Feline good: Cats counter stress at Tokyo firm

Actually, they can increase stress when they walk on the keyboard or settly down on it. I know. mhy7eeeeee32aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I ran this idea past a couple of my staff today. They weren't nearly as interested in it as I was.

Some people don't like cats as much as I do.

Cats may in 'some' instances reduce stress but in all my years of working for firms in their IT departments, dust was our number one enemy and cats would only make that worse. Plus, cats tend to love cables and can be attention whores, Fluffy's famous words "ignore me and see what happens". Anyone who has a cat and has mysteriously found chewed up cables at home will know what I'm referring to. There's only so much you can do to manage cables in a work environment so I am guessing this will tend to add stress to those more than it relieves.

Actually, I would definitely enjoy this

I think pretty much all non-work related 'distractions' help reduce stress i.e neck/shoulder massage, music, tv, coffee break etc. Not sure about having cats wandering around the office all day/every day though (too much of a disruption, unclean, allergies etc). 

Basically, would most def welcome the idea if I were an employee, not so much if I were a/the boss.

Why do these progressive ideas about workplace efficiency and worker comfort often emanate from IT firms? Not criticizing, just curious.

Interesting idea. I'd like to do this at my company. It would be nice to have cats around.

I don't like cats so this would not be to my liking at all. Just look at the top picture: how can having a cat's backside shoved in your face reduce stress?

In one place I worked at, we had a Labrador dog, which was very nice. Problem was, every one kept giving the dog treats (usually sweet biscuits ) and the poor thing almost exploded, it got that over weight. The dog had to go on a "holiday" to recover as we almost killed it. After this the dog was limited to set feeding times. It is nice having a pet around.