Dont you DARE be sick!

Don’t you DARE be sick!

It’s winter, and the ads for cold and flu remedies are all over the TV, and they have a consistent message that is absolutely driving me nuts…”Don’t you dare take time off of work to get better.”  

Certainly everyone has work, and I do believe in showing up to do the job you’re paid to do – but I also believe that we have sick time for a reason, because sometimes we get sick.  What is it with this self-sacrifice for the workplace attitude?  Outside of a paycheck, what has your job done for you lately?  Why would you want to take a drug that masks your symptoms (but still leaves you contagious), so you can go into work, run yourself down further and share your virus with your co-workers?  Are you saving the world?  Ok, then please, go to work, we need you.  Not saving the world?  STAY HOME!!

I used to work in an office where the stress related illnesses were off the charts; three of the four employees were on anti-depressants, prescription antacids and saw the chiropractor regularly to relieve all of that built up tension (yes, I was one of them).  Of course my workplace was, I hope, a rarity, and a fine example of a “sick” environment.  But the message is out there, and although any number of human resources and health care provider studies will tell you (and your employer) that it is better to stay home when ill, your boss may tell you exactly the opposite, as will advertisers.  

Why do we let them?  What is it about our society that tells us to put our work over our health, our families, and our personal satisfaction?  At my former workplace the employee who was held up as a paragon of what we should be continued to work while ill. She ultimately collapsed and had to be hospitalized for a week and a half because she had lost 30% of her blood volume through a bleeding ulcer.  We’re talking about a job, not a religion, but our boss required the same kind of dedication that most people reserve for religion.  I’ve got no desire to be a martyr to the workplace, and I don’t believe that I will go to heaven because I showed up at work when I felt like crap, but I may go to the hospital.