Employee Quits Job After Boss Denies Sick Leave. WhatsApp Chat Goes Viral

An employee shared how the person’s boss declined to give a sick leave without presenting a doctor’s note when the person said he had woken up with cold sweats and requested for a day’s leave.

In every profession, it is crucial for an employee to be in peak physical and mental condition to consistently achieve the desired outcomes. Nevertheless, there are days when employees may not feel sufficiently well to perform their daily tasks. It is entirely justified for them to request time to recuperate and return to an optimal working state.

In such situations, the boss’s attitude and response significantly impact the overall workplace well-being.

In a recent instance, an employee shared how the person’s boss declined to give a sick leave without presenting a doctor’s note when the employee said he had woken up with cold sweats and requested for a day’s leave. The screenshot of the conversation was shared on Reddit and later went viral.

“I hate to do this, but I woke up with cold sweats,” the employee wrote to his boss on Whatsapp, adding that fever was “creeping up every part of my body” and he was in pain.

The boss replied to the employee’s message, asking him to present a doctor’s note to take the leave saying, “Please get a doctors note for an excused absence”.

The response prompted the employee to inform the reporting manager that person had not been to a doctor in three years and was not financially strong, at the time, to visit a doctor.

“I haven’t been to a doctor in three years. I don’t have the money to go to a doctor for a fever. Yesterday, I made the equivalent of $8 an hour. Is the doctor’s visit covered by the company?” the employee wrote.

The boss insisted that if the employee was suffering from a mere fever, then would it not be okay for the person to come down to work. That prompted the employee to put down his papers immediately.

The post saw a lot of comments from users who criticised the boss’s attitude when the employee requested for a sick leave.

“Crazy, I am in charge of some people. They tend to come in while sick anyways (workaholics), I’ve told them the last thing you are doing while sick is coming in and getting everyone else sick. For my own selfish reasons I don’t allow people to come in sick, yet this OPs boss is trying to force them unless they have a note,” one user wrote.

“If you have a fever you’re almost certainly contagious and you need to stay home until at least 24 hours after your fever is gone when not medicated. This was the instruction I explicitly gave my employees when I was a people manager. Companies that make people work sick should be taxed to pay for the public health systems we need to fix the problems they cause,” another user wrote.