A reader writes:

I was recently out to lunch with my manager and a client we’ve worked with for many years. We were talking about how the shift to WFH has changed the way we approach certain parts of our job and how we feel our companies get more work out of us than ever before because we aren’t chatting with folks in the office/going out to lunch/etc. nearly as much – all standard conversation these days.

Then my manager (with whom I generally have a good relationship) said something that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about: “I don’t believe that people who work from home should take sick days.” I was honestly flummoxed! I sputtered something about illnesses like migraines or Covid that could certainly prevent someone from working, and managed to say pretty calmly that I disagreed with his position and that we work in a historically lower-paying industry where sick days are part of the not-great compensation we’re entitled to.

But since then, it’s colored a lot of my interactions with him. I’ve wanted to say that I think his opinion is damaging and comes from an extremely privileged, able-bodied perspective (he is one of those people who never seems to get sick, only needs to sleep a few hours a night, has boundless energy, etc.). He also mentions frequently that he has not taken a real vacation in years, so in some ways he seems to view not taking time off overall as a point of pride (though he is supportive of other folks taking time off for vacation or to take care of family/personal matters).

Part of me feels like I owe it to my broader team to address this, and I’ve thought about sending him some articles about why taking sick days is helpful for avoiding burnout, etc. The other part of me feels like it’s probably a losing battle and the better option is to keep being supportive of my team taking time off and being vocally supportive of sick time in group settings so he doesn’t have the opportunity to get defensive.

He knows that I have a couple of chronic conditions, and he still felt comfortable saying this in front of me and in front of a client (!) so I’m torn about whether he’d be receptive, although I know I’m going to be thinking about this every time I consider taking a sick day now. He also manages a couple of fairly junior employees and, while I doubt he’s said this to them, it concerns me that it’s his position.

Is this worth pushing back on again, and how can I approach it in a way that doesn’t just sound like me saying “you’re wrong,” which is bound to make him defensive? For what it’s worth, I am a high-performing member of my team, and I know he values my input on work-related matters. I have worked with him for over a decade so I have some capital I could expend.

Have you seen evidence that he acts on this belief at work in any way? If you haven’t — if he’s never pushed back against or seemed disapproving of people taking sick days — it’s possible he just blurted out something dumb that he doesn’t actually think, or that at least doesn’t affect the way he manages in any meaningful way. Or even that he just hadn’t thought it through — like he was thinking about someone home with a cold who could comfortably work through their sniffles, and not considering an illness where that wouldn’t be wise or possible.

If he’s not acting in ways that seem to judge or penalize real-life teammates for taking sick days, then your plan of just continuing to be vocally supportive of sick time is a reasonable way to go.

But it’s also okay to speak up if you want to! You could say to him, “That comment you made at lunch the other day really stuck with me, about how people shouldn’t take sick days if they work from home. It’s true that if someone’s only reason for not working is because they’re contagious, remote work takes care of that. But other times people too sick to work — like with a bad flu, or Covid, or groggy from pain-killers — and they need to rest, not work. I want my team to take sick days when they need them.” (Note: you are not putting on the table the question of whether you should be doing something differently. That’s not up for discussion. To the extent that there’s a question here, it’s: do you really think that?)

This is different from the argument you made on the spot (that sick days are part of people’s already-low compensation) and I suspect it’s more likely to get him to backtrack or to admit he spoke flippantly / hadn’t thought through what he was really saying.