"Never missed a day of work"

[sasha_feather]

Today I read an obituary which said, despite the person's chronic disease, "he rarely missed a day of work."

As someone who has often called in sick, I'm always bothered by this common phrase; it praises people who put work before health. Not just their own health, but the health of others: coming to work while having a communicable illness puts others at risk too.

This phrase serves to enforce our place in a capitalist, production-oriented society, where work is the most important thing, and health and rest are distant followers. Workers are granted sick days, but to take them is some sort of indulgence rather than a necessary part of being a human being with a body. We also forget that sick days are something that unions have fought for.

Because I'm always sick to some degree, I often struggle with deciding whether I am sick "enough" to call in, sick "enough" to stay home and rest. Typically I will feel guilty if I call in sick, even though my body demands rest. Having a chronic illness means that I need much more rest than the average person, and something like a migraine or cold will add to my need for rest. Language valorizing people who don't call in, ever, doesn't help to alleviate my guilt.

As I saw someone say on twitter: self care is a radical political act.

Comments

[some_stars]

This post is wonderful and articulate and true. I'm hanging on to it for when I need to argue with people (or just reassure myself).

[sasha_feather]

Thank you for reading and commenting!

[owlectomy]

I had this conversation at work a while ago when someone got an award for graduating from high school without ever having missed a single day of school, as if that was an awesomely praiseworthy thing -- as if the person who never gets the flu, or goes to school even when they're nauseous and barely conscious, is better than the person who gets the flu and stays in bed.

I wish that more people would realize that doing good and productive work is not the same thing as complying with the demands of an arbitrary and rigid system -- and also, that doing good and productive work is not the only measure of a life well lived. (How do I measure the day when I broke my ankle and stayed in bed reading Dostoevsky against the days when I went to class and took lecture notes and did not learn half as much as I did from The Brothers Karamazov?)

[sasha_feather]

Ah the "perfect attendance" award...! If they are going to give that out, it should be with the silly awards, like best hair and class clown.

I'm sure that you and I both are in favor of more flexible, compassionate systems.

[jesse_the_k]

So true and phrased so well!

When I was working, I found it helpful to track the hours when I wasn't working as well as the superproductive hours when I was sparking. They balanced out for 15 years.

Sunny Taylor explores why she's glad she doesn't work in the Marxist journal, Monthly Review: The Right Not to Work: Power and Disability, March 2004.

[sasha_feather]

You always have wonderful resources and knowledge. :)

[thingswithwings]

yes, this. this exactly. goddamn "protestant work ethic."

[sasha_feather]

Damn Protestants!

[holyoutlaw]

You articulate things I've tried to say about this. I've heard it called "presenteeism," coming in when you should have stayed home.

[sasha_feather]

Ooooh, that is good! Presenteeism!

[derryderrydown]

You put that into words so much better than I could. (Which sucks when it comes to explaining my sickness levels to my manager.)

[sasha_feather]

It is tough stuff! <3

[wintercreek]

Yes, this. And like owlectomy said, this starts in school. I remember "perfect attendance" awards being given out in middle school, and I bet they were given out in elementary school as well. I wonder if this is another of the troubling legacies of the industrial revolution - if school is a tool for conditioning children to be "good workers" when they grow up by teaching them punctuality, obedience to schedules set by others (and communicated by bells!), spending a set number of hours in the "workplace" regardless of workload, etc, then conditioning attendance at all cost fits right in.

Amazing how deeply this stuff gets ingrained in us, and how hard it is to root out even when we know that it makes no sense.

[sasha_feather]

Good workers, or good prisoners? I mean that somewhat literally; I've been reading about the school-to-prison pipeline lately.

*thinky*

You're so right; none of it makes sense. For some jobs set schedules are important, for others, they really really aren't! And it affects so many things.

[wintercreek]

I just read this and thought of your post: http://www.raptitude.com/2010/07/your-lifestyle-has-already-been-designed/

It's about how for some jobs, an eight-hour workday is unnecessary - there's three hours of work to do, and eight hours of desk time required - but it's part of the capitalist system that has to make our free time scarce so we'll spend more money on conveniences, things that represent the vision we have for ourselves, and so on.

Presentee-ism and the eight hour workday seem to be mostly about keeping us so tired out by our long "work" days that we can't evaluate our lives and make changes where we wish we could. Because that would bring down our wasteful economy.

And this is strikingly reminiscent of the impossible "beauty" standards for women, and increasingly for other people as well. If we are spending our limited time and resources on worrying about our failure to reach unattainable standards, how can we have any energy left to work on injustice and inequality, and towards self-acceptance and happiness? So insidious.

SO RIGHT.

[laurashapiro]

I am gonna link the hell out of this, unless you tell me not to.

Re: SO RIGHT.

[sasha_feather]

Please do so!

[kalmn]

I had a bad run in recently with "you're sitting down when your coworkers are standing; you must not be working." Hello- my work that day involved yelling. Seriously. Yelling. I can and did yell while sitting down.

[sasha_feather]

The queen sits in a throne! :D

[anatsuno]

This is so, so true. ♥

[sasha_feather]

Thanks for reading and commenting. :)

[isagel]

TRUTH. My workplace recently became part of a larger company that runs many places like ours. We were at their yearly conference/party last month and there were awards given out for best this and best that, and also there was one for workplace with lowest employee absence rate. And that just seriously pissed me off. So much hate for the values underlying such things.

[sasha_feather]

You are absolutely right, it's about values. At my workplace sick time can also be used to take care of other sick people (ie kids), which should be encouraged, one would think.

[isagel]

Absolutely. In Sweden there are special "care of sick child" days that parents can take and those are a separate category from their own sick days, counted differently. All those things are legislated on a national level and very little of it is up to the individual employer. (Though of course the attitude in the workplace can still be more or less positive to people actually taking their days.)

[sophinisba]

Yay, thanks, this is such a good post. <3

[sasha_feather]

Thanks!

[j00j]

Word.

[sasha_feather]

<3!

[shehasathree]

ugh, yes.

[sasha_feather]

Thanks for reading!

[susanreads]

You're so right!

People could say "... was blessed with excellent health" if that's what they mean (an odd thing to credit someone with since it's mostly not under their control, but the sort of thing people do say). If they mean "went to work whether in a fit state to be productive or not", that's a bad thing.

[sasha_feather]

Yes, the writers should say what they actually mean. I think in the case of the obit I read, they meant that he really loved and was devoted to his work, which was obvious anyway from his many other contributions to his field.