Pauline, an eleven-year-old tabby, has provided continuous on-site oversight of one employee since March 2020. She has not taken a sick day, a holiday or, by her own account, a proper lunch. We spoke to her on the arm of a sofa in Walthamstow, which she described as “the only room with decent sight lines”.

“There was no consultation period”

Can you describe your role?

“Supervisory. Helen Prowse, a senior project coordinator at a mid-sized logistics consultancy, works at that laptop between 8.40 and 5.30. I sit on the keyboard for most of that. People call it sitting; I call it a live review of outputs. In five years I have stopped at least four emails going out that Helen would have regretted, and I have never once been thanked in a one-to-one.”

And then the mandate arrived.

“Three days a week, Tuesday to Thursday. I found out the way I find out about most things, which is by watching her iron a shirt. There was no consultation period. There was no restructure document. I was not so much as copied in.”

How has it affected the team?

“The team is me and a radiator. I had spent three years securing stakeholder buy-in from that radiator, which is warm, reliable and has never once contradicted me. It is now unattended for three days out of five. I have raised this with nobody, because there is nobody left to raise it with.”

“I learn about lunch from a coat”

You mentioned feeling out of the loop.

“Lunch. I used to be across every sandwich. I knew the filling, the timing and the likelihood of a crust. Now Helen eats at a desk in an area she calls ‘the hub’, and I only find out what happened afterwards, by smell, from her coat. That is not how information should travel in a functioning organisation.”

Helen has said she misses you during the day.

“She has said a lot of things. She also installed a camera on the bookshelf so she could check on me from her desk. I looked at it for forty minutes and then knocked it off. I would call that an escalation, but in fairness it was a very small camera.”

“I did feel guilty, but she is getting a good deal of rest out of it,” said Helen Prowse, 41. “She sleeps through most of the day now. The only thing that has changed is that the keyboard at home is no longer covered in hair, which I find slightly unsettling.”

Some offices now allow dogs. Have you considered that as a model?

“I have seen the photographs. A labrador in a lanyard, being passed between departments like a mood. It is a cry for attention with a name badge. Enthusiasm is not a skillset, and nobody there is monitoring the dog’s deliverables. I would be astonished if it had ever read a spreadsheet, let alone sat on one with intent.”

“A change in routine is a personal slight”

Dr Neil Garside, a feline behaviour consultant based in Leeds, said Pauline’s response was typical of a cat whose household pattern had been altered without warning. “Cats do not experience a working week as such,” he said. “They do experience a change in routine as a personal slight, and from what I have heard Pauline has particularly strong feelings about routine. She wrote to me, in a sense. It was a lot of the letter j.”

What would a workable solution look like?

“Two days in the office, three at home, with the radiator formally added to my reporting line. I would also want a clear lunch protocol, circulated in advance and in writing. I am not unreasonable. I have spent five years being reasonable at a laptop.”

Asked whether she would be willing to review the arrangement in the new year, Pauline said she had a nap scheduled for 2.15 and walked across our notes.