Isn't it a bit weird to need to know precisely what surgery your co-worker is having?

Yes, thank you. Although to be fair Steph's coworkers know rather more about medical issues than the average layperson, so I can understand the interest.

For myself, this is why I'd want the all-staff email to say "surgery," period, but different strokes for different folks?

Although to be fair Steph's coworkers know rather more about medical issues than the average layperson, so I can understand the interest.

This. I think, for us, vague is worse than specific. Specific means we know more or less what will happen and what the prognosis is, etc. Vague just makes us get all flappy-handed with frustration.

I'm feeling all flappy hands over my health care reimbursement stuff. I'm on the phone with them, well on hold while he consults a supervisor. Due to a mistake on their part, I had to send in EOB's covering over $2k in expenses. But when they got it, they rejected it - even though I did it just as I was asked. Ok, seeing a 92 page fax is daunting - but my cover letter explained very clearly what I was sending in and why. Arrrrrggggggggggggggg.

My workplace is closed-mouthed to the point of ridiculousness when communicating about illnesses among the staff. We get told (by email) when someone is seriously ill, but the nature of the illness is never mentioned, and we're all sort-of supposed to pretend we don't know about it. Asking someone "do you know what's wrong with C.?" gets you scolded for spreading a rumor that the sick person might be ill.

OTOH, given this ultra-discreet environment, my boss is ridiculously cavalier with our private information. She's actually discussed other team members' evaluations with me, and talked to me about V.'s bipolar disorder and how she didn't like her and didn't know what to do with her. This is yet another reason I'm glad I'm not in the office anymore!

Although to be fair Steph's coworkers know rather more about medical issues than the average layperson, so I can understand the interest.

I know for positively certain that my office would be exactly the same way--all of us, from the division chief straight through the staff list to the lowliest admin, already know too much. Go vague on us and we will spin out and go panic-flappy much faster than if you give us specifics, even scary high-risk specifics.

And, ugh, Suzi. I've done the why-are-you-rejecting-this-thing-I-only-sent-you-because-YOU-SPECIFICALLY-TOLD-ME-TO-DO-IT-EXACTLY-THIS-WAY dance, and it is a dance that sucks. Fingers crossed that the supervisor recognizes the ridiculosity of it and hustles it on through.

Health issues are tricky. Only the ill employee is supposed to give that info. They can tell someone and authorize them to tell the office by proxy, but it is illegal for anyone to share that kind of info without full prior approval of the employee.

My office also tends to be kind of vague, though word tends to get out as to specifics. On the other hand, if I heard that a co-worker would be out for a month, I'd assume the surgery was fairly serious.

Fingers crossed that the supervisor recognizes the ridiculosity of it and hustles it on through.

The guy I talked to, whose name is Guy, recognized that my situation was out of the usual (and a problem not created by ME) and mainly went to the supervisor to make sure that he passed it along to the department with the right key words and everything so it wouldn't get stuck in another loop. I have the ticket number and Guy said he would check on it every couple of days until the issue is resolved. I'm not getting any money from this but trying to prevent them from saying I owe taxes on money they have already reimbursed me.

I'm in the office today, trying to start the new year on a good note, but I'm ready to head home.

Two very Buffista New Yorker cartoons: [link] [link]