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Thirty minutes later, my phone rang. It was HR again. Her voice sounded completely different this time—nervous, rushed.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I told you,” I said weakly. “I’m home. I have a fever.”

There was a short silence on the line before she spoke again.

“Well… there seems to be a problem,” she said.

“What kind of problem?” I asked.

“You were supposed to open the store today. No one else has the keys. And the manager is out of town.”

I sighed and leaned back on my pillow. My head was pounding.

“I tried to explain that earlier,” I said. “I’m too sick to come in.”

She sounded frustrated now. “Customers are already waiting outside. Staff are calling me. The alarm system is still on and nobody can get inside.”

Another pause.

“So… can you come just for a few minutes?” she asked.

I laughed softly, though it hurt my throat. “You denied my sick leave, remember?”

More silence.

Finally she said quietly, “Look… maybe we can fix this. If you come in and open the store, I’ll approve your sick leave for the rest of the week.”

That sounded tempting, but my body refused even the idea of ​​standing up.

“I can barely get out of bed,” I told her honestly.

Ten minutes later my phone buzzed again. A company-wide email had just been sent.

It read:

“URGENT: The store will open late today due to an unexpected situation. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

I smiled a little and put my phone down.

For years I had been the reliable one—the employee who never called in sick, who stayed late, who fixed problems nobody else wanted to deal with. But today, for once, the company had to face a simple truth.

Even the most dependable worker is still human.

And sometimes… humans get sick. 😷