I received an email recently from a friend here in Nashville, who works at a significantly-sized healthcare company. I paste:

“Our CEO sent out a company-wide e-mail saying every employee had to get a flu shot or if for religious reasons we didn’t want to, we’ll have to wear a mask. If we choose not to comply he’s considering that our resignation.”

Say what?

In the midst of the media powervomit and alleged angst about healthcare reform in America – beyond the pissed-off placard slogans and “should Obama be killed?” poll – comes an opportunity to try a little reasoned discourse on a healthcare matter we can all wrap our hankies around. Since most of the government, medical and insurance language surrounding healthcare is impenetrable to even well-read folks, a discussion about the flu, fever and getting poked with a syringe is comforting, in an ass-backwards kind of way. So let’s talk about it.

I’ll withhold my two cents on it until the end (or you can just skip to it here), while we haul this out into the sunlight and take a look at it.

While we all agree that coming into the plant or office (or anywhere you’re breathing my air, buddy) and spreading communicable, bad mojo  is irresponsible, we also all do it. Notwithstanding our temptation to take a day off and watch another Mackenzie Phillips story on tabloid TV, all of us go to work sick. Maybe it’s because of some deadline, maybe it’s because we think, “Oh, it’s just the sniffles,” or maybe we used up our sick days being really sick from too many Hendrick’s martinis – but we’ve all done it. The more thoughtful of us say: “Don’t come too close – *sniffle, hack* – I think I’m dying and I don’t want you to get it,” but there we are, scaring the crap out of our co-workers, sneezing into monitor screens and using the company bathroom.

So let’s stipulate that it’s the responsible thing. Get a flu shot, so you can avoid using sick days, infecting your co-workers (ever notice the asshole who you’d love to imagine hacking his or her vocal chords out never gets sick – only your friends?), and do your part to keep the company ship churning on its merry way.

Fine. On the other side of the gurney, consider: what about all the other irresponsible health choices folks make that affect the company? Like the aforementioned martinis, going out to smoke in 12-degree weather, and eating heaven-knows-what-and-not-exercising until you wheeze on the way to the vending machine? You’re making my health insurance more expensive, mon frere, and the first ittybitty cold virus that flits by is going to kick the daylights out of you. We have a presentation tomorrow! I may have the flu, but I run 15 miles a week, eat tree bark, and I’m healthy as a Budweiser Clysdale the other 51 weeks a year.

From a practical standpoint, there’s also this. Flu shots are a crapshoot. That’s because they only inoculate you against about three strains of flu, which they guess at months in advance. It’s even money that they miss, because flu viruses like to stay alive, just like you. So they mutate faster than teenagers.

And now, the last, obvious point. This healthcare company is pretty much forcing its folks to get pricked.

Boo. It ain’t right. Even if your religion has an injunction against modern medicine, who wants to walk around wearing a mask all day? You think coming back from the bathroom with toilet paper stuck on your heel is embarrassing, try looking like you’re from the cast of Lawrence of Arabia all day. If Bill’s retro Vargas girl calendar is making this a hostile work environment, making Susan wear her religion on her face is even worse. Hey, would you like a really big cross to go with that?

This is America, baby. We invented Vick’s Vapo-Rub, acetaminophen, and sour mash whisky. We work. We don’t tell people what to do with their bodies. We take our sniffles with the sweet. Good to see you, Lenny. Stay the hell away from me and go back to work. Love ya, here’s some Kleenex.

photo credit: Refracted Momentsâ„¢

Since I’m sick today but sitting at my home office desk struggling to think clearly enough to write, I’ve got presenteeism on my mind. Presenteeism — the notion of showing up for work when you probably should be absent — has been an increasingly hot topic in workplace research. A Harvard Business Review article called Presenteeism: At Work — But Out of It by Paul Hemp addressses the workplace productivity costs associated with employees who show up but don’t perform. From the article’s description:

By some estimates, the phenomenon costs U.S. companies over $150 billion a year–much more than absenteeism does.

And yet, presenteeism has always been a loaded concept to me. Certainly it’s best that people stay home when they have illnesses that may be contagious. Everyone hates the office cold or flu. But it’s also been my experience that there’s a certain cowboy attitude amongst top managers (male or female) when they get sick. It’s as if they must prove that they don’t need time off to recover from illness like normal humans do. And that sends a very clear message to the middle managers who are striving for promotion into top management ranks, which of course sends a message to their direct reports and so on. It’s not difficult to see where corporate culture reinforces this idea that it’s better to show up than rest up.

So what’s the solution, then? I can’t say I know, but it should probably start at the top, with leaders setting the example of taking the time they need when they’re sick to be away from the office (hey, they’re doing wonderful things with the internet these days; you don’t have to be onsite all the time). Perhaps the rest will follow over time.

Easier said than done, I’m sure — as I sit here in my pajamas and bathrobe pondering climbing back into bed. And you know what? For the good of corporate culture, I think I’ll do it.

What are your thoughts on presenteeism? How have you seen it addressed? Tell us in the comments.