Excerpt:

“Friday we had ten sick calls in our office, ten sick calls out of 25 routes. It actually didn’t turn out as bad as I thought; luckily the mail was pretty light and they called in the CCA Cavalry from all points of the compass to save the day. But when I got back in the office that afternoon Chest Thumper was sitting at the Supervisor’s desk, bragging to all the clerks present in very loud tones about he was going to do to keep it from happening again on Saturday.

In short, his strategy was to flag all the sick call employees in ERMS as “deems desirable” so if they try to call in again the next day they will be required by the automated ERMS system to bring medical documentation with them when they return. I’m not sure, but I think this practice is illegal. I may be mistaken, but I think that management can only require documentation after three consecutive days of calling in sick. At any rate, I don’t think it is wise to make a lot of noise and thump your chest about it because in our station the walls have ears and things like this have a sneaky way of being reported to the Union.

I wasn’t really trying to be a smart-ass, but when I heard Mr. Chest Thumper brag about flagging everybody “deems desirable” I told him I didn’t think it would work because it’s tough for people to go to the doctor on Saturday because most of the doctors are closed, and emergency room visits typically have a high co-pay that nobody wants to dish out. Therefore, if it was me I would probably just let it ride until Monday when I could go to my regular doctor for a note. By doing this, I told him, he was kind of risking getting some sick calls on Monday too.

Via:  The Postal Tsunami by Mel Carriere: Bonehead Postal Supervisor Chest Thumping Revisited.