HR, beware of the bloodsucking spouse

Holding the spouse accountable for one’s shortcomings is a tactic as old as, well, marriage. ‘My husband made me do it,’ or ‘My wife told me not to do it,’ are standard tropes that are on par with ‘the dog ate my homework’. But the defence of a provincial armed constabulary (PAC) constable in Meerut to charges of tardiness and negligence of duty takes the khasta gur revdi. The cop explained that he was suffering from insomnia arising from regular marital disputes. We’re still on understandable terrain. That is, until he went into slightly more detail: his wife apparently appears in his nightmares and ‘sits on [his] chest and tries to drink [his] blood with the intent to kill [him]’. If we were his superiors, we would have certainly sat up. Not necessarily to find ourselves looking for wooden stakes to piledrive through hearts grown cold, but by the sheer quality of the constable’s excuse.

The letter in response to the PAC’s disciplinary action finding its way to social media is another matter that the authorities are treating as ‘supernatural’. Bloodsucking spouses, like mind-numbing co-workers, are not unheard of. But it’s not everyone who outs such a possibility to one’s boss or HR department. We suggest that our possibly anaemic constable in question be immediately given leave of duty, and be helpfully separated from his phantom wife.