Back in 2021, a reddit user caused quite a stir in their now-former company. The person in question quit their job, prompting more than 20 workers to follow suit. Like a small, almost-unnoticeable leak that sank the entire galleon, the cause of this collective decision to leave was as simple as can be: a terminally ill cat. “[T]he boss yelled at an intern for asking to go home early and have time off because her mom just called her to tell her her cat was dying and to go straight to the vets.” The reddit user recounted the origins of the incident. “She wanted a few days off and the boss basically told her cats were animals and she wasn’t allowed to request time off unless it was a human dying.” After the management berated the intern in the public, the next scenario unfolded with the workers’ Great Resignation – in protest of the management’s lack of sympathy, and in solidarity with the grieving intern.
This is not a typical office drama that ends with empathic tears, though. In the story, the management noted that bereavement for human beings carried far more weight than the one we have for non-human companions. Underneath this animal vs. human debate laid two dicta that were impossible to ignore: 1) the relationship hierarchy existed, and 2) the management would always have a say in the list of beings worthy of mourning, and those who simply were not. Every working individual was subjected to this rule unavoidably.
Unfortunately, the Dying Cat incident is not just an isolated case. The narrow eligibility threshold for leave has thoroughly permeated our modern work culture. The “acceptable” basis for leave is emergency family matters. If we zoom into its definition, a family, in the general, corporate sense, is commonly understood as a nuclear family – a unit of living composed of 1) a married heterosexual couple and 2) children. However, our sense of kinship contains multitudes, so much that it evolves beyond any simplistic assumption. For example, the United States Census revealed that 80 percent no longer lived in a nuclear family. Other types of family models included but were not limited to…
- Single-parent families
- Adoptive families
- Blended families (families that are formed by adults who have children from their previous relationships)
- Extended family (families that “extend” beyond members of a nuclear family and encompass a broad range of relatives such as grandparents and aunts)
Furthermore, the traditional notion of a family exclusively derives from heteronormative values, privileging conjugal and heterosexual relations above all. In reality, kinship bonds between people who are not blood-related help sustain the lives of many, notably members of the LGBTQ+ community. Such a non-biological connection is known as “chosen families,” or a group of people coming together to provide love and mutual support regardless of their blood relations. This non-normative iteration of a care network serves as a pillar for the marginalised communities, who are actively excluded from social institutions, notably biological families.
We can see that, rather than a rigid, totalizing construct, the idea of family blossoms into a spectrum. That also means that needs and support for each person will differ as well. For example, most company policies already recognize parental leave for new birth mothers. Meanwhile, non-gestational parents, parents adjusting to blended families, guardians, or caretakers in non-conventional families do not have access to support programs and leave policies specifically tailored for their situations. In addition, compassionate care or bereavement leave for non-biological family members have yet to be mainstreamed, or enshrined in labour law.
In Thailand, employees are legally entitled to take business paid leave for “necessary” matters up to three days. Despite the law in motion, the definition of “necessary business,” and the amount of business leave employees “should” take, all but falls in the discretion of the management. Without a statutory entitlement to bereavement leave or leave for those in non-conventional families, these workers’ right to attend to life and death is left unprotected and not inclusive enough. An act of care or a posture of mourning, the extent to which one can assist another’s survival or experience loss and sorrow – all must await the rigid stamp of approval. Moreover, both paid and unpaid leave are a benefit locked behind an employee contract. Gig workers and those struggling to live paycheck to paycheck are not in a condition that allows them to simply stop working.
If there is one thing we can learn from the Dying Cat incident, it is that grief is unquantifiable. Meanings attached to each relation and heartbreak, the ways in which we bond with one another – these elements of life vary across individuals. The multiplicity of human connection is as real as the fact that we all need a job to fill our stomach. This is the reality for policymakers to consider when working on labour protection mechanisms. There are many more things to do; after all, we are but late arrivals to the banquet that has begun for the longest time.
Ever since the pandemic broke out, the mantra Nobody Wants to Work spread like wildfire. This is not a meme pandering to the humour of the sleazy generations, though. No, it is a cry for help, an attempt to point out that people felt alienated from work because they no longer saw their possibilities of living in labour. It is time to dust off the legal definition of family, of leave and benefits. It is time to conduct research and statistics on the evolution of families in Thailand as well as the needs of the forgotten families. It is time to think about what it means to continue with the current workplace culture – to work in the time of tragedy, to regulate the emotions of workers in crisis, to have an illusion that the management should approach death, sickness, and human relations with a measuring scale, simply because the law permits so.
The road to structural change is a long one, but we can always begin by returning to the basis: rethink our notion of kinship as well as our relationship to work and to each other. Once the existing principles of work we so abide by are dismantled, there is room for cultivating care and mutual support. That is when we all can begin to live.