Get a Quote →

NEWS

The Office Cat That Has Never Entered the Workshop

Found in a drain outside the wall on a rainy day in August 2024. It now lives on the office side, and has never been…

A calico kitten sitting on a counter beneath the illuminated Prolean sign

Origin

A drain outside the wall.

August 2024, and it was raining. The kitten was small enough to hold in one hand.

Someone found it in a drain on the far side of the wall, carried it through the office door, and put it in a box under a desk. Then they went looking for a bottle.

It has not been through the workshop door.

Bottle-fed on a desk, 31 August 2024.

The line

Nobody had to teach it
where not to go.

The workshop is on the other side of a door. Machines, coolant, swarf, and a rule about who goes in. Four months of photographs, and not one frame from there.

An orange and white cat sitting upright on an office desk, with a mesh office chair and a monitor behind

01

The door stays shut

It opens when someone goes through, and closes behind them. The cat watches from the desk. That is the entire system.

Three kittens on the floor of the office

02

Then there were three

One came in from the rain. Two came with people who already worked here. They share a feeder, a crate and a bed, and nobody has ever had to draw up a rota.

A pair of hands lifting a golden tabby kitten in front of a noticeboard on the office wall

03

Nothing was decided in a meeting

A bowl appeared. Then a box. Then a crate with three tiers and a hammock in it. Nobody wrote a policy, because nobody was asked to.

The record — 17:56 to 18:14

Eighteen minutes, one evening.

Four photographs from one August evening, eighteen minutes apart. The same desk, the same cat, four different things to look at.

  1. A kitten standing on a white desk beside two stainless steel blocks and a power cable

    17:56

    Two blocks, one cable

    Two blocks are on the desk. The cat wants the cable.

  2. A kitten standing on a desk between a dial caliper, a stainless block and an open laptop

    18:00

    Everything on one desk

    A caliper, a block, an open laptop. A colleague at the next station, doing something else entirely.

  3. A dial caliper held open above a kitten on a white desk

    18:05

    Someone reaches for the caliper

    The dial comes out. Nobody writes anything down.

  4. A kitten standing upright on a white desk looking down at the surface

    18:14

    Still there

    Eighteen minutes later, the same surface. Only the mood has changed.

18:04 — 18:07

Four minutes that look
like an inspection.

They are not. The cat did not hold still, the dial was never read, and the whole thing was over in four minutes.

A dial caliper held around a kitten's head, jaw open, on a white desk
The caliper, 18:05. The jaw is open and the cat is moving.
A dial caliper above a kitten's head with the dial visible
18:06. The dial reads nothing, because nothing is between the jaws.
A dial caliper touching a kitten's fur while the cat looks away
18:07. Four minutes in, the gauge goes back in the drawer.

Where it stops

What it does not do.

A page with a cat on it can be read two ways.

  1. 01

    It does not inspect anything

    Every part is checked against the drawing by people with calibrated equipment, and the results are written down. The cat has never been part of that, and there is no version of the process where it could be.

  2. 02

    It does not go into the workshop

    There is a door between the office and the floor. Four months of photographs, and not one frame from the other side.

  3. 03

    It is not in your documents

    No drawing, certificate, inspection report or shipping document from Prolean mentions a cat. If one ever does, send it to us. We will frame it.

Archive

Everything else.

155 files from four months. The desk, the crate, the bin, and whoever got to the bed first. Click any frame to enlarge.

A kitten on a dark stone counter below the illuminated Prolean sign
One minute before the opening frame, same counter.
Close portrait of a calico kitten looking directly at the camera
Portrait, September 2024.
Two kittens standing inside a black wire waste-paper bin
In the bin, both of them.
Two kittens asleep together in a round woven cat bed
Two of them, asleep in one bed.
A three-tier wire cat crate with a hammock, a bed, a litter tray and a food bowl
Three tiers, a litter tray, a hammock.
Two kittens resting in a cat bed inside a wire crate, both wearing red collars with bells
Collars and bells, both of them.
A kitten lying on a white office desk beside a dial caliper, with office chairs in the background
On a desk, beside a caliper.
A dial caliper held horizontally above a kitten on a white office desk
17:58. The caliper, six minutes early.
Two cats eating from an automatic feeder in the office
Two of the three, at the feeder.
A golden tabby cat looking at the camera
One of the two that belong to colleagues.
A kitten sitting on a computer keyboard at a workstation
On the keyboard, 18:00.

← Back to all news