5 Comments
Jan 23, 2021Liked by Luke O'Neil

I work fully remote and make it a point whenever I take over a new team to tell everyone not to explain why they take time off. Need to normalize not telling your boss why you’re taking off. It’s a god damn sickness to feel the need to explain.

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Dude texting his boss pictures of diarrhea is a hero. I was honestly thinking when I read that early story of the guy who almost had to knock his boss down so he could go home and shit ought to have done something similar.

This jogged my memory, defended my thesis on a Tuesday, flew cross country on a Thursday, by Saturday had caught some kind of wicked cough, and first day on the new big people job was Monday. Though not wanting to call in sick on your literal first day of the job you spent eight years in school to get isn't near what anyone else has gone through, I still recall waking up the next morning feeling like I'd had the shit kicked out of me. After locking my abs for eight continuous hours to not cough (that much) in the faces of all the new people I had to meet that day, sweating and pale, my entire torso front back and sides felt like an enormous bruise. I didn't turn at the waist for the rest of the week, just weird, elaborate full body rotations starting with the feet. I'm sure I made an absolute hell of an impression.

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So depressing

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i know this isn't the main point of the post, but i got mad all over again reading this - having health insurance tied to employment is extremely fucked up! i was just ranting last night to my husband about what a truly fucked system it is. the older i get, the more i educate myself, the more angry i am at how this place (the US of A) is run.

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I worked for a time teaching ESL to schoolkids in South Korea. The only qualification was a passport from an English speaking country, so we had people from all over. Every single American, the first time they would get sick there, would show up, power through it, the other teachers would notice, look at them like they're nuts, send them home.

Then the boss would hear you got sent home and ask for a doctor's note. Then you'd say something like, sorry, but I'm fine it's just a cold/flu/strep whatever, I'll be ok in a day or two. Then they'd send an assistant to literally frogmarch you to a doctor who would see you and write you a scrip. Cost for the visit? $5. Cost for the drugs? About $5. And the first weekend that American felt good enough to go out drinking it's all they could rave about. It was so easy! And cheap! To the bemused horror of like, the Canadians and Brits and South Africans and Australians and South Koreans.

It's like someone from a supposedly first-world nation visiting and all they can talk about is that you have flush toilets that just take the shit away! No stink and you don't have to go out in the field to the outhouse! Like, you'd get why it's a big deal to them, but holy shit, why is this something you hadn't figured out at home yet?

Source, I pulled a muscle at the gym, and was walking funny, and casually mentioned I thought I might have cracked a rib, and due to the language barrier found myself stood in front of an X-Ray machine, FUMING that this shyster quack railroaded me into unnecessary testing. Total cost ended up being like $40 out of pocket.

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