Work in the time of Corona

August 2020,
Peak of the pandemic

Living with 9 members of my crazy joint family in a 2bhk apartment in mumbai, that too, 2 of them doctors, put me in a high-risk category

In august, the inevitable finally happened
The entire pandey clan fell sick

I was still working because I had to,
But there came a point where I was unable to speak, so I messaged my fairly new manager, explaining my covid situation and that I wanted to take the company granted pandemic leave.

To my utter dismay
He called me up, refused the leave,
Asked me to work and not get on the client calls, if I was unable to speak

Few days, after this, I start experiencing severe chest pain for 2 days and couldn’t work.

To be honest, one night, I literally thought, I would die because the pain was terribly excruciating.

2 months after this episode, my so-called pandemic leaves were rejected
( which I hadn’t even taken much in the first place, because I wasn’t allowed to )

I was asked to furnish proofs, which I would have happily submitted, if I was asked at the time and not 2 months later.

This all started to feel more like an accusation.

Later, I was told to get a medical certificate from the doctor who treated.
That man happened to be my father
And that was an even greater concern for my manager.

Long story short, this guy:
Never let me rest/ die in peace,
Made me work; when I couldn’t,
Never trusted me; if I suffered covid,
Had problem that my dad was my doctor and that literally for me, was the last straw.
And I happily resigned.

In all my working years, I’ve worked with all sorts of “man”agers
But this one scarred me for quite sometime.

Lastly, I remember reading a LinkedIn post, few months back, where how the guy was shocked, that his sick colleague who kept working and spoke to him, day before, had died.

It is high time managers start trusting their employees
And if they can’t, they atleast have no right to ruin a person’s life, health or death