Should you be allowed time off for 'pet-ernity' leave? This boss argues yes

I would quite like some time off, if that’s OK. I’d quite like to not go into work for a couple of weeks and still get paid, if you could sort that for me, thanks. Only thing is, the only way to do that is to be sick, which I don’t want to do, or have a baby, which I also don’t want to do. Being sick hurts and makes you do bad things in the toilet, and having a baby means you’ve got to live with a little dickhead for about 18 years. I guess I could also take my holiday, but I need to save that to occasionally take Mondays off when I’m still really hungover, so it’s not ideal.

However, better plan: I CAN GET A DOG. If you work for a Mr. Greg Buchanan’s company, then you can get time off if you buy a new pet. So it doesn’t even need to be a dog. I could get a cat, or a rabbit, or a gecko – I wonder how far I can stretch this? Could I get a house spider? Or a gnat. I’m going to get a gnat.

Anyway, he’ll give you ‘pet-ernity’ leave when you cop a new pet, giving you time to get your new furry friend settled into its new home, which is nice, isn’t it. Greg went on This Morning to discuss his radical employee benefit scheme, and predictably, that thing they call Twitter, ‘went off’ as it were. Also predictably, things were pretty much split right down the middle.

Here, looky:

That is all. THAT. IS. ALL.

I think this is good. Like, I don’t really care about the ins-and-outs of it or the reasons behind the idea – I just think it’s good that you can get time off for doing absolutely nothing. Buy a cat, put it on a chair and then get pissed. Money will mysteriously appear in your bank account overnight. Someone will be in your office, snowed under with both their work and your work, but you’ll be on your sofa watching Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. The cat’s outside having a nap under the rose bush – he’s having a great time. So are you.

On a serious note, it can take time to get pets adjusted to their new homes, particularly puppies and cats, so is this really such an outlandish idea?