Working Behind the Scenes

The other day I had a very interesting revelation. The entire staff in our office had to go to a division-wide staff meeting across campus. We went over together and Morey was polite enough to push the door button for us (one of his favorite tasks). Once we were outside one of the women who works at our front desk said "Wow, that was really neat. I hear him squeak his toys in your office but I didn't know he could open doors." We continued on to the meeting and rode the campus bus to get there. Morey got on like a pro (the bus driver was scared of dogs which made things a little interesting) and quietly settled down in a small space in front of me. As we were getting off, the same co-worker said "He is really well-behaved."

I realized that most of my co-workers had never really seen Morey work. They don't see him open the doors to the building, retrieve the things that fall under my desk, or, a rare event now that I live in blazing hot Texas, help me take my coat off. These are all things that Morey does to help me at work, but all of it happens out of sight of most of my co-workers. What they do see is Morey playing ball after hours and squeaking his squeaky toy. None of them have ever said anything about it, but I realized that based on what they do see, Morey appears to be just a pet that I bring to work. Now that I am aware of this, I will try to be more cognizant of how Morey's role appears to my office. Not that I feel the need to prove Morey's helpfulness to me, but I think it's an interesting point to think about how much work Morey is doing behind the scenes that never gets seen or recognized by anyone but me.