Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, June. I'm oscar a mirrors from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: Workers in the US have a very strange relationship with
Speaker 1: working and not taking time off. After going through the pandemic,
Speaker 1: COVID may have done away with the sick day because
Speaker 1: of the pace of work or fears of getting in trouble.
Speaker 1: Many people continue to log in for meetings and answered emails,
Speaker 1: despite many companies changing sick day policies to allow people
Speaker 1: more time to heal. Managers also weren't good role models
Speaker 1: as they took to working while sick. This is coming
Speaker 1: despite companies changing sick day policies to allow people more
Speaker 1: time to heal. Emma Goldberg, reporter at The New York Times,
Speaker 1: joins us for why employees can't seem to take a
Speaker 1: sick day. Thanks for joining Semma, Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: having me on. Well, let's talk about getting sick with
Speaker 1: COVID and then working through it. Anyways, it seems that
Speaker 1: here in this country we have a real problem with
Speaker 1: NonStop work. And you know, a lot of people, obviously
Speaker 1: throughout the pandemic have had the opportunity to work from
Speaker 1: home things like that. You know, you can always you're
Speaker 1: always tethered to emails or whatever it could be. But
Speaker 1: a lot of people, instead of taking the sick days,
Speaker 1: taking the time to get better, we're still kind of
Speaker 1: trudging through it, and uh on all sides of it, right,
Speaker 1: managers were doing it, setting bad examples for their uh,
Speaker 1: for their other employees. You know, really kind of almost
Speaker 1: has done away with the taking a sick day. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell us what we're seeing out there with this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, fundamentally what you just said, there is a
Speaker 1: real sickness at the core of America's culture of sick leaves.
Speaker 1: There's about thirty three million Americans that don't have paid
Speaker 1: sick leave at all, and that's especially affecting low income workers.
Speaker 1: That being said, even people who do have paid sick
Speaker 1: days often don't use them. And I think COVID is
Speaker 1: in some ways exasperbated that because so many people are
Speaker 1: working from home anyway, so it's pretty easy to wake
Speaker 1: up with a call or aches or chills and just
Speaker 1: continue logging on, zooming into meetings, answering emails, and not
Speaker 1: taking the time to fully recover. Yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 1: the pace of work that there's a lot of factors
Speaker 1: that go into it. Everybody else. If your project based
Speaker 1: everybody else's, the project always continues, right, and you're kind
Speaker 1: of left behind if you have to sit it out. So,
Speaker 1: you know, you feel that urged. You know, I can
Speaker 1: jump on this media, can do a couple of emails
Speaker 1: here and there, and uh, it just kind of becomes
Speaker 1: this cycle where you just can't break out of it.
Speaker 1: I recently had COVID too, and I did the same thing.
Speaker 1: I worked a few days through it and it was awful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I gotta admit the story hardly inspired. You know. I
Speaker 1: I too at COVID and was working through it and
Speaker 1: and it is sort of attempting thing to do when
Speaker 1: you're alone in an apartment and you do need something
Speaker 1: to pull the time. That being said, you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's important to highlight the expectations it creates when,
Speaker 1: for example, employees see their managers working for COVID. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And that's kind of point. You spoke to a lot
Speaker 1: of people who were in that position saying, you know,
Speaker 1: they created these new structures for sick time and paid leave.
Speaker 1: Some companies were giving their people unlimited days, like just
Speaker 1: go home, rest and get better. But then when it
Speaker 1: came time for them to take that time off, they
Speaker 1: didn't do it. And you know, they were on those emails,
Speaker 1: they were on those meetings, and you know, as you
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, just kind of setting that bad example exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, people really looked at what their teammates are doing,
Speaker 1: they looked at what their managers are doing. So I
Speaker 1: spoke with someone who said he recently got COVID. It
Speaker 1: was a really high pressure week of work, including a
Speaker 1: week in which a lot of his teammates have flown
Speaker 1: out for a retreat. And so he worked right through
Speaker 1: it and now looking back, regrets that because you realize
Speaker 1: that it maybe didn't set the best example for his team.
Speaker 1: And this is also coming at a time where you know,
Speaker 1: we are kind of moving into this different phase of
Speaker 1: the pandemic. It's not lockdowns and you know, all the
Speaker 1: strict rules anymore. And even companies that once had you know,
Speaker 1: changed their sick leave programs whatever it is, and even
Speaker 1: you know, providing some more pay for their workers are
Speaker 1: changing all that stuff. Amazon, Walmart, They've all kind of
Speaker 1: gone back to some of their pre pandemic models exactly.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's a really interesting moment, especially as
Speaker 1: more workers are starting to return to the office. But
Speaker 1: in some cases on a hybrid basis, Like you said,
Speaker 1: some companies are dropping the special benefits they introduced during
Speaker 1: the pandemic, and at the same time you're seeing a
Speaker 1: counter push where mental health is really on the agenda
Speaker 1: for a lot of workplaces, and companies are trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to support people and taking the time
Speaker 1: off that they need. One thing you're seeing companies do
Speaker 1: is offer what they're calling mental health days or mental
Speaker 1: health weeks, where they shut down the entire company. So
Speaker 1: it's not like one person might be off but still
Speaker 1: getting emails and needing invitations from their colleagues. Everyone is
Speaker 1: really forced to log off. That's a pretty cool for
Speaker 1: you know, some of the companies that can do it,
Speaker 1: and you know employees that can benefit from that, but
Speaker 1: obviously that's not the case everywhere. You know, just going
Speaker 1: back to my own example, I do the podcast, I
Speaker 1: do a bunch of other things, but we post every
Speaker 1: day pretty much for the podcast, and if I dropped
Speaker 1: out then we wouldn't have anything. So, you know, I
Speaker 1: told my producer, I was like, I'll work through some interviews,
Speaker 1: I'll do something. I was sweating at the end of
Speaker 1: those interviews. I was like, how to take a deep
Speaker 1: breath at the end of it. I mean, is it
Speaker 1: just all in our minds that, well, you know, what
Speaker 1: do we need to do here in this country to
Speaker 1: get over that? I think it's it's such an interlocking
Speaker 1: kind of range of challenges, and it you know, the
Speaker 1: legal challenge of America being the only wealthy country that
Speaker 1: doesn't guarantee peticularly, it's you know, the cultural norms that
Speaker 1: that reinforces around working while you're sick. And then it's
Speaker 1: the example of people sat for one another and if
Speaker 1: you reflected in their bosses. So you know, on every level,
Speaker 1: I think America is really kind of valorized working even
Speaker 1: while people are unwell. Yeah, and you know, on the
Speaker 1: on the other side of it too, does it really
Speaker 1: hinder how fast you get better? Right? And you say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a mild case, so I can still do this,
Speaker 1: but you're not truly resting. You know, you're not giving
Speaker 1: your body that time to heal. And does it prolong
Speaker 1: the illness? So you know a lot of people say
Speaker 1: a lot of people would say yes. It's a big
Speaker 1: question that people are asking, is is the absence of
Speaker 1: pay quickly by actually making people sicker? And I spoke
Speaker 1: with one woman who noted she or her husband, and
Speaker 1: her son all called COVID. Her son stayed home from school,
Speaker 1: her husband took a little bit more time to rest,
Speaker 1: and she felt too guilty, so she just worked right
Speaker 1: through it. And she reflected that she feels she might
Speaker 1: have healed a little bit faster if she'd taken time
Speaker 1: to really sleep and let her body recuperate. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you said she felt guilty. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people feel that way, and you know, we have to
Speaker 1: break free from that and really do allow our bodies
Speaker 1: to heal and take that time. It's tough. It's tough
Speaker 1: in this culture that we have here in this country.
Speaker 1: But hopefully we can get that too, to be on
Speaker 1: better terms now, Emma Goldberg reported The New York Times.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for joining us, Thanks for having
Speaker 1: me on. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America.
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