update: I can’t travel because my cat is sick — and my boss and coworkers are unhappy

It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager and I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer who couldn’t travel because their cat was sick — and their boss and coworkers were unhappy? Here’s the update.

I didn’t get fired and I didn’t quit! About a week after I wrote in to Ask a Manager, I took Alison and commenters’ tough-love suggestions and initiated a conversation with my boss in which I acknowledged that I hadn’t been handling my pet and travel situation well (including the exchange with my coworker) and outlined how I’d be making changes. He was understanding, pleasantly surprised by my directness, and proposed things he could do that could help my experience as a remote worker aside from travel.

Some commenters suggested my problems could stem from performance, so without getting into details, I made it a challenge to up my game! Come December, I had my annual performance review and I got a healthy raise without asking for one.

We’ve settled into a less frequent but longer-duration travel schedule that my boss seems happy with — more like one 3 to 5-day trip per quarter to the home office rather than once a month. I also have other business travel that isn’t to the home office, so I’m going to be traveling about once a month this summer anyway.

Unfortunately, my cat’s quality of life continued to decline despite treatment (indicating perhaps undetected colon cancer on top of the pancreatitis) and we made the difficult decision to euthanize in January. Treatment became less stressful over time, and I’m glad we gave my cat a few more good months. He even would purr and bump my hands in anticipation of the fluid injections, which really lifted his spirits. Some commenters urged me to let my fiance help me, and I’m so grateful to him for how willing he was to help: he did every single injection for the remainder of my cat’s life because I struggled with it emotionally. I miss my cat all the time but haven’t adopted another because I don’t think I could handle it right now if another pet had health troubles. (I have had a few therapy sessions that were helpful in this regard.)

The timing meant that, although I was willing to make changes and knew how I’d do it, I actually didn’t have to travel again for work until after my cat had passed. I did immediately take the advice to be less vocal about my personal life in the workplace, however. I think almost all of my coworkers don’t know that my cat died because I haven’t broadcasted it, though I’ve confided in one or two pet-lovers who have been interested in talking about “life stuff.” It’s in general been freeing to be treated as a professional that can be trusted to get my work done.

Thank you to Alison and the AAM community!

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