Note: I wrote this three years ago and keep it as a reminder to stay in school.
Yesterday afternoon at 17:00 I was called into my boss' office for a twenty minute round of constructive criticism after a long day of work. She informed me early that morning about the pending talk. It was apparently important enough for me to know that she needed to speak to me, but not important enough for her to tell me what she needed to talk to me about. Thus I was left to stew for hours in fear of her disapproval and was constantly distracted when assisting customers.
This does not mean that I had no idea what she wanted, as yesterday was my first day back to work after four days of illness. I have been sick twice in the last month, for a total of five days and I have felt weak and unmotivated. These reflections left me to worry the entire day and caused me to feel uncomfortable, awkward and generally wrong for the entire meeting.
If I had hoped for reassurance, I was quickly dissuaded of the notion. The meeting opened with a scolding for a statement I made over the phone when calling in sick. When my boss had told me that my timing was bad, I pointed out that I can not choose when I become sick. It turns out that I am never to make that statement to her again. This was followed by a trivialization of the illness I had the week before, the injuries that occurred very soon after and the serious infection that came as a result of coming to work with those injuries instead of going to a doctor to have them treated.
During this meeting, I was told that I am an excellent employee, when I am on point. Unfortunately, she does not feel that I have been on point lately. It appears to be her interpretation that lately I have been lackluster, unable to work as part of a team and often sick.
I feel this is an unfair assessment, as I am not the only one who has been having trouble at work in these areas; though I seem to be the first to be buckling under the strain of our current working environment. Recently we lost a co-worker due to financial strain on the shop and we have not yet adjusted to working with one less person. In addition, there has been a good deal of sickness amongst shop customers and employees. Although not all illness has resulted in absence, I believe all employees have been affected.
All this is happening just before summer vacations, when we will all be expected to work extra hard to compensate for each others' absences. Unfortunately, I have nothing more to give.
As for my motivation; I have worked extremely hard for a very long time in exchange for little appreciation and no financial gain. I have donated my time and my talents to a workplace that can not suit my needs and refuses to help me develop the talents that I would need to work elsewhere. In my time at this job, I have lent my personal tools without asking anything in return, performed duties outside the scope of a shopkeeper and diligently searched for every opportunity to save my employer money by repairing any inventory and machinery within my capabilities. I have not only done my duties as a sales assistant and cashier, but also as janitor, handyman and safety representative.
I feel that any other place of employment would have been willing to offer advancement or educational opportunities at this point in my career. Not doing so shows a lack of interest on my employers part as well as a lack of caring. For my part, I do not lack talent, desire or esprit de corps. I need motivation.
Instead I receive empty praise, meaningless responsibilities and, when I am physically sick, condemnation. With as much work as I do at the register, I am exposed to every sniffle and sneeze, every germ filled paper bill and every microbe of filth and disease that customers carry with them through the shop to incubate near the registers.
And I get sick, like everyone else does. I am sick of stress, sick of being tired and sick of being frightened.
I know that as soon as I tell my employer that I am sick, I will be pressured to return to work before I am well. I will be scolded for being sick and chided for choosing “this time” to become sick, despite there never being a good time to be sick. I will be reminded that all my coworkers will have to work harder now that I am sick and told that it is imperative that I am well by the start of my next shift.
So when I get sick, I am afraid of telling my employer, until the illness becomes too great to ignore. I stay awake at night, worried that when I have to call in sick, I will be met with disapproval from my colleagues and my employer. I worry that this time, even though I am sick, they won't believe that I am justifiably ill. They will think that I am exaggerating in order to get sympathy or that I merely want an unscheduled day off. And so the sickness festers in a vicious circle, made worse by the fear and worry that accompanies it.
I do not drink alcohol. I do not smoke. I have stopped sports that injured me and made it difficult to work. I have shown up to work with colds, influenza, dislocated shoulders and knees too swollen and worn to walk on without supports. I have injured myself at work through falls, twisted ankles, abrasions and cuts, but not asked to leave. I have neglected my children with special needs to be at work instead of helping them. I have worked through migraines and depression. I have not even allowed my autism and ADHD to handicap me in my work environment. In short, I am not lazy. I do not look for excuses to avoid work or court behavior that will make it more likely for me to become ill or injured. The only unavoidable negative influence on my health is the undue and almost hypochondriac worry that I might get sick.
I worry, because calling my employer to tell them I can not work brings inevitably the feeling that I am inadequate. That I am inconsiderate of my coworkers because I allowed myself to become sick. I have not only disappointed the boss, but the entire organism of commerce by admitting weakness. By allowing such trivial things as injury or infection to get the better of me, I am somehow destroying the entire team's chances of efficiently serving endless customers with unrelenting demands. My remiss behavior will lead to a state of chaos and be the cause of the entire business's failure, loss of revenue and the possible unemployment of all my colleagues. In addition, these moments of weakness indicate a moral deficiency that will make it impossible for me to someday take up any leadership position.
Placing this burden of responsibility on the shoulders of a person who returned to work too early to have recovered from serious illness, who is desperate for approval and working as hard as she possibly can for minimum wage is untenable and can only perpetuate the cycle of worry and sickness.