Thank U

My boss is leaving work this Friday. This is very sad.

She will leave a massive gap of knowledge, expertise and passion in the organisation, but she will also be a huge loss to my personal working life.

She has been nothing but understanding and supportive to me – even when I managed to end up hospitalised with a massive relapse just 12 days after I’d started.

Yes, I’d voluntarily told her about my MS during interview, but I didn’t expect to have to slap her in the face with it quite this quickly.

Because from her point of view, it was a panicked early morning phone call from an unproven employee with whom she had little personal connection.

A phone call telling her (in a very slurred fashion) that I now couldn’t speak, walk or function anywhere near well enough to do the role that she had entrusted me to do.

Not the best of first impressions.

In the end, the relapse was so significant, I needed more than three months off sick and had to have an extremely managed return to work with equipment organised, transport signed-off and tasks shared. Although I returned to work, it actually took ten months before I felt fully on top of things again and all that time I knew I wasn’t working to the best of my ability.

And I’m aware there are legal requirements and company policies in place that should help with this sort of thing and I know HR teams manage the mechanics of illness all the time, but in the end, it was down to her to look after the day-to-day mess of me that she had been left with.

Without her willingness to back me I doubt I would have been able to continue working in this role. And I really want to work.

It should be patently obvious that trying to keep a job with any kind of chronic illness is not an easy thing to do. For anyone involved.

It takes understanding and support, communication and openness. It takes being scrupulously fair and it means gaining trust. It takes patience and belief and a lot of hard work. And it takes these things from the employee AND the employer.

Distressingly, it doesn’t always happen. Look at the papers, read online forums, ask someone - there are too many people who do not feel they can talk honestly to their employer or who have encountered prejudice and discrimination when they have.

Many people who have been treated unfairly or who do not feel able to continue working, are in that position not because of their health, but because of their workplace.

Many people with MS cannot work – and they should be supported.

Many people with MS want to work – and they should be supported.

I really don’t want to feel useless, either in my personal or my professional life.

So, I’d like to thank my boss for being thoughtful and considerate and kind. For fighting for me and for never once making me feel like I was her workplace burden.

:: Thank U by Alanis Morissette