A sick joke

Note to all STA employees: chuck a sickie!

That’s right!! You don’t need to go to work this week. Or next. You should in fact be lounging on the beach writing lies into your boss.

And even better, you don’t even need to invent the lies – your marketing people at STA Travel have done it for you.

On Monday, STA launched its latest promotion called Txt in sik. Send in your best excuses and you could win a trip.

“Need some siiick txting inspiration,” the ad crows? Here are some of their suggestions:

• looks lik a lack of vitamin d. flat on my back, will keep fluids up. bk soon.
• monster headache, feeling dizzy. doc suggested urgent therapy. bk in a cpl days.
• bad coff, lungs hurt. cant breathe. mayb asthma or mayb ur b.o?
• up all nite on loo evry 20 mins. not nice u dont want it. c u in a week.
• strained my bk playing <insert sport here> on the wkend. doc says lie flat 4 a wk.
• bad news. doc says im allergic 2 wrk. think ur makin me sik *vom*!

It also has Qantas branding, which makes me nervous. It’s okay if STA staff take a sickie – all it will mean is that it might take longer to book a holiday. But I was on a Qantas flight yesterday and it takes a lot of staff to keep those giant birds in the air.

The promotion coincides with a new report out that says that Australian workers have increased their sickies to 9.3 days in 2008-09 up from 8.6 days the previous year.

And guess who were among the worst offenders? Those in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry. The survey found that staff in those industries increased their absenteeism rates from 8.7 days a year to 10.4 the next year. In the survey, 90% of bosses believe staff have thrown non-genuine sickies with a higher incidence on Monday and Friday, school holidays and other events.

The employers think that home and family responsibilities, poor morale, rostering inflexibility might contribute to the cause. But now they can add another. The overwhelming need to lie on the beach for example.

These ads are highly irresponsible. Absenteeism costs the Australian economy up to $30 billion a year. Then there is the annoyance for the boss of getting through the work, to other staff for carrying someone else’s load. And a sickie culture spreads: once it is entrenched, it is hard to weed out.

Curiously, I rang STA Travel and their marketing people were positively gushing. The promotion so far has had a great response, I was told. So no employer bodies rung up to point out the obvious, I asked? Not at all, I was told.

“This is very tongue in cheek and should not be taken literally.”

Really? We hope STA employees enjoy their day off.