With winter upon us, our office has been well and truly hit by the illness that this season of the year invariably brings. This has caused lost productivity and lots of extra stress on the people left to pick up the slack. In our Western Sydney office where I work, we have been hit especially hard with a nasty bug and all but one of the team has been out of the office unwell for at least a few days. I carry the blame for this, because despite early signs a few weeks ago that I was really not 100%, I kept coming to work thinking that I could just push through. I was too ‘busy and important’ to take sick leave!

I was wrong. And I was arrogant. Whether consciously or not, I decided to come to work when I really should not have, because I felt I HAD to be there. Things could not possibly keep ticking if I was not around. Right? Wrong! I came in and I was clearly unwell and the bug has since worked its way through all my colleagues.

Of course, the inevitable happened and I ended up really sick and in bed for the best part of a week. An amazing thing happened – the world didn’t fall apart! In fact my team absolutely rose to the occasion and had some significant wins with very little input from me. It made me realise that I’d been far too full of my own importance, and that I had every reason to trust that the team around me could handle things in my absence. So the next time I am sick, I’m going to take the day to rest to avoid spreading germs all through the office, and I will encourage others to do that too. After all – you are not that important!