Chucking a sickie

Faking illness in order to get a day off work - or 'chucking a sickie' - used to be one of the great Aussie institutions. Don't tell me you haven't done it. Once I made the mistake of spending my 'sick day' on a river cruise without a hat and had to go back to work on Tuesday with sunburn. Not a stellar moment.

But I think as a nation we might be growing up and getting serious about attending work. I present as evidence the latest ad for Coldral's Cold & Flu tablets.

It begins with a man waking up in the grey light of the early morning. We can see that his eyes are sunken, and bloodshot, and for a second we wonder if this is another anti-smoking or drugs ad. But no, he gets up and in the kitchen he prods unenthusiastically at his cereal, then he turns to the radio and flicks it into life. On comes that catchy 'Soldier On!' jingo, he drops a couple of the magic pills and suddenly, things start to look up. The colour returns not just to his face, but to the whole world, and now he's marching out the door and down the street. People salute him as he goes. "Look at that man," they say. "Death warmed up just a little while ago, now he's flying like Superman!" And at the office everyone must be taking the tablets too as they're all singing along and welcoming him inside.

I wonder what that man does. Is he a real estate agent, a telesales team leader, or something even more crucial to the turning of the globe? It must be important for him not only to ignore every possible signal his body could give him, but suppress them chemically in order to go to work. Does an ad like this go through a review panel before it can be shown on TV, and if so, do they say anything about it? I guess in Australia today, making it to the office is a pretty big deal.

Maybe he's just used up all his sick days, like me. Been off all this week, with not even a sunburn to show for it.