Willy tried to come back early. Cummins tried to make an example of him. At this place, getting better is fine as long as it happens on schedule, in a straight line, and with the correct paperwork attached.
Welcome Back, Now Sit In The Dock
Willy did what every poster and pop-up tells you to do. He listened to his body, took time off, spoke up, then tried to ease back in before the wheels came off completely.
At normal companies that is called resilience. At Cummins it is called a trigger event. The moment he lifted his head above the duvet, the absence machine started whirring like a diesel on a cold morning.
He was a model employee last month. Now he is a “case”. That is how quickly the halo slips when you stop being useful to the optical story.
The Myth Of Linear Healing
Recovery is messy. It comes in fits, starts, false dawns, and days where you think you are fine until you are not. That is being human.
Cummins does not do human. Cummins does flowcharts. The system expects a clean trajectory: sick – assessed – improved – returned. Anything else is treated as failure, non-compliance, or sabotage.
Willy’s recovery is not a straight railway line. It is a zig-zagging footpath through fog. Cummins is shouting at him for not arriving on time.
SAL Levels As Snare Traps
Here is the sick joke. If Willy had stayed off longer, stayed quiet, stayed obediently broken, he would still be sitting on SAL1. Safely filed. Neatly tolerable.
But because he tried to return early, because he moved out of sequence, the system takes it as proof he was “fit enough” and therefore should not be struggling now. The logic is rotten:
- return early = you must be fine
- wobble after return = you are a problem
- problem = escalate
So now the shadow of SAL2 hangs over him like a disciplinary guillotine. Not because he is lazy. Because he dared to try.
The PR Version Of Care
Cummins loves a circle-jerk about wellbeing. Flyers. Posters. “It’s OK not to be OK.” Leadership quotes about compassion.
But when a real employee gets ill, the care drops away and the cold admin takes over. You do not get a hand on the shoulder. You get a calendar invite. You do not get a conversation. You get a level.
It is like being told you are valued family, then being invoiced for breathing too slowly.
Fast-Track Empathy, Slow-Track Humans
Willy has watched the playbook in action. No Record of Conversation. No manager voice. Just HR moving the pieces ahead like they are speedrunning somebody else’s pain.
The system is built for efficiency, not recovery. It assumes every absence is a performance issue waiting to be framed. It treats hesitation as defiance. It rewards silence.
Willy returning early was meant to be a sign of commitment. Instead it became ammunition.
The Punishment For Trying
This is the core of it. Cummins punishes early return.
Not openly, not in a memo, but structurally. If you are sick, you are safest when you stay off and stay invisible. The moment you attempt to rejoin the living, you become exposed to the numbers people.
The company creates a perverse incentive:
Do not try to get better too soon, because if you relapse you will be blamed for relapsing.
That is not care. That is coercion wearing a lanyard.
Where Willy Sits Now
So Willy is in limbo. Not well enough to glide back into full speed. Not unwell enough for Cummins to leave him alone. A grey zone the policy cannot spell, so it treats it as a threat.
He is learning the Cummins truth the hard way: your worth here is less about your humanity and more about your predictability. The moment you stop being linear, you stop being safe.
Recovery is not a straight line. At Cummins, that is apparently a disciplinary offence. Which it frames as not a disciplinary event. It’s just an escalation through a process that could result in Willy losing his job. But definitely not a disciplinary process – oh no – you can’t punish people’s health issues. So it looks and smells like a disciplinary process but remember. That’s not what it is. Definitely not.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project