I don’t like Mondays

Written by Dr Lisa Reidy MVB, The HR Vet

“I think she’s faking it.” 

That was his opening line. 

For a moment I wondered if I had accidentally wandered into a scene from Sex and the City. Unfortunately, this conversation wasn’t going to serve up a Cosmopolitan.  

“The sick leave,” he clarified. “Three Mondays in a row.” 

Ah. 

The Monday morning mystery. 

“But she has medical certificates?” I asked.  

“Yes,” he conceded. “But sure, that doesn’t mean anything.” 

In fairness, being absent for three Mondays in a row will attract attention in a small workplace. Like in medicine, patterns have a way of arousing curiosity.  

“She’s a great nurse,” he added quickly. “Brilliant with clients. But she’s twenty. I know what they’re like.” 

I resisted the urge to point out that we had both, at some stage, been twenty ourselves. 

“And what exactly is your point, like?” I said, smiling at myself on the end of the phone, my Kerry drawl taking some of the heat out of the question. 

“Well,” he said, lowering his voice as though he was about to reveal nuclear codes. “I’ve been investigating.” 

In my experience, nothing good ever follows the words “I’ve been investigating.” Many’s the rabbit hole I’ve had to pull an enthusiastic amateur investigator out of over the years.  

In this case, “investigating” involved an impressively thorough analysis of the nurse’s social media accounts. 

Instagram mainly.  

He studied photographs with the kind of precision normally reserved for interpreting blood smears. 

“Look at this,” he said, sending me a screenshot. 

A photograph of a group of impossibly fresh-faced young people, dressed up and grinning into the camera, the sort of scene that reminded me exactly what it felt like to be twenty.  

“This was two weeks ago,” he said triumphantly. “And then – no coincidence - she was sick on Monday.” 

“And what exactly is your point, like?” I asked again, this time laughing. 

Undeterred, he continued. 

By now he had developed several working theories, a timeline, and what I imagined was a growing case file. 

He began walking me through the evidence.  

“If you look here,” he said, zooming into a photograph with impressive confidence, “that’s clearly a gin and tonic.” 

I had to admire his commitment. 

He had the air of a man who believed he was closing in on something.  

Meanwhile, on the clinic floor, the situation had already taken on a life of its own. 

Her colleagues had noticed the pattern. Of course they had. 

Three Mondays. The commentary had begun. 

“Big weekend again?” someone probed when she returned one Tuesday morning. 

“Boss has his eye on you now,” another joked. 

She laughed along. 

Which, in hindsight, made perfect sense. Because the alternative would have required a very different kind of explanation. 

All the while, his investigation was gathering momentum. 

More screenshots landed in my inbox. More timestamps. More commentary and analysis. 

He explained Instagram stories as though we were reconstructing a crime scene. 

“You see,” he said, “and did you know you can set them to disappear after twenty-four hours?” 

I paused. 

“I’m well impressed with your investigatory skills,” I said. “I can only imagine how effective you are at getting to the root of an itchy dog or a ewe found dead.” 

It did nothing to put him off his stride.  

“I’m telling you,” he said. “Something doesn’t add up.” 

I let him finish. 

“Look,” I said, “once a doctor certifies someone unfit for work, the matter is generally considered settled.” 

“Could you not just take the girl at her word and accept the cert for what it is? You know as well as I do, when a medical professional signs their name to a certificate, it means something. Vets certify things all the time.”  

There was a pause. 

“So I’m just supposed to take it at face value?” he said. 

“Yes,” I said. “That’s generally how it works.” 

For a day or two things were quiet. 

Then he rang me back. 

The head nurse, it turned out, had spoken to him. The young nurse had mentioned something to her in confidence. Not because she wanted the information shared. Simply because the jokes about hangovers had begun to wear a little thin. 

She had been dealing with a health issue that any twenty-year-old woman might reasonably prefer not to discuss with her employer, not to mind her colleagues at Muck & Meadow Veterinary Practice. 

The certificates were entirely genuine. 

The illness was entirely real. 

The silence had been nothing more than privacy. 

Later that week he rang me back. 

“Right,” he said after a moment. “I may have jumped the gun there.”  

He wouldn’t be the first employer to jump to conclusions, and he won’t be the last. 

Small workplaces are curious ecosystems. We share things. Families. Relationships. Weekend plans. Life’s ups and downs. After a while it can begin to feel as though nothing should be private.  

Which is how a perfectly legitimate sick leave can turn into an episode of Line of Duty. 

Managers are often encouraged to watch patterns. Protect the business. Stay alert. 

All sensible advice. 

But vigilance has a way of mutating into suspicion. 

And suspicion has a way of complicating situations that were never especially complicated to begin with.  

In this case, the truth was simple. 

A young employee had a medical issue she preferred to keep private. Her doctor certified her unfit for work. That should have been the end of it. 

Sometimes the most professional response to a medical certificate is the simplest one. 

Accept it. 

Trust the process. 

And move on.