Saturday, February 03, 2018

I get paid to stay at home and do nothing!

If memory serves  me well, up until a couple of days ago, I had never ever taken a sick day through all these years of teaching.  Not once.  A few years ago, a student--Robert--who had taken a few classes of mine, joked loudly that I never cancel classes, unlike other faculty.  Unfair to the students, he said.

That streak ended.

The flu bug did not kill me, but merely inconvenienced me.

I am lucky that my employment always came with sick leave that I could take if I ever felt unwell.  But, this is not always the case with all the people.  

Back in the old country, it is only the minority who are employed in what we academics call the "formal sector" get such a privilege.  To the overwhelming majority, going to work when ill is to be expected.

That's how life was everywhere on this planet.  We were all poor and unhealthy.  As societies get prosperous, I expect us to become more caring about our fellow humans. But, even in the uber-rich USA, there are millions who don't have the privilege that I have.  Like the couple mentioned in this report:
Mark Moyer, 20, and Sarah Rogers, 22, were waiting for a note from Dr. Marna Rayl Greenberg.
Because of their hacking coughs, their boss at a local shipping warehouse had told them to leave and not return without a doctor’s note.
But Dr. Greenberg, the hospital’s vice chair of emergency medicine, produced notes certifying only that they were sick. “You need to be seen again, and then I can write you another one saying you’re well,” she said.
The couple, who had matching hand tattoos of the date they met, were clearly struggling. Their jobs pay only $9 an hour, and until they recently moved in with her parents, they had been living in a car.
If they don't show up for work, they lose their hourly wages.  

"Financial need, medical experts say, plays a big role in spreading flu: many Americans go to work sick because they cannot afford to miss days. "  

At least out of selfishness, I would  expect the heartless Americans to provide a safety-net for the struggling people.  Because, the virus spreads.  Easily.  "People with flu can spread it to others up to about 6 feet away. ... To avoid this, people should stay away from sick people and stay home if sick."

But, the family-friendly, Jesus-loving, white supremacist party that now controls all the branches of the federal government couldn't care about fellow humans. It is on a mission to shred to pieces even the little bit of safety net that we have managed to put together since the New Deal.

Oh well; even Jesus will not be able to forge a New Deal with the current version of the Grand Old Party!  The maniacal Republicans will rather excommunicate him first!

2 comments:

Ramesh said...

Oh ! Is that what triggered the previous post ? Don't worry; by now you must have recovered from the flu and ready to inflict terror on the likes of Robert :)

Yes, its a serious problem everywhere and a dire problem in India. I have seen people working under all sorts of circumstances. I have met truck drivers suffering from Parkinsons but still driving, maids coming to work with a raging fever, spastics in much pain but suffering that to travel and work, and worse. Hell, children working carrying loads you and I can't carry and working hours we would never dream of working. Cancer sufferers having to be left home alone because the carer can't afford to not work.... Every imaginable difficulty the poor seem to have to face.

I sometimes wonder where is the humanity in an employer who docks pay for somebody badly ill. That person's wages will hardly make a dent in anybody's bottom line. Why does a normal human being turn into a monster when occupying a position of power ?

Sriram Khé said...

You are commenting more like a commie than as a capitalist. Is this what they taught you at IIM and in the corporate world? ;)

People like you or Ravi or I truly have no firsthand experience of poverty. We have been incredibly lucky--we chose our parents well!!! And, therefore, we have no idea what it means to work long and hard hours while unwell ...

There's something seriously wrong with us humans when we refuse to use even a small bit of our individual and collective prosperity to make life a tad better for those who are not lucky like we are.