I’ll set the scene: it was 2018 and I was working as a telemarketer for a major Australian telecommunications company. This story is about the lovely kinds of management you find in call centres.
They had a really high turnover rate and poor retention. When you needed a sick day, you needed to make “voice contact” with your team leader an hour (not more, not less) before your shift starts and they would “assess” if your sick day was legitimate. Every sick day was assumed to be work avoidance and it was guilty proven innocent. Then, you had to get a medical certificate as well. (That part is fair, though).
The call centre I worked in was really disgusting and unhygienic. There was someone always really sick with something they’ve caught at work. Even during my training there, 6 out of 15 people came down with the exact same infection (cold or flu or something) all at the same time two weeks into training.
I had just gotten over this infection and it was in my first week onto the floor. It was 4 days into being out of training, that it started. I started to lose my voice (along with all the classic infection symptoms), which I noticed straight away as I was talking all day every day. Because there was no rest or let up, I eventually couldn’t speak in full sentences, as every second or third word just couldn’t leave my mouth. I had three customers complain on my calls saying that the line was bad because my “voice kept cutting in and out”.
I went to the team leader after the third call and said I really had to go home as not only did I feel like I was getting sick, I had no voice. I needed to take a breath after each word. She said that losing your voice is not a valid reason to leave work, but would let me leave since I had cold symptoms. There were 3.5 hours left in my shift.
She said me in a funny way as I left, “I’ll see you TOMORROW, thebiggestyikesever, but you need a medical certificate for the time lost today!”
When I was home that night waiting for an after hours doctor to get the med cert, I kept “testing” my voice to see if it was getting better or worse by saying random words. I believed I had laringitis. The after hours doctor agreed and put that on the med cert and said that I really need at least 2 days off, but I said no no, at least put tomorrow’s date on it but not 2 days. I knew there was no way I’d get that much time off knowing how she acted towards me.
In the morning, I could say probably one word in a sentence so it was worse and there was no volume at all. I call the team leader and after telling me “pardon?” and “what did I say?“ many times, she said “yeah no, you sound fine to me.”
Apparently, when you’re a call centre worker and you have laringitis, that’s not a legitimate reason to have sick leave.
submitted by /u/thebiggestyikesever
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