Depression, Anxiety

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by sneaky

sounds very familiar to me..

company preaches mental health, I got a chat for 'too many' days off last year and I have a sick leave balance of around 100 days (good award and long time at the company)

Maybe the company has good intentions that get lost in the layers of management.. CEO wants to do the right thing, his underlings put targets on their underlings who intern put targets on their underlings and all of a sudden people are being 'chatted' for taking leave. Or maybe they like to preach that they care when they don't really care and it is good corporate image to say they care.

My new manager said I had taken the most sick leave in the team last year. He showed me the calendar - 7 weeks for appendicitis, another week for medical reasons on certificate, another week on certificate for mental health because I was at breaking point and other random days or hours here and there to see doctors/specialists/psychologist - any time was shown as an 'occasion' on the report.

now when I'm sick or at a low point and feel like a break is needed i'm hesitant to call in sick. I'm more likely to log in to the computer and stuff around for a few hours or the day because I don't think 'metal health' would be seen as a good reason.

I can relate to all that.

Funniest/saddest one I had was several years ago I had an eye operation.
Doctor wrote a certificates for 1 week off and 3 weeks of day work only.

A manager read my certificate and said I was no good to them working day work only. They said I should take the whole 4 weeks off and recover properly since I had so much sick leave saved up. I agreed and got a certificate for 4 weeks.

Less than a year later another manager approaches me "Come into my office we need to talk about your sick leave over the past year"