Extra honey in our tea
Take a sick day, they say. Go on, you need it.
Only, it's not that easy.
Oh, you want to take a sick day, but because you're on a contract with tricky words and fancy ideas that amount to nothing more than zero hours, you can't, unless you don't mind losing a day's salary.
Take a sick day. You deserve it. But it's not that easy.
You need a day off. You're coughing your lungs up. You're throwing back Paracetamol and Ibuprofen tablets like they're the answer to all your prayers. But if you call in sick, they'll load on the guilt. They don't have enough staff to cover you. They're too busy at the moment to deal with it. You've called in too late. You should have known you'd be sick last year. Didn't you check with your crystal ball?
Take a sick day. You desperately need it. But it's not that easy.
You're allowed to take a day off. You're number one, after all. If you don't take care of yourself, no-one will. But you can't take a sick day, because your work doesn't have enough money to hire more staff to cover sickness. Everyone's strapped for cash. You need to take one for the team. After all, you're working from home. You can sleep it off afterwards. Just think how lucky you are! No chance of spreading your germs! Unlimited tea and coffee in your favourite mug! Don't worry about feeling like you want to die.
You can die at the weekend.
Take a sick day. Your health depends on it. But it's not that easy.
The cost of everything is going up. Haven't you noticed? Soon we'll all be taking our cars off the road and sewing up holes in our pants. No-one takes a sick day anymore. Sure, we did it back when Covid was all the rage. We did it back when we were trying to show how righteous we were and stop our grandparents from dying. We did it because if we didn't do it, we were bad. But now we're bad if we don't go to work, because working until you're about to drop is how you prove your worth as an individual. Didn't you know that?
Take a sick day. Your future self will thank you. But it's not that easy.
If you take a sick day, you're putting everyone out. Your work will have to jump through hoops to plaster up the gaping hole of your absence. That's how truly important you are. Except, if you were to die, they wouldn't send flowers to your family. They'd put an ad up on Indeed and take your name off the register.
Take a sick day. Money's not as important as you are. But it's not that easy.
Didn't you know how resilient the human body is? Didn't you know that we're capable of so much more than our natural limit? Have you broken your coccyx? No worries, you can just do your work standing up. Got an inflamed abscess the size of a golf ball next to your femoral artery? No problem! Since you don't have time to see the doctor, you might as well try to forget the pain by immersing yourself in your work. Actually, why don't you prove just how amazing you are by doing the job of two people at once? Be British. It's only the Europeans who complain and cry and have a four-day week.
Take a sick day. If you don't, you'll pay for it afterwards. But it's not that easy.
Imagine we were all to take sick days when we actually needed them. Imagine, instead of 'pulling ourselves together', we decided to stay in bed when the black cloud over our head was threatening to engulf us, and take a slow day of baths and herbal tea to allow our battered spirits some space away from the world? What if, instead of coughing and spluttering our way through the flu, taking calls in a raspy voice and staring at blank pages because the world in our head is tired and a blur, we actually gave our bodies what they needed, and lay in bed with a book that made us feel calm and safe again?
Imagine if we always offered work which came from wholeness and health. Imagine how our world would change. Imagine how our happiness would increase, and companies would grow and flourish, and rudeness would diminish, and eyes might sparkle again.
Take a sick day, but it's not that easy.
So we swallow another tablet, and put some extra honey in our tea.
