Colleague compares pet death to relative

[ItsNotTheSame]

So long story short... my mum passed away a few months ago. Very sudden & unexpected, happened at home when she was alone and she was found there. Paramedics pronounced her dead on the scene. No chance to say goodbye obviously very shocking and caused me a lot of issues with anxiety and depression etc since while trying to come to terms with this. She was only in her early 50s and no illnesses before this as far as we knew.

Anyway, I’m back at work and have been for a couple of months now. My colleague has recently had a family pet put to sleep due to illness. Was working with said colleague when she made a comment to me along the lines of how upset she was and said I must know how she feels as it’s the same as my mum.

This really annoyed me and I told her in no uncertain terms that this is not the same and I walked away feeling angry / upset. I now feel a bit bad that maybe I’ve over reacted and been over sensitive. So opinions please.... Aibu?

YANBU - it’s the kind of thing people say when they’ve never experienced the loss of a parent. I had no idea how traumatic it is until my mum died. Some people have no idea.

@Bluewhoohoo "What most of the pet people on here are talking about is ME ME ME. How I feel, what it does to ME. I need time off work for ME."

But that is exactly the same as humans feeling sorry for themselves because they lost a relative. Crying at funerals (that are only for the living) It is absolutely NO DIFFERENT. Oh, and there is a difference between some may say self-servingly campaigning for animals, perhaps to feel self-righteous, and truly LOVING them. I find animal activists often don't have altruistic reasons and truly don't actually love animals. Enough proof can be seen on here.

@ADastardlyThing

Thank you.

I'm obviously being a bit disingenuous here. I run my own company and am very flexible around pet care in all it's guises; time off for vet appointments and so on. But it's a trust arrangement and informal.

But it does expose the frailties around saying some pets are more valuable than others.

But the reason for compassionate leave following the death of family members is that there are so many arrangements to be made, parenting until after the funeral. It's not about how much you loved the person who has died. Your employer won't be questioning you on the closeness of your relationship. I think another poster pointed this out earlier.

I think two or three days off work would be thoroughly reasonable, because it really is traumatic taking a beloved pet to the vet to be PTS. (I was a mum to a toddler when my cat was PTS, so no time off for me.)

@SalemBlackCat

You must be a journalist trying to create editorial content with reactions.

Must be.

Forgot about the bereavement leave! Same thing again, generally applies to pets who usually form a bond so that policy covers a bit more, it ties in with the thought that pets can enrich employees lives and keep then active or company, so again prob wouldn't apply to a fish unfortunately, tbh no-one would think to request it for a fish. We had a gerbil death where a day was given though!

SalemBlackCat

It is the height of human arrogance imo to suggest a human death is worse than an animal one

It's not arrogance it's an observation on the society we live in. We eat animals. Many animals are killed every day to service humanity. Human lives are held to be significantly more important both legally and morally by the vast majority of society.

If you value human and animal life equally you are outside the norm. Also, do you value all animals the same. Do you have a hierarchy? What counts most cats, dogs, mice, salamanders?

@Bluewoohoo really, look at your snarky and snide comments on here, even laughing about the possibility of pet bereavement leave. One would think you are the journalist.

@SalemBlackCat

I leave you with this. Go on, you know you want to.

www.marryyourpet.com/

So what I’ve gathered by reading through some of this is that, those who value their pets as people, don’t tend to have close relationships with actual people.
I don’t mean with anyone , but all the ‘I miss the cat more than my mum’ people then go on to say they were never close with their mums etc.
So obviously they can’t ever empathise with losing a mother that’s close to them, as they’ve never had it.

Or it’s their first death.
Seriously though, don’t compare your animal dying to someone’s relative. Even if you’re convinced it IS the same, don’t say it out loud. Only compare your pets dying to other people’s pets dying, people will NOT appreciate your ‘trying to empathise’ with them, they will think your insensitive at best or just cruel and narcissistic at worse.

@Bluewoohoo thank you for proving my point that some people who pretend they are for animal rights are simply selfish posers and genuinely don't care about animals. When true colours show, words say so much. Is there a marryyourmother site, I wonder?

There's an unconscious hierarchy with most things . Especially with pets. Which people pretend isn't there when they talk about 'no hierarchy' of grief.

Is anyone really telling me that if they were at work crying because their 15 year old dog died. The dog that they had from a puppy, walked every day, cuddled every night, laughed with every day at the silly things they did. The dog that comforted you through your divorce, that you bought Xmas presents for, is in the photos of every family gathering etc etc.

The loss of which has left a huge hole in your family and your home, you wouldn't be pissed off or upset if someone said 'oh I know exactly how you feel, the goldfish we won at the fair last year just died'. Or my African giant snail, or my house spider (I've seen posters on MN keep these as pets).

I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't think it really isn't comparable.

When people talk about how the grief of losing a pet can be the same as losing a human, they're usually only referring to cats, dogs or horses. Pets that live for more than a decade or more, that have very individual characteristics, respond to humans and are comforting to touch, stroke and hold.

Everyone keeps insisting their is no hierarchy, but there is.

@Moussemoose, can you please provide me with a hierarchy of grief so I know how to rank people's feelings? Without your expert advice, I won't know what to feel or think.

Please provide as much detail as possible. For example, is a miscarriage after six weeks less painful than a miscarriage after seven weeks? Oh, and please factor in all the external circumstances.

Thank you.

I'm sorry for your loss. she may have no other comparison so in her eyes it is as bad for her. Obviously you don't agree but you're probably feeling sore and angry still. I would try not to dwell on it any more.

@TerfsUp in relation to a hierarchy if you read the post by StarWarsHolidaySpecial you get a good idea. I also gave examples in my post. Several other posters have given reference to other types of loss and how some are more severe than others.

Clearly individual circumstances play into situations (as I explained previously) but absolutely the loss of a goldfish does not compare to the loss of a parent and it is ludicrous to suggest otherwise.

It's just ludicrous to even suggest that losing goldfish would rank as highly as losing a relative (or losing a dog or a cat for that matter). If you're going to be grief stricken every time a goldfish floats and take compassionate leave, you wouldn't be in work much at all.

People do talk nonsense. I lost my parents in my early 30s.

Someone in their 60s (with both parents hale and healthy) told me that it was much worse for them because when their parents eventually died they would have had them around for so much longer than me, so it would be worse for them.

I would grant one of my employees compassionate leave on the day the animal died. But if they asked for longer I would only grant it on the basis that they didn’t return at all. It’s an animal at the end of the day, pull yourself together.

Come back to work - it's what Mr Tinky would have wanted...

@Moussemoose - sorry, but I have autism and need things spelt out for me when it comes to neurotypicals and how they see the world, as it is baffling. Therefore, a taxonomy would be very helpful as I will be able to refer to it in the future.

Thank you.

@TerfsUp unfortunately a strict hierarchy would be impossible because there are so many variables. Some companies include a hierarchy in company policy 3 days compassionate leave for a parent, 1 day for a distant relative etc. Most managers rely on their own judgment.

I think the vast majority of people would say that the death of a parent is a significant event in your life even if you don't love or like that parent.

@@TerfsUp unfortunately a strict hierarchy would be impossible because there are so many variables.

But you said that there is a hierarchy. Everyone keeps insisting their is no hierarchy, but there is.

Therefore, you should be able to share it. As I said, for someone on the autistic spectrum it would be very helpful.

For example, if someone loses their dog, is it worse than if I lose my cat? I am not at all close to my brother but am close to one of my cousins. How do those losses fit on the hierarchy?

I wouldn’t ever compare the death of a pet to that of a human relative. But I would like people to accept that for many people the death of a pet can be traumatic and very distressing. It doesn’t mean they value humans or human relationships any less.

I think that different people feel grief in different ways and that that should be respected to within reasonable limits. (For example, I would look askance at someone doing the mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor on the passing of their support goldfish but could understand their feelings of loss.)

Yes their is a hierarchy but like most human interactions it is not written down their is no instruction booklet. Unfortunately, for people on the autistic spectrum most people 'pick it up' they are able to decode facial expressions and 'get it'. This makes life significantly harder for people who do not have that particular skill set.

That fact that it is not written down and is difficult to quantify does not make it less true. Most people value human life top,then the closer the relative the more of an impact. Losing an animal while sad is not as significant a life event as losing a human relative or friend.