Hazel's Health

Hazel was coughing and sniffing all of Monday morning, complaining that she had a terrible headache. Towards the end of the morning she was asking if she could have the afternoon off as a half day flexi-day because she didn’t think she could work for the afternoon with her symptoms getting worse. Junior was happy to let her use up her flexi-time in this way, but I asked her if she wanted to have it off as sick. It was obvious to me that if she was that ill she wouldn’t be coming back for a couple of days. Junior asked her:

“Are you really that bad that you need to go off sick?”

as if she was malingering. I know the bosses have tried to stop people having so much time absent, but when it gets to flu season people should be coming in to work infecting everyone else.
Glen’s section had a similar problem with one geezer who had taken a lot of time off work and they had put him on, what they call capability. This meant he couldn’t have any more time off work in a certain period. He got sick, but had to come into work. For a few weeks he was having massive coughing fits which made everyone’s stomach turn as he was coughing up so much crap. Everyone else around him was catching it and going off sick for weeks at a time. I think that they eventually saw sense and told him to have some time off sick, but by then, with the air-conditioning working it’s magic, it had took a hold on the office and was spreading like dominoes from one end of the office to the other.
So Hazel goes off sick at dinnertime on Monday, for us to find out when she phones in sick on Tuesday that she has a chest infection and a possible lung problem, after Junior had tried to get her to take the time as flexitime.