Sick Leave?

Roy is on a leave for his passport related work, while waiting in the line he hears a familiar voice, he sees his friend Shyam who works in the same organisation as Roy.

Roy waves to his friend and he waves back. They finish their respective works and meet outside the passport office.

They start discussing about some trivial topics when Shyam phone rings, "Yes Manoj", Shyam says. "I am not really felling good Manoj, I don't think I would be able to work today, please treat this leave as a sick leave." Shyam mock coughs. "Yes, I will take care, thanks", he ends the call.

"Why do you have to lie to him, why can't you just apply the leave in advance when booked your appointment?" questions Roy. "It is just convenient, otherwise I need to answer all stupid questions by Manoj" says Shyam justifying his actions.

6 months later

Roy has now moved into resource operations and Shyam is still working as a developer in one of the projects. During one of the meetings with the Project Managers regarding the resources, Roy observes that Shyam name has come up in the resource ramp down list.

Curious, he reaches out to Shyam's project manager (Manoj) offline and asks for the grounds for Shyam's expulsion from the project. Manoj says "He is a good resource Roy but all of his leaves are sick leaves. I don't know how he recovers in just one day. It is clear that he is using sickness as a reason for leave and doing other works. My frustration is with his attitude. Also, the client is not happy with him being absent often, since he is on sick leave, there is nothing I can do, it would make me look like a bad person. I hope you understand my point of view." he concludes.

Roy nods silently.

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It is observed that most of the employees hesitate to use legitimate reasons to seek leave and use sick leave for every leave they need/want. Why are employees resorting to such tactics? Is it because their managers shut down their leave requests with harsh feedback? Or is it employees have become incresingly unhealthy?(both mental and physical)