When I first started life in the workforce, if somebody called in sick, a person hired by the company would visit your home and follow up with you. I heard a story in which the designated person popped into the shower to talk with said worker while bathing. Back then, if you called out sick, you had better darned well be sick. Companies did not pay you for self-imposed vacation days. You needed a doctor’s note, or you at least had to appear to be in the later stages of recovery when you got back.
Today, a company has to abide by certain government imposed healthcare rules regarding sick time. You are expected to look after your health, and your company works with you to a point to stay that way or get back into shape if you have a minor setback. No home visits to check up on you, though.
In the case you just stop coming in, companies allow so many days and then they send you a terse termination letter.
Sure, the at home follow up may have been a bit extreme, but it probably did save companies from paying shirkers while the rest of the employee base made up for it. Still, would you want nobody to check to see if you’re okay if you suddenly failed to show up at work?
A woman in Pontiac, Michigan, got into her car one day and suddenly died with her key half in the ignition. That wouldn’t be so unusual, except that nothing happened after that. The woman was known to travel extensively and, therefore, was a loner who kept to herself. She had arranged for her bills to be paid electronically through her bank account. A neighbor kept the lawn mowed, and the house was never disturbed. After payments stopped going through for her auto loan and the house was foreclosed, a man was sent to fix a hole in the roof and that was when they found her body, some six years later.
Of course this is an extreme case, because in 2011 a woman named Rebecca Wells, 51, was found in her cubicle a day after she died, so it took less than 24 hours to notice that the woman who was described as “always working” had given her life to the rat race.
What happens in the case of people who are hiding spousal or date abuse? Companies still send out termination letters after so many days, but nobody seems to follow up to see if the person is really okay. Sometimes these people are whisked out of state by their abusers, or they have to go into hiding to prevent further tragedy, but we really are losing touch with each other today. Nobody should just vanish and not be noticed. We need to change some of these policies to prevent such events. Nobody should lie dead for years or hours and not be missed. All lives matter.
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