Man I think I really hit the lottery with my workplace and my coworkers and superiors.
As some may recall from my previous posts in this thread, I felt bad that my epileptic seizures caused so many sick days and offered my boss to lower my salary etc, to no avail. For reference, I have non-photosensitive epilepsy, which is a rare form of epilepsy according to my neurologists that isn't triggered by lights etc but by fatigue and/or stress. As the screenshot at the bottom of this post shows, as of now I currently have racked up 848 hours of sick days since the start of 2023. Roughly 90% of those are solely due to seizures and the after-effects.
Prior to starting my job here as a Software Test Engineer, I only had 3 epileptic seizures in the prior 12 months where I was a student and on paper I was unemployed.
However since my appointment, the seizures gradually increased in frequency despite my anti-epileptic medication. Feeling guilty/annoyed about the amount of sick days, I repeatedly offered my boss to lower my salary or alter my contract to make my epileptic seizure sick days unpaid. The boss and other senior figures never entertained these offers and outright refused. Instead, I got a €600 raise even though my monthly salary was already €200 above the market rate for someone in my position and level of experience/education.
The seizures and subsequent amount of sick days has been particularly bad the past 3 months or so, and recently I got a call out of the blue that my boss and our new office manager wanted a private meeting to discuss my sick days.
I didn't think it'd be a positive meeting but I ended up being baffled.
My boss (Jurgen) said he and our new office manager (Pauline) had been looking for a way to work less while still getting paid as high as possible. I had no idea Pauline was working on this or that she spent so much time and effort on it. She met with the legal dept to look into ways to maximize my pay while lowering my work hours, met with our healthcare partners for advice, ...
In the meeting, they explained that they found a way through public healthcare, and suggested a procedure called "progressieve tewerkstelling". A literal translation would be "progressive employment."
Basically the public healthcare fund (called a "mutualiteit" here, it has no English translation or even a real equivalent) deems you unfit to work and thus you have to decide on what % of your previous job hours you will work for during a period of up to several months. My boss suggested to start with 50%, so 20 hours a week, for a period of 3 months to start with. At the end of the 3 months, the arrangement is then reviewed and can be renewed, with or without alterations, or cancelled.
My boss said that under that progressive employment procedure, my employer will pay for the 20 hours I work, and the healthcare fund will pay a substitute salary (which is lower of course) for the other 50%.
My boss then said he'd pay me extra for those 20 hours, despite no requirement or any suggestion to do so.
Take in mind, this plan was all being pushed entirely by my boss and new office manager, it didn't come from me.
Now here comes the truly baffling part that practically made my jaw drop.
My boss then went on a proud speech that started off with the following quote:
"This is exactly what government exists for. To help those in need and set up a progressive way of getting those with severe medical issues back to working as many hours as they can. For me, and I think I can speak for the company as a whole, it's not about money or anything. It's about your health (my name), right Pauline?"
Bruh, a CEO at a large tech company with 28% growth last year going on a speech like this? All these frankly absurd concessions given to me despite my repeated offers to lower my salary?
I think this workplace is heaven, and I never want to leave.
By now I've already finished the paperwork and as of October 23rd, I'll be working at 50% while being paid roughly the same as when I worked full-time. All because of the completely unnecessary bonus my boss decided to pay me for the 20 hours/week.
Even the healthcare people were baffled that an employer was so supportive.
Example:
and some of the travel guys were killing, if they negotiated right they got the same as me plus a rental car and a hotel (started at the motel 6 then moved them all into the brand new Candlewood Suites).
