of staff has bought a dog, realised she can’t leave it all day and is now bringing it to work! She was then told to apologise to the dog owner for her ‘over-reaction’!
She needs the job, and is looking for a different one as we speak, but they refuse to stop the dog coming in - they’ve told her she needs to go for counselling. Your thoughts??

[ladybirder]

CloverJo //Of course she DOESN'T want to be terrified of dogs\\
That's not what I said, you missed the main bit off which was //for the rest of her life\\.
She has learnt to be scared of dogs, she wasn't born with it. She was born as we all are with two fears, the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. I feel very sorry for her that she feels like this and I wonder how she picked up this fear.
However, my point is why would you not seek help to cure yourself of being scared witless of dogs? Why go through your whole life with that awful fear? If it was me I would do something about it.

[spathiphyllum]

Maybe she was bit when she was young which gave her the phobia?

Maybe she doesn't want to spend her young life trying to get over the fear of dogs, when you could simply just avoid dogs?

People don't try to get over their fear of spiders

[spathiphyllum]

i mean it would be good to get over the fear.. it would be good if everyone could get over their fears but it can be real hard

[ladybirder]

Well if people can't be bothered then it can't be bothering them that much is my view.

Avoiding dogs must be near impossible I would think.
Especially when they are in your office;-))

[Prudie]

I have a phobia of large house spiders but it's not something I have to face very often, dogs however I see every day and it must be far more limiting if you have to avoid them - that's why an attempt to overcome the fear would be so beneficial for her. As to the scenario is it actually the case that other staff were encouraged to bring in their dogs to scare this girl?

[kvalidir]

Actually Spath I have tried and t some degree succeeded in getting over my fear of spiders. I can deal with little ones and pick them up now and I can deal with really really huge ones like Tarantulas because they are more like an animal when you hold them. the ones I cannot deal with and which would send me screaming for someone to help me move it are big wolf Spiders, they scuttle and are so quick, I don't have time to get myself together, I still am physically sick over them, but still trying to get better.

[gness]

No phobia but I'm not a great dog lover....dogs I know I'm okay with...the unknown I don't want to fuss or pet...
I once, in my hard up days, took an evening job...six till midnight....in the shed of an "office" as the receptionist of a mini cab company....
Just had to answer the phone and send drivers to pick up fares.....
The owner left his Doberman with me as a guard dog which would have been fine if the dog had just stayed sitting when the phone rang....
It didn't.....the dog dived at the phone and rested its face on the receiver before I could pick up.....
Did I move the dog to answer the phone......not on your life.....there were few if any bookings that night and either I went or the dog did...... :-)

[retrocop]

The question needs answering. How many WPM can Rex type compared to the young lady?

[webbo3]

What would she do if it was an assistance dog, disabled people need dogs to help them