Guys, need to vent and ask for advice. Really don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
So last Thursday I was feeling super down, had a terrible migraine, and couldn’t even stare at my screen without wanting to throw up. So I took MC from a legit doctor (teleconsult via Doctor Anywhere), submitted my MC on the HR portal, and went to bed to rest.
Around late afternoon, I woke up, felt a bit better, and opened Instagram. My friend had tagged me in a meme, so without thinking much, I reshared it to my IG Story. I also posted a photo of the soup my mom bought for me with a caption like “sick day booster, hopefully can recover tomorrow.” Literally that’s it. Nothing fancy, no clubbing, no cafe-hopping, no going out to chiong.
Fast forward to Friday morning when I came back to the office. My manager calls me into the meeting room with HR sitting inside. I thought it was some urgent project sync-up. Next thing I know, HR printed out a screenshot of my IG story.
She literally looked me dead in the eyes and said: “We noticed you were active on social media during office hours while on MC. This looks very suspicious and undermines the trust of the company. If you are well enough to use your phone and post IG stories, are you really too sick to work?”
Wah lau eh. I was completely stunned.
First of all, who given them permission to stalk my personal IG? (Turns out a snake colleague in my team follows me and probably screenshotted it to HR). Second of all, since when does resting at home on MC mean I must lie down like a corpse, put my phone in airplane mode, and stare at the ceiling for 24 hours? I spent 5 minutes looking at my phone, not running a marathon or doing a freelance job on the side!
I told HR politely that taking 2 minutes to repost a meme on my bed doesn’t mean I’m fit to write 500 lines of code or sit through 4 hours of Zoom meetings. But HR just gave me that classic passive-aggressive corporate smile and said “Just take this as a verbal reminder to maintain professional standards.”
Is HR overstepping here or am I the one out of touch? Should I just private my account and block all my colleagues now? Any advice on how to deal with these kind of micromanaging snake corporate culture?