Henry at Work

I work for a company called Language Learning Solutions, located just across Franklin from the U of O. I've worked there for almost 2 1/2 years and since I've been working there, the company has gone from a little barely-scraping-by company to a growing million-dollar-contracts company.

Sidenote, I also work for my dad. He's been working at LLS for 3 years and started out writing French items (pretty low level) – now, he's in charge of several huge contracts including the Minnesota Department of Education's ESL program. He travels to Minnesota, Georgia, Kentucky, you name it, for meetings with people who are pretty important to the future of LLS. My dad also owns a small percent of the company now, which is pretty cool, and he's moved up to being one of the big guys in the office.

So a couple of years ago, my dad used to bring our dog, Henry, to the office every day. Henry's a yellow lab, he's 7 years old, and he's very mellow. We didn't want to leave him at home alone all day every day so my dad just brought him along to work. Nobody had a problem with it; everybody loved Henry. He was kinda like the class pet.

Well, my dad started riding his bike to work and that didn't really accomodate Henry so we just started attaching him to a leash outside the house whenever nobody was home. Henry still occasionally comes into the office, but usually only when I bring him in, which isn't that often. Since Henry's "office pet" days, LLS also hired a new head honcho dude, John, to deal with the business side of things as LLS grew to be a bigger and bigger company.

So my parents are out of town on vacation and I'm working every day this week at LLS. I decided I didn't want to leave Henry all alone while my parents were gone so I've been bringing him to the office all week. He just lies quietly by my desk and doesn't disturb anybody. We're still in the same frumpy office building we were in 3 years ago (it used to be an animal research center - it's kinda a weird building) so it never crossed my mind that Henry coming to work with me would be a problem.

Well, I pull into work today and John comes out to the parking lot and says, "Look, Melissa, we have got to do something about this dog." "Henry?" is my response. He looks at me, then at the dog, then back at me. "Yeah, we just can't be having a dog in the office. It really could look bad for the company." Whoops. "Okay," I reply, "I didn't realize it was a problem, I was just bringing him in because my parents are on vacation and this way he doesn't have to stay home alone all day." John opens his eyes really wide, I'm not completely sure why, and goes, "Oooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Well, it's fine for today then, but in the future... meh." His reaction was a little weird, but I was cool about it. "Sorry, I mean, I didn't think it was a problem because it never has been in the past, but I can see your concern with LLS being a bigger company than it was when Henry used to come in..." Then John goes into this huge justification explination thing, which isn't really necessary because I really do understand already, and at the end of it, I just say, "Okay, sorry about that, I didn't know but I won't bring him in anymore now that I know it's a problem." Then he goes into the "it's nothing against you" thing, which isn't necessary because I already understand, and.. yeah.

So I'm sitting at my desk, working of course, and Dave, the owner and one of the founders of LLS, walks in. What does he say? "HENRYYYYYY!!!!!!" Then he gets down and pets Henry and says in a mushy puppy voice, "Ohhh, buddy, it's good to have you around again."

Haha.