Some guy in Seattle woke up one recent morning and thought to himself, “Hmmm. I think I’ll take Toshi to work with me today,” which may not seem such an odd thought until you learn that Toshi is a yak — and I don’t mean he’s talkative.

Jim Harding, CEO of a small software company called Cirqe, decided bringing one of the critters from his yak ranch — who knew? — to the office would shake things up and inspire creativity.

So, shovel in hand — seems yaks aren’t litter trained — he brought the half-ton, long-haired, horned beast to work last week.

The yak, and thus Jim, got a lot of publicity, but personally, I don’t see how this could be that different from Take Your Kids to Work Day.

Unruly hair in eyes? Check.

Gold ring in nose? Check.

Mysterious substance deposited on conference room floor? Check, ewww, and check.

And on Take Your Kids to Work Day, someone is sure to leave a half-eaten, lint-covered lollipop in the boss’ desk drawer, use Photoshop to black out teeth and add a hairy nose wart to the publisher’s image in the company photo, and have a newsroom shoot-out armed with a couple of staplers.

And that’s just the grown-ups.

No, really, it’s probably not a bad idea to shake things up, change the typical work-a-day attitude by doing something different.

That’s why I plan to bring my cat Butthea…er, Scout, to work next week.

He may weigh 10 pounds instead of 1,000 and he doesn’t have horns, but he does yak a lot — especially when I’ve just cleaned my carpet.

Besides, Scout was plenty hissed off when he heard some nuts, er, dog lovers came up with National Take Your Dog to Work Day. There is no such day of honor for our much cleaner and better-behaved feline friends. If that’s not prejudice, I don’t know what is. I’m thinking of suing on Scout’s behalf and trust me, I will play the species card. Maybe I can get Toshi to join us and we’ll file a class action suit.

If I brought Scout to work, I think he could bring a lot to the table, specifically, furballs.

In our conference room, by which I mean a small area of carpet partitioned on one side by a half wall, we hold a weekly budget meeting to discuss which stories we will write for the newspaper in the coming week, by which I mean we sit around and say, “I hope someone robs someone Thursday. Looks like a slow news day.”

Scout, when he was finished shredding and eating his copy of the story budget, could give some input.

“Puuu-u-rr-rr,” he might say, meaning, “Where’s the food?”

And then “Mrr-ow hisss,” meaning, “WHERE’S THE FOOD?”

Then perhaps “Yo-o-ow,” meaning “Does it LOOK like I’m joking?”

He might then decide, as he often does at home, that leaping from the head of one person to another is a suitable means of getting from Point A to Point Wherever the Food is Stored.

This would result in more yowls and hisses, this time from the owners of said heads because, of course, Scout would need to use his claws to gain proper leverage for leaping, the motion of which would likely lead to his yakking in someone’s hair.

So while people may leave the weekly meeting scratched, bloodied and yakked upon, I feel sure the incident would inspire creativity.

After all, there is no end to the names you can call a butthea…er, cat.



When she’s not cleaning up cat yak, Kelly Kazek can be reached at kelly@athensnews-courier.com.