Kate Hackett
After the last few years, I like to think that we have all taken a much more liberal policy with sick coworkers and students. If you’re coughing, stay home! If you feel bad, stay home. But that’s a very new phenomenon and far more often we’ve seen bosses — and in this story’s case, schools — forcing people who are contagiously ill to work.
u/kissmegoodbi shared a story on the MaliciousCompliance subreddit recently about how her mom just did what the school demanded the OP return to class with a bout of whooping cough.
What’s whooping cough? It’s a long, bad illness that the US has mostly kicked away, but other nations have not. OP is not from the US, where vaccinations are mandatory for school.
OP explains that this was when she was in elementary school. OP’s whooping cough has a life span of 100 days, which is wild. The doctor’s note from school seemed sufficient, except for one administrator.
This happened when I was in elementary school but the compliance was my moms. I got whooping cough which has a life span of 100 days. We got a doctors note from my school and everyone seemed fine with it except the main office administrator who was constantly calling my mom to bug her about when I was coming back.
This administrator badgers OP’s mom and threatens to call social services if OP doesn’t return to class on Monday. OP is, of course, still very sick.
About a month in she calls my mom and tells her it’s impossible I’ve been sick for this long and if I’m not in school on Monday she’s calling social services. Keep in mind at this point I can barely lift my head, I sound like darth Vader and every few minutes I start coughing like I’m doing an impression of a goose fighting a Toyota.
OP’s mom said FINE and took her kid to school. Surprise to nobody: OP was sent home almost immediately.
My mom was so sick of this shit that she put a mask on me and took me to school in a taxi. She practically had to drag me to my class and didn’t even bother leaving. I got sent home before the bell even rang.
Did the shitty admin woman apologize? NOPE. She asked the mom how DARE she send this kid to school!?
Because of school policy I was sent to the office and had to be signed out which meant nasty admin lady got to see exactly how miserable and sick I was. She then had the nerve to ask me how could my mom even consider sending me to school. Unfortunately for her my mom just to walk up a flight of stairs to come get me (because she knew what the hell was gonna happen). She signed me out and let the admin lady know that I would cough on anyone who thought I wasn’t really sick.
Honestly, that woman sucks. Administrators in schools can be great, but boy when they’re terrible, they’re terrible.
Here’s what Reddit had to say about the incident.
“I was just gonna say, I swear I knew a girl in high school who told me she broke a rib coughing when she had pertussis. I wasn’t sure whether or not I had remembered that correctly, but apparently it isn’t uncommon… scary shit,” wrote in PotterandPinkFloyd.
(PE teachers can be god-awful too, poor kids).
