Sick Daze

It's the start of a new fiscal year so I thought I'd put it out here on my handy blog that the federal government, here in Ottawa at least, is run on temps and casuals, none of whom get paid sick days. Nor do we/they get paid holidays. Case in point: One Sunday towards the end of 2019 I had to go to emergency due to a sudden severe pain that turned out to be a kidney stone, itself the result of a minor injustice done to me, a stand-in for all the major injustices happening to others everywhere all the time, which my brain fixated on in an unhealthy way, dragging my body along with it. I really needed time off the difficult clerical job I was doing, but taking time off would have meant not being paid. So on Monday morning I was back at it, working alongside others like me, but also alongside others not like me, because, not only were they better paid, they had paid sick days and paid vacation.