Every single day, our immune systems are out there quite literally fighting for our lives. There are God knows how many germs in the world, and somehow only a tiny proportion of them seem to end up making us ill (so long as we’re otherwise in good health, of course).

This means that getting sick can be a pretty serious situation, even when the illness only seems to be mild. Given the past couple of years that we’ve had, you might think that this is something which employers take seriously; however, you’d be sadly mistaken. All too many managers don’t seem to play fair when it comes to sick days, despite the fact that everybody needs them now and then.

A recent example of this has come from a post on the r/antiwork subreddit, which gained attention for a video of a woman attempting to call in sick for work. Despite listing her symptoms in detail, her supervisor remained insistent that she still come in as she hadn’t arranged anyone to cover for her. 

Not surprisingly, there were a lot of Redditors out there incensed on her behalf, as well as those with their own grim work illness stories to tell. Dealing with sickness and having a job shouldn’t have to be this incompatible, but unfortunately, it often can be.