I’m sick of sick people. And sick time as a benefit. I have no patience for illness, and the weak have no future here. There’s no time to be sick — there’s infinite work to be done!

My company offers sick time, same as most. But after several seconds of thought, I decided to cut our sick time in half for 2014. For the good of everyone who works here. I have excellent reasons, as listed below.

Why Sick Time Needs to Disappear

1. Employees abuse it.

When I used to work for the government, there was no flexibility on sick time. You had a bucket of hours available, and they could only be used for medical appointments and illness. If it wasn’t used up, it would expire at the end of the fiscal year.

Did those saps expect me not to use it all? I’m perfectly healthy, so I had to be creative. Like all awesome leaders, I found ways to use up my sick time budget right before it expired… to justify asking for more next year, of course! We all know budget increases are basically a reward for craftiness.

And this is exactly why I want to cut sick time in half — to thwart shady employees like the one mentioned above!

(This policy will affect absolutely all underlings, except for the top layer of leadership, which is not under anything, including the law.)

2. Sick time encourages employees to feel sick.

The thought of getting paid for time spent at any old medical appointment or at home with a cold is enough to make anyone feel awful. By reducing their sick time, my underlings will feel better, especially since their sickness will likely result in unpaid time off.

3. Employees don’t value work time enough.

Similar to my thoughts on vacation time, employees don’t realize how awesome work really is and how they should be doing it 90 hours a week.

Some time systems only allow you to clock in 40 hours, but I make my employees track every hour worked “for HR tracking purposes.” Tracking total hours worked constantly forces them to be aware of how much they love work more than other things!

4. Sick time is for the weak.

And the weak have no place here. Enough said!

Healthfully,
W. Albert Jameson, IV

Why do employees think they are worth the money and time to train professionally? Watch them get an expensive education just to jump ship right after. I might consider it if they would show me results from the training beforehand.

An underling I’ve mentioned before, Alice, asked if it would be possible to send her to a special week-long training for the technology thingy she does here. She pointed out that she just finished a big project, and this would be a great way to polish her skills and improve her productivity before the next big project.

The last time I paid big bucks for an employee’s education, he left a month later. Why should I just waste money on an underling’s education, just so she can use it as leverage to get a better job elsewhere?! (That’s a silly thought, too, because this is the best company in the area, if not the state!) Not interested, Alice, no matter how helpful you think it will be. I’d rather have someone quit after I refuse to train them.

[Now that I think about it, I haven’t paid for any training for Nigel, yet he’s doing swimmingly! And, he’s not about to leave anytime soon. I’m thinking management one day…]

To be frank, I won’t even begin to CONSIDER paying for educated employees until they portray what they could do if they already already had the training. Like I’m going to throw wood on a fire when it’s not putting out much heat!

Workers exist to work and create widgets, just like engines exist to run and create power. There is simply no money to spend frivolously on who knows how many tune-ups here and there — as if it would even help much!

Skillfully,
W. Albert Jameson, IV

Employees are poisoned by vacation time, so it should be extremely limited. It is impossible to live a balanced life.

My employees forget how great work is. They weasel out of it by taking time off. That, and they are ungrateful for how much vacation they get. My teacher used to say, “I don’t give grades — you earn them.” The same goes for vacations.

Ways to “Earn” Time Off

• Work extra hours each week
• Skip lunches
• Never miss my meetings
• Take the blame when a project has problems
• Clean my house

People want time off, but they don’t realize how bad too much of it is. When employees spend too much time with their families, they forget all about the most important things in life: increasing dependence on work, earning the almighty wages, arbitrary deadlines, hundreds of policies, mountains of paperwork, and how to please people — specifically myself. Workers nowadays feel we should lead balanced lives, which is a complete myth. Here is a recent example:

An interviewee asked me about vacation time. I told her two weeks.

She said, “Excuse me, did you say your vacation policy is too weak?”

She must have hoped I had mocked my own policy. I responded firmly, “Ten days.” How sad! She was ungrateful for all the time I pay people to do nothing! I then explained she would get one extra day if you are lucky enough to work here five years.

Employees are deceitfully productive after vacation because it changes their perspective about work. I don’t like it one bit! They are unhealthily excited the day they return from vacation, because they are distracted by and giddy about how great a time their family had skiing in the mountains or playing on the beach. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t offer any vacation and people wouldn’t expect it. Ideally, we would be grateful and satisfied and fulfilled just by coming into work each day, just like one big, org-charted, workaholic family.

Disproportionately,
W. Albert Jameson, IV