
What I Know About Being Sick at Work (2018) - luu
https://blog.bonnieeisenman.com/blog/being-sick-at-work/
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vxNsr
> _One of my coworkers was really insistent on me going, so I finally snapped,
> “$NAME, I’ll go if you’ll push my wheelchair the whole day!” This was Very
> Awkward, but IMO I was just surfacing the existing awkwardness: my very
> well-meaning coworker was already making it awkward by not believing me
> about my own abilities. Sometimes a Bad Joke can snap people into realizing
> what they’re doing._

I would be totally down to push a coworker in a wheelchair if they really did
want to go and this was the only thing preventing them from joining us. Like
my response to that woulda been "sure"

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rainyMammoth
> Over-justifying myself

That one resonated a lot. It looks to me like in a lot of micromanaged places
people need to over-explain why they need to Work From Home or leave early or
take a sick day. I have struggled with that also but for the last couple of
months I have decided to state the fact without any justification. For example
"I will leave at 2PM today" or "I'm taking a sick day today".

If you (over)justify yourself it sounds like you don't have a good enough
reason to start with. And on top of that I'm an adult and don't need to
justify myself for those type of things.

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heymijo
This is a really thoughtful article.

Expectations and norms are what come to mind.

For orgs: expect that disabilities can be invisible and need accommodations

For individuals: expect that you will need to advocate for yourself
(especially before awareness grows)

I think that's a good starting place (not an end point!) to get orgs to what
Bonnie says:

> _People take their cues from you, if you act like your accommodations are
> normal other people will tend to react similarly._

From there orgs can work to deliberately increase their awareness >
understanding > and accommodation of disabilities any of their talent may
have.

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bob33212
Very thoughtful author. I would like to get her thoughts on where a employeer
should draw the line on staying that a disability cannot be accommodated. For
example, someone who had a light sensitivity as well as PTSD may need to work
in a dark quiet environment. How far does the company go to support that need?

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pjc50
If the company wants employment to be a success, rather than a temporary
period of grudging extraction of value through pain, then they have to go as
far as is necessary to accommodate the employee.

The details will be different for every case, but generous work from home
rules can help a lot.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
Why? It's not self-evident that _as far as is necessary_ is the correct answer
here. If the costs are far outstripping the value delivered by the employee,
then at the very least it's become a question of disabled rights, and not a
business decision.

There's clearly a limit to the reasonable accommodations we can expect of an
employer.

~~~
asveikau
I don't know if you realize what you've done here.

They said accommodate as far as is _necessary_. _Necessary_ literally means
that it is _needed_. There is a statement of correctness built into the word.

And you are objecting that necessary is needed? As in, wait wait a moment
here. I think we should do less than necessary.

Arguing where to draw that line is one thing. But as worded, you appear to be
advocating below minimum requirements.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
You've misread me.

The question is as follows: how much accommodation should be made for an
employee with a disability?

The answer is clearly not _As much as is necessary to enable the employment of
that person, regardless of the cost or circumstance_.

pjc50 appeared to be suggesting exactly this answer, hence my reply.

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Joe-Z
Great post! The general point of „being honest with yourself and the people
around you“ is something much more people should take to heart, regardless of
any existing medical conditions. It makes life so much easier and once you
have a clearly defined problem you can start working on an effective solution.
It all comes down to software engineering, really ;)

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astura
I don't need accomodations at work, personally. However, I am a big advocate
for making sure that the people who do feel included. Maybe it's because I'm a
minority in other ways.

I interviewed at a very large company and it was very nice when the recruiter
asked me directly if I need accomodations for the interview. That's the good
thing about large companies, they tend to put much more thought into that sort
of thing.

Sounds to me this woman would benefit from one of those walkers with a built
in seat. They have built in storage which would accomodate a laptop and there
would always be a seat.

~~~
wool_gather
> I don't need accomodations at work, personally. However, I am a big advocate
> for making sure

Yeah, this post reminded me of the adage about programming for accessibility:
the need for assistance doesn't even need to be permanent; we're all
"disabled", or going to be, at some point, and in different ways and degrees.

Having a culture of normality around people adjusting their environment as
needed benefits everyone. (Including the business, in the end!)

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temikus
I did like this article a lot. I recently acquired asthma out of the blue and
struggled a lot with asking people to accomodate. Need vs Request is
especially hard. I’ve had breathing issues when we changed the office building
but real estate said it’s too expensive to call in cleaners out of their usual
once-a-year schedule, even when my manager chimed in. I was afraid to escalate
past that because I didn’t want to be a hassle. As a result I had to suffer
through it for 6 months before I changed teams and moved buildings. Looking
back on it I should’ve made a statement and stuck with it because the 6 months
of wheezing and subpar work because I was constantly suffering wasn’t worth it
to me or my company.

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pridkett
I really liked this article. A lot of the things mentioned seem to be
necessary because the author has “passing privilege”, but some are necessary
due to poor management practices. Stand ups and in person meetings are two
spots where this frequently happens.

I’ve inherited teams where everyone needs to stand during standup, or worse,
where they do the push-up/plank thing if you want to speak. It shouldn’t take
a great manager to realize these actions are exclusionary and have nothing to
do with their job. Yes, I've gotten pushback from teams when I've told them to
stop doing it during "their standup", but that's something we need to do as
leaders.

Likewise for meetings, if you’re holding a meeting and people are standing or
sitting on the floor, ask yourself, why are they there, how should they
participate, and what should they take out of a meeting. It’s unlikely they’ll
be able to meet those goals in the physical space you’ve secured. As the
person running the meeting, it's your job to change the location rather than
drumming on because it two weeks to schedule the meeting.

Great managers think about these things ahead of time rather than setting up
exclusionary environments.

~~~
Jare
> they do the push-up/plank thing if you want to speak

I don't know what that specific practice is, and I think I really really don't
want to know.

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chrisseaton
You have to plank while speaking, in order to motivate people to speak
succinctly. Obviously disadvantages people who aren’t physically fit as they
literally don’t get to contribute as much!

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mixmastamyk
What does "plank" mean in this situation? Dict doesn't seem to help.

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captainbland
It's a sort of exercise where you hold yourself in a position as though you're
going to do a push up, so supporting your body weight on your feet and either
hands or your forearms while suspending your body a few inches off the floor.
The aim is to just hold this position for as long as you can, normally.

See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plank_(exercise)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plank_\(exercise\))

Good core exercise, probably inappropriate for meetings.

