EFFIE BATEMAN | Lifestyle | CONTACT
When it comes to successfully pulling off a sickie without earning the suspicion of your boss and colleagues, tactfully dropping seeds can really pull off an award-winning performance – especially in the middle of a pandemic, when bosses are hyper-aware of how a single sneeze could take down their whole business.
For local laser clinic worker, Gina Kerr, having a day off work isn’t as simple as calling in sick the morning she set to start her shift, which was strictly a privilege for office workers.
No, it was usually a whole ordeal, filled with passive-aggressive remarks from her employer and dirty looks from the poor employee who’d have to work overtime to fill her absence.
Add to that the deeply veiled threats of dismissal should more time be taken off, and many clinic workers find themselves feeling guilty for harbouring a sniffle.
So toxic is this kind of culture that clinician bosses eager to fill the daily quota are privy to turning a blind eye and bullying employees to forge ahead, suggesting that lost profits for the clinic will immediately result in less rostered hours as punishment.
Tasked with the thought of embarking on another 12-hour shift pushing $300 skin products to people who’d just had their armpits lasered, Gina has had to get a little clever with her attempts to net a day off or earn the ire of her team leader, Shea.
However, considering she didn’t want to get a PCR test and run the risk of losing a few days work while she waited for results, Gina has to provide vague symptoms that could be several illnesses – a feeling of claminess and a ‘slight tickle’ in the throat.
“I’m just feeling really clammy and gross this arvo,” she laughed.
“Really strange. Anyone else feeling weird,” she said.
She then threw in a few more vague comments, which she managed to say to at least three different employees, before walking out knowing she’d successfully managed a guilt-free Tuesday off without so much as a single paragraph from her boss, or request for a doctor’s certificate.
