The owner's dog appeared at the office one Monday and immediately received more attention than the new employee had the previous week. He was small, lively, and accustomed to people approaching him. Most colleagues were delighted. I stayed at my desk with my feet tucked beneath the chair. I did not hate dogs. I feared them, without an interesting story to justify it. That fear had never caused major difficulty until a dog began coming to work daily.
I asked the owner to keep him away from my desk. She said he was harmless and let him sniff my bag. Colleagues laughed at my stiffness. One suggested I must stroke him to get accustomed. I said I did not want to. The owner said everyone could use more warmth. Suddenly a discussion about workspace became an assessment of my character, as though fear meant I was not a sufficiently good person.
During the following days the dog lay near the exit, jumped on chairs, and sometimes barked during my telephone calls. Whenever I stood, I searched for him. I finished work more slowly but hesitated to admit how much attention I spent on an animal nobody had asked employees about. Worst was colleagues beginning jokes before I said anything. I had become the person whose reaction they awaited as brief entertainment between tasks.
At a meeting the owner placed the dog in my lap. I stood so quickly she had to catch him. Silence fell. I said I had clearly refused repeatedly and nobody could make that decision for me. I was not demanding the dog disappear from the planet, only to work without contact I had declined. The owner looked offended, as though I had rejected a present every reasonable person must want.
Afterward a colleague admitted the barking bothered her but she did not want to seem unfriendly. I said next time she should say so herself, not only to me in the kitchen. The dog began staying in the owner's office. People treated me more coldly for a while, then slowly returned to ordinary work questions. Nobody became a great advocate for my right to fear. It was enough that they stopped making a game of it.
In spring a colleague brought his child briefly to visit. The owner immediately moved the dog when the boy said he was afraid. I watched that simple movement, made without argument. I added nothing. I returned to work and, for the first time, finished my report before the break. My bag still sat in a drawer from habit, but that day I stretched my legs beneath the desk without checking the space around me.