Flying buttresses

I usually avoid personnel issues in this blog but this one's illustrative.

A colleague elsewhere in the organisation was interviewed by Inhuman Resources and T.Aldous as part of the intervention required by the corporate sickness programme (whereby we're all sick of this council). The intervention is required because he's had three days off sick this year. The interview began with him being handed a list of sickness absences for the past couple of years.

"We're very concerned that your sickness records show a lot of days off, perhaps one or two a month over this period."

"You might have noticed that I was off sick for a couple of months with a nervous breakdown caused by work-related stress and that the periods of odd days off increase immediately before the breakdown and after the breakdown when I returned to work early against medical advice because I was worried sick about the accumulating workload I had to look forward to."

"We're having this intervention now to see what can be done to address your sickness record. You've had three days off sick and this is a concern given your earlier record."

"Then perhaps the intervention might have been better timed to coincide with my return to work after a nervous breakdown?"