The Hindu Business Line : Illness is your friend

So tell me this: How long do you work in the office in a given week? Wait. That question will give skewed answers when you include people in several support departments. You know who you are!

Let me rephrase that question: How many hours do you sit in the office in a given week? Include all the coffee breaks, lunch breaks, tea breaks, leadership development seminar breaks, waiting by the printer breaks, ‘Yay, an intern has joined and now he will do our work so we chill with the new receptionist while sending the intern e-mails mentioning that he is not a team player or not result-oriented enough to keep him motivated’ breaks, ‘It looks like I am walking down the corridor with determination on my face but actually I just go around the building using up time and getting my daily cardio dose without gym fees’ break and such like.

Ideally, this should add up to around 40 hours at the minimum. Five days of eight hours each. Many people who work six days a week will have more.

At the risk of setting off a Visa application explosion, I would like to tell you that in France the legally allowed maximum work week is 35 hours long. Of which, 10 hours is used up purely for lunch, while the Frenchmen twirl the water in their glasses, chew slowly on their sandwiches, enjoying the texture and the after-taste on the palate and partake of the cheese board.

Ha, I jest. Sacre bleu!

Of course, I assume many of you are already seeing dreams of a job in Paris or Nice or something, earning an honest week’s wage for an amount of work that would make Indian HR managers go crazy, lose their cool and immediately organise a fire drill during lunch break just to take the rage out on someone.

Yet, there is a way of getting paid for a regular week of work without actually going through the trouble of hanging around in office for all that time. And that method, ladies and gentle managers, is Optimal Sick Leave Utilisation or OSLU.

OSLU is a science that is yet to catch on among young managers in our country in a big way. This is because of the big companies (except the ones I write for and make incomes from) that use every evil mindgame in the book to condition us into working ever harder.

We are all trained to believe that sick leave is merely a gift clause in our job contracts that is not meant to be ever utilised. Actually, taking all your allowed sick leave, we are told, is immoral and frowned upon. Just like using up your entire expense allowance while on tour will make the guys in Finance give you dirty looks and whisper about you in the corridors.

Finance Guy: “That Sidin used up his entire tour allowance last week!”

Other Guy: “Surely, not his laundry allowance as well…”

Finance Guy: “That too!”

Other Guy: “Gasp!”

Finance Guy: “Don’t worry. We’re planning a large mistake in his tax calculation this year…”

Today it will be your sick leave. Tomorrow they will withhold your petrol allowance. This evil has to stop now.

Today, I implore you to break the shackles of morality blackmail and reach for what is rightfully yours. One of your New Year resolutions in 2008 must be to avail of every last day of sick leave that is sanctioned for you in this financial year.

“I do not believe! In accumulating sick leave!” is a nice snappy caption that rhymes and will look great on T-shirts and coffee cups.

But before you leap on that leave requisition slip like a man possessed, there is the small matter of procuring a suitable illness.

It is not becoming of young managers to exploit their companies without some sort of backing for their claims. Which is why you may want to keep garlic in your armpit for a day or two. This, my grandmother once told me, would give me a mild fever for a week or so. Another old family remedy, we Vadukuts had excellent work-life balance, was to whip a little Vim powder into the morning coffee. The dysentery descended in no time and office was but a fleeting memory for at least three days. Catch up on your reading, writing and other non-strenuous activities not involving travel of any kind.

However, there other less harmful methods of falling and staying ill as well. But they require a little more creativity. Observe…

Boss: “Hello Sidin? Why aren’t you in office today?”

Sidin: “I sprained my ankle…”

Boss: “So what?”

Sidin: “… and fell down hitting my head against the table…”

Boss: “So have a Crocin!”

Sidin: “… at which point, in a daze, I rolled over a hot steam iron left on the floor…”

Boss: “Burnol?”

Sidin: “… before finally rolling down the stairs, into the bathroom, under the shower and getting a fever and cold…”

Boss: “Damn. Can you come in the second half? I can give you the morning off!”

Sidin: “Cool. See you after lunch.”

However the best, most infallible reasons are normally diseases which are either extremely gross in terms of their manifestation, like boils and pustules, or are highly contagious.

The power of the former is demonstrated as follows:

Sidin: “Sir, I can’t possibly come to work today…”

Boss: “Why not?”

Sidin: “I have this inguinal hernia that has descended into…”

CLICK!

And they will never ask you to show them the scar when you return to work the week after, either.

Conjunctivitis is one of the all-time great diseases that is easy to fake and terrifies people for its ability to spread. A ‘red eye’ attack during an ODI series against Pakistan is talked of in hushed tones in company corridors all over India.

What many people don’t know is that keeping your eyes open while taking a bath can give you a nice 10-12 hour long red eye in the morning.

Use cheap soap that stings well. So you don’t have to fake the pain too much.

So as you can see, a combination of diet, daily routine and use of cleaning compounds can easily make you unwell enough to demand the sick leave that is rightfully yours. You can then use this time to spend more time with the family, watch TV, do shopping and maintain a good lifestyle overall.

I hope 2008 will see many more young managers living a more balanced career lifestyle.

(The writer, an alumnus of IIM-A, was a management consultant before quitting to work as a freelance writer, author and general handyman. He blogs at www.whatay.com)

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