For a while, New York City was trying to make the world a better place by forcing us to take better care of ourselves - like decreasing soda consumption. Now the city is forcing us to take better care of each other, by forcing companies to give paid sick leave. The problem is that the sick leave policy is a trap for everyone -- employers look bad for having their hand forced, and employees look bad if they take advantage of the new policy.
Forced niceness is not nice
You can't force people to be nice. If you could do that then principals could just suspend the bad kids. But being nice and being not nice is a more complicated problem, and forcing people to be kind to each other is actually vapid. Research from University of Florida shows that empathy can be taught, but not forced. New York City has an incredible infrastructure for teaching autistic kids to have empathy. Maybe New York City could force CEOs to go through that program as well. But forcing people to go through the motions of empathy without feeling it actually feels bad to the recipient.
You'll annoy your boss if you take a sick day
It will not surprise you to hear that people who make more money have less empathy. There are great studies to show this. Like, if you drive a BMW you are less likely to stop for a pedestrian than if you drive a Ford. Rich people are more likely to focus on themselves, which, translated to paid sick leave means that rich people are annoyed when their employees take sick leave.
High earners don't stop working when they are sick
High earners do not take sick leave unless something really bad happens. So it's hard for a high earner to understand why you are taking sick leave. People who love earning money don't want to take a break from earning money. If you really are too sick to work, you should point out to your boss - with subtlety - that you're working anyway. Type-A bosses love that stuff. And if you really want to do something important, like go to a conference to help your career, take a sick day. And tell your boss. Taking a sick day to work offsite shows creativity and drive.
Forced sick days don't fix the rich-poor health gap
If you have a big health problem, five days paid sick leave is not going to make a dent in a big health problem. So we still have the problem that rich people can take time off from work and cover themselves financially when they have a huge health issue. And poor people cannot. If you want to try to fix the gap, you need to give months of sick days. But wait: isn't that disability?
You will get penalized for using sick days
Does government stop because Obama is sick? Does GE stop because Jeff Immelt is sick? No. There is no culture for staying home sick. Of course, there is also no culture for taking care of sick kids. So at least everything is consistent. We have a culture that does not enable people who take care of kids to climb ladders. We reward people for compartmentalizing their families and their health so that work can be everything to them. The truth is that most of us don't want this life, but you have to do this life in order to succeed at the highest levels.
So the five sick days you get in New York City will mean nothing to you if you have big career aspirations. And if you are low on the totem pole, you'll get fired for taking the days off. It's going to be like firing someone for reporting sexual harassment. It's illegal to fire that person, but it happens all the time. It'll be just as easy to fire the annoying person who takes sick days when their boss didn't want to give sick days.
But, maybe it's better that you're fired by that boss. If you want to have sick days you should work for someone who is compassionate for real, and not because New York City told them to be.
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