Happy & Healthy
SICKNESS ETIQUETTE
December is half checked off on the calendar, you run (without a coat) from the cozy Christmas festivities to a department store for some serious Christmas shopping (with thousands of companions) and then you get floored. As in: knocked down in a sickly way. Just forty degrees plus on the thermometer and you sound like a nasal, pathetic version of yourself. Sick, then.
I think that being sick so wasteful of my time. Is a casual blanket on the couch on Sunday still nice, now it’s a nightmare. And in your head, you see that work taking on Himalayan proportions on your desk. Calling in sick is scarier to me than being sick, by the way. How do you make that a little okay? And what are the unwritten rules of being decently sick? Your reporter went out and this is what people really think.
1. You shall not infect anyone
If you team sniff and snuffle if you are, then I just jump a meter to the side when you come blowing your nose. But if the thirty-nine-point-four is just not on your forehead and you mumble something about muscle pain in your back? Go. Home. That you are sick is already bad enough, but your colleagues prefer to keep it alive and kicking. So do you stay for your boss? Don’t do it. The office garden doesn’t need a makeover into a sick bay.
2. Do what you can
This is for the remote workers among us. If those liters of snot (uuuuhl) are flowing out of you, but you can still sit up straight, then do what is within your sick capabilities. An email here, some reading there, a piece of text on the left and a phone call on the right. Are you already feeling sleepy? Then crawl back under the blankets, but show that you do want to.
“The office garden doesn’t need a makeover into a sick bay.”
3. Give a heads-up
It may be that you are overwhelmed in the evening by a legion of germs. Really sucks. Good preparation is half the work, so send your boss a text in advance: ’Hi, fever and snot here. I’m floored, I’ll try to come tomorrow. But then you know. Bye!‘ Such a story, then it doesn’t come out of the blue.
4. Whatsapp ban
I just said that calling in sick is a pain in the ass, right? I really think so. It’s a bit of a light failure, but so be it. What is a good idea? Just call. With nine out of ten employers, you are not allowed to call in sick via a message, by the way. Grab that phone and let your nasal, pathetic self be heard. And if the boss doesn’t answer, then you send a text afterwards.
5. Always is Kortjakje sick
Are you sick on Friday and feel okay again on Saturday? Then cancel the dancing until the late hours. If you have the energy to get your feet off the floor, then you surely had a little bit left to show up at work on that Friday. You can definitely grab a bowl of chicken soup at the butcher, but going out drinking? Not okay. That Monday is also a dangerous one, by the way., read here for a moment.
6. Knock knock at the doc
Do you just want to cry from the pain, your misery, and that house party in your head? Drag yourself to the doctor. If such an authority bellows that you must be sick for two days, then so be it. And you also immediately know that you are not suffering from AS-on-GS (attention-seeking on a large scale).
