Don’t Get Sick Unless You’re German

The occasional sniffles rarely keep anyone off the job — but what makes someone unfit for work? This column should, by all rights, not even exist because my doctor has given me a sick note. I got the dreaded summer flu, probably while I was on vacation in Rome, and now I feel like a 90-year-old wet towel with just enough strength to realize that it’s truly a privilege and a triumph of socialized medicine not to be facing loss of pay, or worse yet, loss of my job.

In the United States, for example, there’s no law saying my employer has to pay my wages when I’m ill. No work — no pay. It’s as simple as that. Whoever is feeling under the weather in Germany appreciates the fact that feeling under the weather isn’t the same as being poverty-stricken, notwithstanding all those outrageous websites with instructions on how to call in sick, take a mental health day or fake symptoms for your doctor or your boss. They all advise you not to send them snapshots of yourself grinning on some sunny beach.

On closer reflection, doesn’t my writing this column from a desk in my home in a way make me a malingerer capable of going to work? What should we, in our digitalized working world with its Skype conferences, call this in-between state where we might not feel well enough to commute to the office and work there for eight hours but not so sick that we can’t use our hands?

Written Warnings for Looking Sick?

Isn’t an employee protecting their fellow workers from the risk of catching something from them by doing at least some of their work at home? Or are they just inviting a warning letter from the boss?

Such questions are of little significance to tile setters or steelworkers. For the rest of us who work in virtual reality, however, some day they will not be a luxury. There have already been proposals to reduce the load on family doctors by raising the number of paid sick days without a doctor’s certificate from three to five.

Those who support the concept say people may be able to better judge whether they are healthy enough to go to work or not and there would likely be less cheating than more. Employers were against the idea, agreeing with the respective government ministries that had called the three-day scheme presented in January “meaningful and useful.” That same month, Barack Obama proposed a law to Congress where companies with more than 15 employees would grant employees one paid sick hour for every 30 hours worked. Employees could accrue a maximum of seven paid sick days per year.

The proposal was seen by the Republicans as socialist lunacy which didn’t stand the slightest chance of being passed. Truly, it’s not pleasant feeling ill and never a reason to celebrate when you get sick. But if you do, it’s better to do it in a civilized nation like Germany.