Being sick and having to call off work is never fun, even when you’re sick during the World Cup. It’s better to be healthy, show up for work and watch the matches on your phone.
But what happens when you’ve called off sick and you hear a knock on your door? Do you answer it?
I never do. If I’m lying in bed, trying to get some rest, the last thing I need is to have a conversation with a stranger at my door. But what if it’s my boss checking up on me?
Well, he would never do that. And if he did, I’d be pretty upset. If my boss showed up at my doorstep, he’d be crossing the work-home boundary, and I’d have no choice but to ask him to GTFO (go trouble friendly orangutans).
Thankfully, this is not a scenario I’ll have to encounter because I do not work for Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, who has a controlling interest in Tesla, SpaceX and Donald Trump. Musk does not believe in workers’ rights, so it shouldn’t be surprising to hear what’s happening at Tesla’s gigafactory in Germany. According to German media, bosses have visited the homes of at least 30 employees to make sure they were really sick.
“We wanted to appeal to the work ethic of the workforce,” André Thierig, manager of the gigafactory, told DPA, the German press agency.
The factory employs 12,000 people, but this past August, the rate of people calling off sick was 17 percent, much higher than the 5 percent average in Germany's auto industry. Thierig and other bosses were concerned that workers were exploiting the German social system, which gives workers up to six weeks of paid sick leave. (Germany is one of the top countries in the world to be sick.)
So what happened when Tesla managers visited the houses of absent employees? According to the German newspaper Handelsblatt, some employees slammed doors on them and threatened to call the police. I don’t know what the police could have done.
Employee: “Officer, I’d like to report my boss for visiting me while I’m sick.”
Officer: “You have a boss who cares enough to visit you while you’re sick? That’s not a crime.”
Employee: “But he didn’t bring flowers and a ‘get well’ card. He brought a thermometer to take my temperature!”
It’s not just Tesla that subjects its sick employees to extra surveillance. On a Reddit forum, workers in India responded to the Tesla news by sharing stories of skeptical bosses. “I just remember when I fell down stairs and sprained my ankles badly,” one person wrote. “I was advised (to wear) a cast for two weeks and took leave for the same time. I was forced to submit photos of my cast, although I had submitted the doctor’s note.” (At least the boss didn’t ask for the X-ray!)
Another Reddit user described how a friend who worked for a Hyderabad firm was once admitted to the hospital for heat stroke and hooked to an IV for fluids. “The guy couldn’t even open his eyes properly,” the user wrote. “His manager and another senior from the office visited him in the hospital and they had the audacity to ask him when he could complete the reports because the deadlines were approaching!” (As long as you’re not dead, you can meet a deadline.)
One woman, whose home was just five minutes from her workplace, described how her employer visited her when she called off sick with a slight fever. “He dropped by with meds and breakfast (dosa),” she wrote. “I don't mind the gesture but it made it painfully clear that I'll not be able to take casual leave there.”
Dosa sounds good, but if my boss wants to give me some, he’d better use DoorDash.
