Is Your Coworker Actually Sick, or Just Avoiding the Company’s ‘Purpose’ Again?

Wedding’s newest contagious illness: “calendar fatigue”

At approximately 8:57 a.m. on a Monday, a terrifying phenomenon swept through Berlin offices: employees began experiencing “symptoms.” Sudden coughs. Migraines. A mysterious condition known as “I can’t come in because I’ll vomit on the printer.”

Employers, of course, responded with compassion—by opening a spreadsheet.

In Wedding, where the line between “local business” and “five desks in a former massage studio” is basically a rumor, HR departments are reporting record levels of absenteeism. Not because people are sick, but because they’ve finally developed an immune response to corporate nonsense.

The sick day arms race

Berlin workplace culture has evolved into a cold war where every sick day is treated like a hostile act and every return to the office is treated like a parole hearing.

Management’s position is simple:

• If you’re sick at home, you’re faking.
• If you’re sick at work, you’re selfish.
• If you’re healthy, you’re suspicious.

Employees, meanwhile, have discovered the radical concept that their bodies are not office equipment. They’re no longer willing to die at their desks for the privilege of a free fruit bowl that tastes like guilt.

“We’re a family” (and you’re the disappointing cousin)

Every Berlin office has that one manager who says, “We’re like a family here,” which is true in the same way a family reunion is true: there’s passive aggression, someone’s crying in the bathroom, and you leave with a headache you can’t explain to your doctor.

And like a family, the rules are wildly inconsistent.

If your boss takes a sick day, it’s “recovering from a demanding week of strategic thinking.”

If you take a sick day, it’s “a concerning lack of resilience” and “a failure to align with our values,” which are apparently:

1. Being available.
2. Looking available.
3. Never mentioning you have organs.

Sick notes: the love letters of a broken system

The doctor’s note has become Berlin’s most romantic document. It says, in essence: This person is not lying; their body is doing body things.

Employers treat it like a forged passport.

They want details. They want timelines. They want a full medical documentary narrated by David Attenborough: “Here we see the employee in their natural habitat, shivering under a blanket, avoiding Slack notifications.”

Meanwhile, the employee just wants to sleep without waking up to a message that says, “Hope you’re feeling better—quick question.”

Remote work: the crime of not suffering visibly

Some bosses still can’t accept remote work because they can’t feed on the ancient office energy source: watching someone look busy.

In the office, you can witness productivity theater in its purest form:

• typing aggressively while doing nothing
• walking fast with a laptop like you’re defusing a bomb
• saying “circling back” as if you’re a shark

At home, workers commit the unforgivable sin of completing tasks without looking miserable. You can’t micromanage someone’s posture over Wi-Fi. You can’t weaponize “presence” if no one is present.

Office politics: the real reason you’re ‘sick’

Let’s stop pretending this is about viruses. Half of Wedding is calling in sick because they’d rather lick the U-Bahn pole than attend another “alignment meeting” where the only thing aligned is everyone’s desire to quit.

The modern sick day is often a mental health day, which is just a regular day except you don’t have to listen to a coworker explain their productivity system like it’s a religion.

And yes, sometimes people fake being sick.

Because sometimes the workplace is the disease.

A humble proposal: let people be ill like adults

Here’s a radical Berlin innovation: treat workers like grown-ups.

If someone is sick, let them be sick.

If someone needs a day off, give them a day off.

Stop acting like every absence is a personal betrayal. Your company will survive without Sabine answering emails for 24 hours. If it won’t, then congratulations: you didn’t build a business, you built a hostage situation.

And if you’re a manager reading this, sweating into your hoodie because half your team is “mysteriously unavailable,” consider the possibility that the problem isn’t the flu.

It’s you. You’re the symptom.