Forgot my password!

[simont]

I got into the office today after a relaxing holiday of three weeks (plus yesterday) and found, embarrassingly, that I couldn't remember my work password any more. I could remember a password, but I was pretty sure it was the one from before my most recent change, and it certainly didn't work when I tried it.

I can't believe that. First password I've forgotten in over a decade, surely. I had to go and queue outside the IT helpdesk room like a gormless student.

I had a brief moment of hope when I got back to my desk and found the new password didn't work either. ‘Aha!’ I thought, ‘perhaps the password I'd remembered was right after all, and it's just my desktop computer that's confused.’ But no; after some more faffing, it turned out that password changes are just propagating slowly this morning and I had forgotten my original password after all.

It's at moments like this I feel that companies ought to have a mechanism whereby you can turn round and go home and back to bed, on the basis that you're likely to do more harm than good if you continue trying to do work.

Comments

[pne]

It's at moments like this I feel that companies ought to have a mechanism whereby you can turn round and go home and back to bed, on the basis that you're likely to do more harm than good if you continue trying to do work.

That's one reason why I think paid sick leave in "socialist health care" countries such as Germany or, so I'm told, Canada is useful: because instead of spending five days at half power you can rest for two days and get back to speed again. Or instead of spending a day doing stuff you'll need two days to undo.

[simont]

Paid sick leave is obviously a good thing, but it's not what I'm talking about here. I suppose it might work differently in the countries you mention, but here if I want to take time off as sick leave then it has to be because I'm actually suffering from some kind of medical problem, rather than just being half asleep and gormless.

(OK, I don't actually have to get a doctor's note if it's for just one day, so I could in practice just claim to be ill, or if my line manager was so inclined then I could agree with him to maintain the polite fiction that I'd been ill. But those options are obviously unethical.)

And in any case, if my real problem today is that it's difficult to get back into a mental state capable of work after three weeks of holiday, extending my holiday by two more days would surely make the problem worse, not better! :-)

[pne]

Paid sick leave is obviously a good thing, but it's not what I'm talking about here.

(OK, I don't actually have to get a doctor's note if it's for just one day, so I could in practice just claim to be ill, or if my line manager was so inclined then I could agree with him to maintain the polite fiction that I'd been ill. But those options are obviously unethical.)

OK, true, yes.

in any case, if my real problem today is that it's difficult to get back into a mental state capable of work after three weeks of holiday, extending my holiday by two more days would surely make the problem worse, not better! :-)

I'm not sure how that would work with a duvet day, though? Isn't that effectively extending your holiday, too?

Or in other words, what's the difference between a sick day and "turn round and go home and back to bed, on the basis that you're likely to do more harm than good if you continue trying to do work" from the point of view of "getting back into a mental state capable of work after three weeks of holiday"?

[simont]

Or in other words, what's the difference between a sick day and "turn round and go home and back to bed, on the basis that you're likely to do more harm than good if you continue trying to do work" from the point of view of "getting back into a mental state capable of work after three weeks of holiday"?

A fair point! I think in my head there's some difference between coming in to work, trying to do something, and giving up and going home again, and on the other hand just staying at home in the first place. Probably the former has at least some value in getting me back into the rhythm of getting up early and going to work. But it's pretty borderline, so you have a point regardless...

[pne]

Perhaps I should also note that I've taken sick half-days in the past when I came into work but discovered part-way through the day that I wasn't up to the task - further blurring the distinction.

Essentially, it then comes down to whether you don't feel up to working because of general listlessness or because of, say, a fever.