I Respectfully Request Sick Leave

Hey there,

Some weeks don’t send you one problem. They send you a whole construction site.

I ran across an old letter that must have made people wince and laugh for years. It’s almost certainly more folklore than workplace report, which is just as well. If it were true, the man would still be filling out forms.

A bricklayer, hurt on the job, wrote his boss to request sick leave:

I arrived at the job after the storm, checked the building out and saw that the top needed repairs. I rigged a hoist and a boom, attached the rope to a barrel and pulled bricks to the top. When I pulled the barrel to the top, I secured the rope at the bottom. After repairing the building, I went back to fill the barrel with the leftover bricks. I went down and released the rope to lower the bricks, and the barrel was heavier than I and it jerked me off the ground. I decided to hang on. Halfway up, I met the barrel coming down and received a blow to the shoulder. I hung on and went to the top, where I hit my head on the boom and caught my fingers in the pulley. In the meantime, the barrel hit the ground and burst open, throwing bricks all over. This made the barrel lighter than I, and I started down at high speed. Halfway down, I met the barrel coming up and received a blow to my shins. I continued down and fell on the bricks, receiving cuts and bruises. At this time I must have lost my presence of mind, because I let go of the rope and the barrel came down and hit me on the head. I respectfully request sick leave.

You have to admire the the guy’s politeness. After being launched, clobbered, pinched, dropped, and crowned by his own empty barrel, he still signs off like a man hoping the boss will initial the form.

That’s why the story works. It’s funny because it’s a little too familiar. Trouble doesn’t always arrive as one clean event. Sometimes you meet it on the way up, meet it again on the way down, and then, just when you think you’ve finally let go, it finds your head one more time.

Scripture does not pretend those weeks are imaginary. Paul wrote, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair… struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9). That is not a promise that the barrel will stay on the ground. It is a promise that the last blow is not the last word.

The bricklayer’s best line may be the simplest one: he asked for help. That is allowed. You don’t have to produce a dignified explanation of every bruise before you come to God. You can tell the truth. This week has been a lot. I need rest. I need mercy.

And if I may add one small footnote to his report: he was working the rope alone. A second pair of hands would’nt have made him invincible, but it might have kept the story from becoming a slapstick gospel. God often keeps us “not crushed” through people who will pray, show up, and hold the other end. Paul puts it plainly: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Some weeks you need someone to grab the rope. Some weeks you are that someone.

So if you’ve already met the barrel twice this week, you have permission to smile at the letter, sigh at your own version of it, and then do the most sensible thing in the whole story.

Respectfully request help. Don’t hold that rope alone…

Reflection: Where’s this week hit you more than once—and who could stand with you so you are not managing the rope by yourself?

~ Charlie