If you are sick, stay at home!

OK, even though it sounds like I'm directing this at the employees of the world, but this one is really aimed at all of you human resource managers out there who clearly need to get a better grip on the realities of the cold/flu season which, incidently, is becoming an all year event. Sick leave policies should accomplish two basic and, this seems to be not too common of knowledge to many of you, logical tasks:

1) Allow those who are truly sick to recover (at least partially) from their illness.

2) Preventing those who are sick from spreading it to the rest of us poor souls.

How tough is this concept to grap a hold of? I don't know about the rest of you, but I have no desire to stand, sit or lie (if you have a cozy break room) next to someone who is carrying a contagious disease; nor do I wish to hear them talk about it all day and I especially wish to not hear their weazing/coughing/sneezing/snorting/gurgling noises. In fact, no one wants to do this. Not the clients, not the employees, and especially not management-many of whom call in sick themselves at the first sign of any cold or flu like symptoms-and yet berate any employee who dare attempts to engage their benefit of time-off for illness. This of course does not include those of you in management who come to work no matter how desperately ill you may be and therefore consider yourself to be a model of work ethics (see task number two).

This brings me to my next rant about management style. If you have risen to the level of supervisor and, as part of your responsibilities, must speak on the telephone with those who are calling in sick, this is something you should have learned by now: PEOPLE CALL IN SICK. So, don't display any "attitude" towards them during-what should be-this brief conversation. That means no huffing, no long silent pauses, no stupid phrases like "see you tomorrow" or any other foolish rantings. Just say something like "thanks for calling in," and leave it at that. The reason you should be calm, cool and collected during these calls: you should have a back-up plan in place for when people call in sick!

So, pretty please, with sugar on top, mark this down on your calendars: winter is coming. And you know what that means, right? Answer below.

Some of your employees are going to call in sick.

The Mourning After

So this is what our country has come to. Everyone I came in to contact with on Wednesday morning looked as though they had lost a family member and were still in shock over the news. Luckily, my public exposure ended early in the day. Otherwise, I'm sure I would have needed therapy to recover from the almost overwhelming effect of speaking with several dozen depressed and discouraged United States citizens. How is it that the voting majority, who claimed that strong moral values were largely responsible for their decision, choose George W. Bush as the President?

I guess if your moral values include lying (WMDs, altered intelligence, what memo?), killing thousands of innocent folks (Iraqies and U.S. soldiers alike) and refusing to fund programs like "No Child Left Behind," then it makes complete sense. I for one, however, am dumbfounded and outraged that more than half of our population simple does not get it.