One boss proved why it’s important for employees to take sick days, after he helped save the life of his sales manager by telling him to go see a doctor. Mike Bell of McKinney, Texas, underwent open-heart surgery and treatment after a blood infection stemming from an infected tooth led him to tear his aorta as he coughed, putting him in critical condition.
The day in April when he went to the hospital and ended up in critical condition, Bell, 58, woke up feeling fine. But his car dealership boss, Gus Rodriguez, didn’t think Bell looked healthy enough to stay on the sales floor. “I didn’t really feel that bad, I felt a little dizzy,” Bell, who has since fully recovered and is back at work, recalled of the day he went to the hospital.
“My boss, the second he came up to me said, ‘Mike, you look like [expletive,] you need to go to the doctor and figure out what’s going on.'” Just hours later, when Bell was in the hospital, he collapsed on his way to an X-ray and was rushed into emergency surgery.