My boss has double standards when she’s sick.

Dear Aunty B,

My boss is a hypocrite. She hates us coming to work when we are sick. A few weeks ago she sent me home for sneezing on her even though I was at the tail end of the flu. But last week she came to work and spluttered everywhere (she caught my flu).

She also makes sure that everyone knows she’s really sick by telling us all day that she feels really bad. Yet when we tell her to go home she ignores us.

As a joke someone brought in a thermometer and we are all taking our temperature waiting to be struck down with her flu. Is it fair she has double standards and how do we make her stay home?

GR,
Melbourne

Dear GR,

Eww… I am not sure about sharing stuff that touches intimate body parts around the office, although I suppose our bottoms all share a toilet seat. Can I ask… where did you get the weird notion that bosses were not hypocrites? We are giant hypocrites. We spend our lives doing things that we tell others not to do.

Hand on heart, I spend half my day doing things what I warn everyone else not to do. A small example? Take this afternoon. I complained about the cost of organic fruit, while stuffing my face with a delicious organic banana. I requested – nicely – that we keep the board table clean of stuff and promptly left my finished cup of tea on the table.

I warned a staff member about reading contracts properly and then had to ring my lawyer to discuss a messy contract that I had signed when I wasn’t paying attention.

And I insist that we reference check all people but this afternoon demanded that we hire a fantastic looking candidate IMMEDIATELY before someone else nabbed him.

Now, GR it is still only 3pm and I have clocked up four counts of gross hypocrisy with hours to go before drinks at the pub.

Maybe this will convince you what a bunch of hypocrites we are. I came across some HR consultancy that did a survey on bosses. It says that 83% of business owners would prefer staff to stay at home when they’re sick rather than come to work, even though 42% of them would only stay at home sick if they were at death’s door. Now the real news to me is that 41% were not hypocrites… at least in that survey.

Good luck!
Your Aunty B

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