20. Working, Not Working, or Dead?
Last week, The Economist were complaining about people who don’t work and are on out-of-work sickness benefits.
Today, The Times are complaining about people who do work but have absences due to sickness.
What do they want?
When I first got ME I struggled on and tried to keep working, but in the twelve weeks before I was signed off work for good, I only had two weeks in which I had no absences.
My colleagues were wonderful, but for a small team, my absences were clearly a nightmare for them.
When I was there, my head wasn’t in it, I was slower, I was making mistakes, I was taking longer breaks, and I was working shorter days (with the missed hours coming out of my sick pay).
It was our Chief Executive (via my line manager) who suggested I take a significant chunk of time off, which started as one month, and ended with me never returning.
My reality is that I have ME, a disabling chronic illness. Until someone develops a cure for ME, this is it.
So what do people want?
They don’t want me not working and claiming benefits, but they also don’t want me in work, being absent.
There is no alternative, unless, do they want me dead?
Between the covid denial (which includes long covid) and the fact that we have a general election next year, we're gonna see more of these ableist opinions. The scrounger rethoric will ramp up. Gov needs targets to blame for all their failures. So unemployed, "under" employed, sick, disabled, foreigners, asylum seekers... the usual, but likely even more aggressive, as we get closer to election date. Finding solutions, helping instead of punishing, this isn't the gov priority, they just want to be elected. Who cares who gets hurt in the process.