Work Life Balance

One thing I take pretty seriously is my work ethic and my passion for my career. I’ve had so many jobs where my managers/leaders were absolutely terrible to work with and did not understand any of my stomach issues at all. A big part of this entire health journey is making sure you have people who understand what you are going through, and none of them seemed to understand how hard I was working to make sure my stomach issues didn’t affect my job. This first story is about a previous employer I worked for who told me in my performance review that they had never worked with someone who was as sick as I was. 

The place I worked for was with two doctors/dentists as my bosses. They had a rule that if you were out sick for more than two days, you had to have a doctor's note. I was out sick for more than two days, so I went to the clinic and tested positive for influenza A or B (I can’t remember exactly which one), and I went into work to give them the note from the doctor that said I was still contagious and couldn’t be back at work for the rest of the week (which was like three more days). I also don’t even understand why they would want me at work when I was that contagious. It was a dental office, and they performed dental procedures, and you want me to risk getting the patients and other co-workers sick? This was also before COVID, so I don’t know how they survived working during COVID when they were that strict with me. 

At this same job, for my performance review, they said they have never ever worked with anyone or met anyone who was as sick as I was. I was only at this job for a year and a half, and I think I was sick maybe 10 days the entire time I worked there; this includes that one week that I was out sick for influenza. I asked if there was anything else that pertained to my performance in the job that I could work on, and they just kept bringing up how much I was sick. Being sick is not something I can literally just correct. Performance reviews are supposed to focus on what you can improve on as an employee and at your job. Needless to say, I didn’t stay very long at that job.