Zel-kun’s Words

I called in sick today, for the first time in my professional career.  I hadn’t had a day off in awhile, and after sleeping in a bit, I felt pretty darn good.  The last time I called off sick is when I had the flu when I worked at Wal-Mart.  I had the flu for about two weeks, sore throat, vomiting, sneezing, the whole nine yards.  I kept feeling a bit better, then I’d go to work and relapse.  I finally had enough and decided I was going to take a day off to recuperate (I had worked ten days straight, one of Wal-Mart’s happy little tricks was to put the weekend on the opposite ends of the work week, so you’d start work friday until sunday the next week).

It is now I realize just how backwards Wal-Mart was.  For those of you who don’t know, here’s how calling in sick worked this morning:

I call my boss’ phone, it rings for about five seconds, “Hey boss.”

“Hey Jon, what’s up?”

“I’m not feeling too well, I don’t think I’ll make it in today.”

“Not a problem, I’ll let the rest of the guys know, give me a call tomorrow, let me know if you’re feeling better.”

“Thanks, bye.”

And that’s it.  Took about a minute, a civilized, respectable discussion.  Now, let’s go back to how it worked at Wal-Mart.

I call up the store.  After three tries, I finally get someone to pick up the phone, “Hi, can I speak to a manager?”

“Sure, hold on.”

I then wait for about twenty minutes or so for a manager to pick up.  More than once have I been hung up on during this time.  Finally, someone picks up, “This is a manager.”  It is important to realize the tone of whoever picked up the phone, its always a voice that says, ‘you are taking a bit of my precious time, why?.’

“Hi, this is Jon.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m not feeling well today, I don’t think I’ll make it in?”

“Why not?” This question is asked with all the finesse of a claw hammer to the side of the head.

“I have the flu.”

There’s some silence, I hear some papers being shuffled around, “There’s only one other person scheduled in electronics tonight, and they leave before closing.”  He states the obvious, this is ALWAYS the case.  “You sure you can’t come in?”   Keep in mind this very person saw me in my sickened state just the previous night, and commented, “gee, you don’t look so good.”

“No, I’m not feeling well.”

This is answered with a heavy sigh, “Well all right… sorry to hear that.”  Then there’s the click.  No good-bye.

Nothing like waiting for twenty minutes and then being put through a guilt trip when you’re sick.  Wal-Mart rocked so much.

Zel-kun out.