Employee Asks For Mental Health Day Off, And Her Boss’ Response Goes Viral

We've all heard that we should take a mental health day from time to time, but how many of us are brave enough to actually take one—and let our coworkers and boss know that mental health issues may be the reason for being out of office?
She sent an email to her team letting them know she was taking two days off "to focus on my mental health"—and was shocked by the CEO's response.
Meet Madalyn Parker, a web developer from Michigan who works for Olark

Ben Congleton, the CEO who replied, was so stunned by the outpouring of support that he wrote about it on Medium.
"I wasn’t expecting the exposure, but I am so glad I was able to have such a positive impact on so many people," he wrote on July 6.

"There were so many stories of people wishing they worked at a place where their CEO cared about their health, and so many people congratulating me on doing such a good thing," he continues, adding:

It’s 2017. I cannot believe that it is still controversial to speak about mental health in the workplace when 1 in 6 americans are medicated for mental health.

Congleton is sourcing a Scientific American article from December 2016, which goes on to report that "just over one in 10 adults reported taking prescription drugs for 'problems with emotions, nerves or mental health,'" sourcing statistics from a piece published in JAMA Internal Medicine earlier that month.

A top highlighted quote from Congleton's Medium piece is "It’s 2017. We are in a knowledge economy. Our jobs require us to execute at peak mental performance. When an athlete is injured they sit on the bench and recover. Let’s get rid of the idea that somehow the brain is different."
Recently, she found herself needing a few days off, which she emailed her team about right away

The way her boss responded, though, was something most of us would never imagine

After sharing the touching message on Twitter, the world pretty much gave him a digital standing ovation


Unfortunately, employees from other companies didn’t get the same support from twoman-email-mental-health-day-ceo-response-madalyn-parker-4heir bosses



Some people even sparked a discussion on what kind of leave people should be taking for mental health issues

Do you think employees deserve days off work to take care of their mental health?