I was inspired to write this by events that are currently happening to someone close to me. They suffer from endometriosis and from severe headaches/migraines. For many years these issues were ignored and never really investigated properly by them or doctors. Their family would just generally write it off as a non-issue too, even though nobody should pass out from period pains (but that's a whole different story.) I had to force them to put their health first and finally, they got the ball rolling on these issues. But this isn't so much about them and their battles with their health. Rather, this is about how workplaces can treat those with any long term medical issues, showing themselves for what they truly are. Even though the post was inspired by their workplace's actions, within lies an opinion formed over many years.
Before you, the reader, decide to jump to any conclusions, this is not going to be a post bashing businesses and/or capitalism. Nor is it a post pushing socialism/collectivism. Capitalism is a system like any other that, if people we're kept honest and treated others fairly, would work fine. The issue is never the system - it's the people. Greed. Selfishness. All negative traits which make people decide to act less than honest will ruin anything. For example, even during the world wars while people were "banding together" (which people still quote today) and helping out one another. You had people abusing the rations system. You had people handing out gone off food to some to save the fresher food for others. But I digress; this isn't about the systems we live under. This is about how companies treat employees badly under the guise of "procedure".
Companies are designed to make money. Which on its own, is not a bad thing. However it does mean that there is no real loyalty to anything else other than the goal of making money. Now for anyone with any long term health issues who are still forced to work (our lack of a proper welfare system which pays enough for people to survive causes this, and that's ignoring the fact that people who are literally unable to work are still being told they can, when no company will employ them), this can create a nasty situation depending on the company. For example if you suffer from severe migraines that can come at any time without warning, you will in turn have sporadic absences. However even if the company has all your medical information, they will still treat you as a healthy employee with a limited number of absences per year before it's questioned (generally 5 instances or 10 days, whichever comes first.)
Now the questioning itself is not a bad thing, especially if its with the intention to see if anything can be done to help. However, when you start to introduce corporate box-ticking into the mix and the threat of a disciplinary procedure for an employee who is already suffering with their health, how does that help? When as a society did we become so devoid of empathy and instead of helping others so that they can work, we add to their stresses? News flash: people actually enjoy working. They like to feel useful and being part of a team. Yet companies still treat them like a problem, rather than a person. HR departments act under the guise of protecting the employees, but instead they actually exist to protect the interests of the company in such a way to remove those employees that they can't come back and sue the company.
One thing I've always said through my working life is "be loyal to the people that you work with but never to the company that you work for", and it has held true in many situations. The job I was in previously landed a lot easier just because I knew two of the staff there who spoke very highly of me. No reference from a company has ever landed me a new position though and from speaking to others, it never has.
Some things do seriously need to change in our society. Companies should be pulled to task and put employee health over an extra percent of profit. We should also have a decent welfare system in place that actually takes care of people too, rather than one where anyone who actually needs the welfare is looked down on. With the rise of automation/AI taking away more tasks which would at one time require one or multiple employees, that change will have to come sooner, otherwise people will seriously suffer.