[Miscellany]

One of the teachers from work has been taken to the hospital with various complications originating from a cold that started a while ago. This teacher works through every lunchtime, before and after school and is the coordinator for a whole bunch of "extra curricular" activities. I think pretty much most of us work through most lunchtimes, before and after school actually. Most of us run other programs and most of us work our arses off. Such is the life of a teacher - such is the life of anyone with good work ethic. The problem with M (you will remember her as the girl who went to see the psychologist while I went to see the psychic) is that she will run herself all over town when she is already run down.

I'm really worried about M. She's a good person and one of those gorgeous people that is lovely to everyone and will go out of her way to stop and chat if you look down or to help you out if you need some help. But for the love of god, if you are fucking sick STAY HOME AND GET BETTER! I can't tell you how much it gets my goat (what the fuck does that statement mean anyway?) when sick people come to work. I'm not talking about the odd sniffle here and there, I'm talking about those people that come to work and look like death, feel like death and complain about it the whole day long when really they could have just stayed home with a doctor's certificate and gotten better! I feel very little sympathy for the "troopers through illness". They're not impressive. They're not saintly. They're not better employees or better people to be around. They are disease carrying hosts infecting innocent people who are well enough to come to work. They are annoying carbunkles on the battleship of employment! Parasites sucking the rest of us dry with their constant martyr like behaviour. For the most part coming to work results in them not even being an effective member of the team because coherant thought tend to go out the window when you are unable to think straight ("am in such pain. owwww"). Then they top it up by getting so deathly ill that they end up taking even MORE days off than if they had just had the damn week in the first place!

Why do we congratulate these people with a pat on the back? They are doing nothing for the rest of us or themselves. They are doing nothing for the work force. They are doing nothing for staff morale. They are setting a terrible example to everyone else. Are they really unable to handle their workload if they take a day off? - This idea is ridiculous. Worse luck then someone with half a brain who actually DOES take a day off because gee, they're exercising their hard earned rights as an Australian worker to have sick pay (not much longer with IR laws though) that common sense person is looked down upon like they're some sort of slacker. UGH! I don't know how many times I have to say it but sick people at work are not productive! They just sort of sit there either
a) feeling really sick.
b) working but complaining about how sick they are and waiting for the "you're such a good person to BE HERE" pat on the back.

You know what? No pat on the back from me - stay the fuck home and get some rest instead. The world will go on without you for a few days eh? NOONE is that important, things will continue to get done regardless of whether you are there or not - sorry to break the bad news.

Anyway, I really needed to get that off my chest because it's been pissing me off for ages now. Back to your regularly scheduled bitching and moaning about television, 80s music and teacher pay next time.

*EDIT* oh and another thing - and this is worse than anything I've written about on this journal before. The powers that be are thinking of getting RID OF THE CHOCOLATE DRIVE next year. I don't think I need to tell you just how devistated I am. That means no more caramello koalas at crucial wrist slitting times. :(

posted by M at 5:53 pm 14 comments