Employees who go above and beyond are increasingly rare. Zoomers are quiet-quitting; millennials are betting retirement accounts on Labubu clothes; boomers are lost in the AI-assisted metaverse. But one subset of workers consistently outperforms, delivering quality outputs, productive and streamlined activity sessions, and powerful, data-driven outlooks.
That subset? Shih-tzus. The outlooks? Looking longingly out of windows. The sessions? Uhhh, fetch.
That’s right: despite the haters, the mailmen, and the general lack of any usable language, Lady the five-year-old Shih-tzu has once again landed The Pickup’s coveted Employee of the Month spot for August 2025. This is the third win in a row for the 17-pound dog, who achieved similar accomplishments in June and July, effectively making her the Employee of the Month for an entire quarter, the first employee to do so in The Pickup’s storied history.
Here at The Pickup we are all about optimization, and Lady the Shih-tzu has optimized our workplace in a number of ways.
Firstly, Lady has installed a hallucination-free, frictionless greeting system for The Pickup’s office space. Before Lady arrived in The Pickup’s office, visitors to our space would enter the door and look around, confused, greetingless, strangers in a strange land. Thanks to Lady’s effective and actionable insights, office visitors now experience a three-dimensional, holistic personalized greeting from Lady herself, who launches herself at the visitor with every ounce of rugged determination her little body can hold.
Secondly, Lady has delivered synergistic insights towards The Pickup’s Digestive Waste Department (our single restroom). The synergy is that Lady will walk with you to the bathroom anytime you get up to go. And, in a leveraged alignment of corporate values, Lady will, 1 time out of 10, walk into the restroom with you. This has led to a three-times boost in employee retention, emphasizing The Pickup’s core competencies of friendship, physical closeness, and looking at you with those big ol’ eyes.
Thirdly, Lady’s systematic and robust understanding of mental health has led the office to drill down on practices that increase employees’ psychological well-being. Studies show that walks are good for you. Lady will force your lazy ass to take them.
To honor Lady’s impact on The Pickup’s workflow and general joie de vivre, we here at The Pickup have developed the Lady Mental Health Performance Index (or LMHPI) to measure Lady’s impact on the corporate atmosphere of The Pickup.
According to this article I didn’t fully read, every dollar spent on mental health initiatives sees a return of up to $4.00 in “reduced absenteeism and healthcare costs.” Knowing this, we can calculate Lady’s hourly rate (30 ear scratches an hour, valued at approximately $3.20/ear scratch, which comes to $96/hour) and extrapolate her value towards the company. Lady spends around 20 hours a week at The Pickup’s office, and 20 times 96 is 1,920. Multiplying this by 52 for every week of the year, we get 99,840. 99,840 times 4 is 399,360.
Knowing this, we can safely and correctly estimate Lady’s contribution towards The Pickup as $400,000 per annum, according to the extremely correct and highly respected Lady Mental Health Performance Index. (Eat that, normal benefits!) Obviously this number is real and actionable, and must be taken into consideration when Employee of the Month candidates are considered for September. I look forward to bringing you the results.
