COVID-19 Slacker Excuses
Thulaganyo Jankie | Monday November 2, 2020 15:17
In the Pre-COVID-19 days whenever an employee failed to pitch that would be accompanied by a sick leave from a health service centre.
Of course this was routinely abused by some errant workers who had turned sick leave into a monthly event like a pay check. Things have now changed and the HR department must be as busy as a cat trying to cover poop on a hot tin roof during these covid times.
I do not have any sort of sympathy for the HR department though mainly because of two reasons. First a leave-thirsty friend of mine once edited his sick leave by writing a ‘5’ after the ‘2’ days he was given making his leave 25 days instead.
This was before they discovered writing numbers in words on a sick note – an era that would clearly not resonate with JZ. Though it took quite an enormous amount of egg in the face and several public speeches, JZ cancelled that numeral rubbish! My friend was then fired for dishonesty, forgery, fraud, bribery, bad handwriting and everything else they could squeeze on the charge sheet. With the charges all over my friend like a bad rash he had no escape and was ejected from work.
Secondly, whenever there’s a restructuring exercise (which is a millennial term for massive staff firing) they are always the last to exit the building after firing and retrenching everyone.
In short they are a sort of God in the workplace.
They decide who goes and who stays and their trade is a sort of judgement day project. The COVID-19 pandemic has commissioned an excuse factory and the slackers have lapped it up. Employees are now not going to work because they lost their masks. Now, no employer can question this unless they want to incur the wrath of Dr Masupu and his khofit (which is how covid is pronounced by the Covid Task Force whenever they are on TV) team.
The work-from-home mantra is gathering steam faster than a politician’s promise on election day and now some brave cleaning ladies and garden helps can bunk work and claim they were working from home.
It is a tragic and unfathomable episode, but never underestimate the power of a truant employee. They can spin a yarn faster than the famous Oodi Weavers just so they get out of the clutches of work. It would take a very sleepy and out of sorts.
An acquaintance of mine who works in the HR department and does not respect these 3rd party boundaries in employment contracts told me a bizarre reason for not coming to work from a colleague she works with.
The note read ‘I could not come to work today because as you know due to COVID-19 many people are under a lot of stress.
As you heard, MP Mmolotsi in parliament church ministers should help with counselling people during these trying times.
I might have not told you this, but I am going to be a minister and have started the task of counselling people to help our church minister.’
Sadly the same employee’s love for facebook was their main undoing and a quick facebook check revealed the minister-in-training ‘situationing right now’ and ‘baecationing’ in a 3rd grade hotel with a six-packed hunk. And the result- let us just say it ended in tears!
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