If I go sick from work, then the reason will be that I am unwell. Early in my civil service ‘career’, I took sick leave when I wasn’t sick and my manager, who was a good manager and thoroughly decent person, sussed me out very quickly when I returned to work. I tried something I hate more than anything else: I told lies. I am not good at lying and hate liars. Soon I confessed and I never went sick from work again without genuinely being sick.
Under some, though not all, management regimes the emphasis is always on staff who are suspected of feigning illness. The need to reduce sick leave is down to expense and the minority who abused sick leave provisions always ensured that it was the majority who didn’t who would be threatened with losing their sick leave benefits, such as they are. When I was struggling in to work, during a chronic bout of clinical depression or pleurisy, for example, the idea I might be one of those pretending to be ill – and this was my paranoia induced conclusion – made me very upset. I did not expect to be even acknowledged for doing my duty and being in work when I was ill. However, it would have been nice for someone to say, “Thanks for coming in. I appreciate your making the effort.” In the final years in the civil service, I was blessed to have caring managers who did just this. It was unquestionably the exception rather than the norm.
I recently came across the term ‘duvet day’. I had literally no idea what it was. In fact, I had to look it up myself and one dictionary definition is this: ‘An unscheduled extra day’s leave from work, taken to alleviate stress or pressure and sanctioned by one’s employer.’ Does such a thing exist?
Whilst the idea of a duvet day sounds as if it’s a bad thing, I am not sure it is. In the midst of a mental health dip, like now, I would welcome a duvet day. My dip has little to do with stress and everything to do with depression and anxiety. I have hit a wall and I am on automatic mode until something in my psyche clicks in, something to do with desire, professionalism and loyalty and I perform, at least temporarily, at a higher level. That will be me today. In the complete absence of adequate NHS mental health provision, it’s a question of managing or not managing. The positive indicator to me is that I am still capable of performing when I need to.
With most employers, warnings are handed out to people who are ill. I once worked with a woman who was warned for sick leave despite suffering from terminal cancer. No acknowledgement was made, except by local managers, when she bravely returned to work far too quickly after chemotherapy. At a much lower level, people who still go to work when they are hanging don’t enjoy so much as a ‘thanks for coming in even though you feel terrible’.
Perhaps people should not be acknowledged for doing what they are supposed to do? After all, they are only doing what they are paid to do; working. It’s just me, I suppose. I have seen people come to work when they are literally dying and others staying at home when they plainly aren’t.
It was all I could do to get out of bed this morning and I know that soon something inside will drive me on. I suspect most people are like me. It’s the ones who genuinely ‘swing the lead’ who need words of warning, not us. In our world, it never works like that.
