Back before we'd left America I had a job doing tech support for the local ISP. I got the flu. The flu turned into bronchitis, but since it was a part-time job they didn't have to offer health insurance or benefits. I didn't feel like I could go to the doctor, but I couldn't go to work like that either. Bronchitis became pneumonia. I was out for six weeks in bed, and at the end of it I didn't have a job. In the end I broke down and went to the doctor and got antibiotics before I died of pneumonia, but I had a long convalescence after that.
This is because American employers are chronically understaffed, yet will not hire enough employees to cover one employee becoming ill. Why? Because they don't want to pay a living wage or hire a full staff. It would cut into profits. As a result, they try to guilt you into coming in when you're sick. Ironically, when you don't come into work sick and start a mini-pandemic there, they decide they can get by without you after all and fire you for taking any time off. It's not just getting sick that you have to fear. Getting sick is an occasion for panic and stress because you don't know if you'll still have a job if you take the time to actually get better. This of course helps nobody because of the aforementioned pandemic and the fact that this is especially true of the service industry where people are in contact with food and the general public. Not only do people get sicker and take longer to get better, but they're forced to risk infecting everyone they come into contact with. It's hard to say how many people have actually died from an illness that went untreated and which they weren't allowed to properly recover from, but I'd guess that it's quite a few people. Of course, they'd never be documented as such because the big picture is never looked at from that angle. It would hurt productivity if employers had to start letting people have time to get better. Not like when employees die from common seasonal illnesses. That's just the cost of doing business, or something.
So anyway, here in the Netherlands things are different. The law grants you the time to recover. Your employer can't fire you for getting sick and taking time off. They might ask for a doctor's note if it goes on long enough, or they might have you talk to the company doctor, but if you're sick, you're sick. That's all there is to it. This time I was still sick as a dog, but by the time that it turned into bronchitis I made an appointment with the doctor. The doctor gave me medicine, which my insurance which is not through my employer paid for. I stayed home and took my antibiotics and I got better. By the time I went back to work, I was feeling almost well again. When I went back to work, they were happy to see me and I didn't have to give them a dramatized version of my illness to explain my absence. I didn't feel like I had to apologize for getting sick. It's an enormous difference. And the Netherlands doesn't lose productivity by being humane either. They actually do better because fewer people get sick than would happen if they went to work and infected each other. Sick people here stay home. They don't have to crowd into public transit or go cough at their coworkers or serve food or any of that. When I try to explain this difference to Dutch people they're incredulous. They don't believe me. It's hard to convince them that there are places where it's a lot worse, and you can end up losing your job for calling in sick. They do not know how good they've really got it here. Hopefully they won't ever take it for granted.
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