A while ago, the internet was abuzz over a story about a woman who took some sick days off and cited that they were to “focus on my mental health,” which was then personally responded to by the CEO of her company, applauding her for doing such. Bringing the all-important “awareness” to the issue, and then people all over the internet collectively went “awww” over it, because mental health is a legitimate issue in today’s world.
Personally, I didn’t buy it. My knee-jerk reaction was that the woman was feeling burned out and didn’t want to go to work, and called in sick, which is a common practice all around the world pretty much. I’m more impressed that she was so honest in the sense that she didn’t make up some phony excuse, phantom sickness, cite a fake death in the family or use food poisoning as reason to take two days off.
But mental health? Yeah no, I don’t buy it. I don’t think the mental word trigger should be so quick to be pulled when people are getting burned out by their jobs, or are just really exhausted and don’t want to face their work for a day or two. And if they have the sick time, why not use it?