Basic Trope: The Hero is sick but tries to keep working despite illness.
- Straight: Alice is sick but keeps on working.
- Exaggerated: Alice has a terminal illness or a serious one and STILL works on.
- Downplayed:
- Alice has allergies or has lost her glasses and works through that, but she isn't actually sick.
- Alice has mostly recovered from her illness, but she's still showing some occasional symptoms and she continues to work anyway.
- Justified:
- Her work is very important or Alice doesn't know she is sick.
- She literally cannot afford to take time off work; either her job is on thin ice due to the amount of times she's dubiously called in "sick", she's self-employed and only earns based on the work she does, or she lives in a country where statutory sick pay isn't a thing and out-of-work benefits either don't exist or difficult to get.
- Alice is Afraid of Doctors, and she always does this when sick despite the fact that she should go to the clinic.
- Alice lives in a culture that reveres the ability to soldier on through all manner of pain and poor health.
- Alice has people depending on her to do her job, and her (innate or externally influenced) sense of responsibility, or fear of the consequences of not doing her job, outweighs her concern for own well-being.
- Alice's illness is fairly minor and doesn't interfere much with her ability to work. For instance, she works as a computer programmer from home and simply has a mild cold.
- Inverted:
- Alice plays sick to get out of work.
- Alice calls in whenever she's feeling even slightly under the weather.
- Subverted:
- Alice appears to be working through a cold but she is actually just having hayfever.
- Alice thinks about calling in, because she doesn't want to get anyone else sick.
- Alice is seen at home, sick, but she's on the computer.
- Alice goes to work, but leaves early due to being sick.
- Alice throws up in the bathroom at work, because she's pregnant.
- Alice stays home, not because she's sick, but because her child is sick.
- Double Subverted:
- But then she catches a cold.
- But then she remembers that she has a big presentation at work, and that she can't miss that for anything. So she takes some medicine, stashes a bag of cough drops and a packet of tissues in her purse, and goes in.
- She's working from home.
- She only went in for the presentation she had to do.
- She hasn't announced her pregnancy yet, and believes it's bad luck to do so before the 12th week of pregnancy, so she just tells people she ate something bad.
- A few days later, she gets sick herself, but goes to work anyway.
- Parodied: Alice works through a disease which makes her skin glow red.
- Zig Zagged: Alice seems to be working through the cold but she just has hayfever. She then catches a cold which is magically cured and she starts acting sick but was just kidding.
- Averted: Alice never gets sick, never works while sick, or never works, full stop.
- Enforced:
- “We can’t tell people it’s ok to stay home while sick. Make her come in anyway!”
- Its a PSA about the dangers of going to work while sick.
- Lampshaded: "You shouldn't be here! You're sick!"
- Invoked: Alice gets herself sick and comes to work to infect her boss for revenge.
- Exploited: Alice works at a bioweapon plant so is called in BECAUSE she’s sick.
- Defied:
- Alice has special powers, meaning she cannot get sick.
- Alice doesn't want to risk spreading her illness, so she holes up at home and takes time to recover before resuming her duties.
- Alice's boss tells her not to come in until she feels better.
- Discussed: "Alice, why are you at work? Don't you have a cold?" "I do but I can still work"
- Conversed: "Why do characters always go to work when they are sick?"
- Implied: Alice is sneezing, coughing or acting sick throughout her work, but there is no clear indicator she is actually sick.
- Deconstructed:
- Alice attempts to work through a serious illness but she ends up in hospital and flunks her work.
- Alice ignores her deteriorating health for too long or at the wrong time, and gets so sick that she renders herself physically incapable of doing her job.
- Alice's illness is contagious. By coming to work sick, she infects her coworkers. It's even worse if she's Feigning Healthiness; They'll be royally pissed off at Alice for getting them all sick.
- Reconstructed: Alice manages to work through the cold and flunks her work but gets better and corrects it.
- Played for Laughs: Alice is a witch, who has Power Incontinence because she is sick, and it has humorous results.
- Played for Drama: Alice is dying, but the world depends on her.
- Played for Horror: Alice is becoming a zombie but still goes to work and causes the apocalypse.
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