The co-workers who come in sick thread

*physicians
*members of the food service industry

"Hello? I'm just calling for Bruce. He's in bed with the FEVER!! and won't be COMING (slap) in today (giggles, phone slammed down)"

hmmm...

I don't get paid, but I'm too poorly to spend any money right now, so no big deal. At least one hour of effort this morning has ensured I still have a job over Christmas.

(I aim to be recovered for Sunday, btw)

Also, I've learned the hard way to take Mental Health Days - if I'm unable to concentrate or work, I'm not going to do anyone else around me any good, and will make things worse - better to take a day off than risk a terrible episode at work and the badness that entails.

But when it's just that coldy/flu type of thing, I'd have to be nearly dead to take the day off.

I used to work with my brother, who is one of those people who always goes to work, even when he's sick. He used to make me do it too, the bastard. He would stand over my bed shouting at me to get up, even when I was CLEARLY very ill.

What, people have a specific amount of sick days they can use?! What if you're sick longer than that?

In the US, you get between 3 to 5 sick days (where you get paid for staying home) and if you're sick beyond that, it's on your dime.

this is illegal of course but good luck getting anybody to give a shit

I hate having to beg staff to stay on until seven o clock at night, I've taken my turn too but I'm supposed to be moving house on saturday and I'm so busy it's not real, never mind stressed out my head.

Anyway, it's all generally fucked.

we earn one sick and one vacation day per month (approx. increases the longer you're here).

Jesus, I didn't know that. I'm sorry if I'm sounding like a smug Finn again, but sometimes I'm glad I live in a social democrat country.

That's just federal law, though. It's a floor, not a ceiling. States can enact more protective employment laws and many of them do.

jon otm. i was sick one day last week so i called in then was "under the weather" so i called in again two days later. it's weird that i have about 40 hours more of vacation time than i do sick time right now.

Idiot. But that said, as an employer, it's kinda crap to see an employee stay home for months: You have to continue employing them (but can't afford a temp because you only have a shop...) and you yourself could never afford to stay home as long as them. Being an employer SUXORS yo.

I wonder if you could stay home sick if you have migraines? I'm happy that I am an employer (with a husband, who for the moment works in our shop as well) cause how would I survive in a shop with a pounding headache? :-(

Don't you have insurance to take over paying someone on long term sick? Doesn't your government have whatever the equivalent of Statutory Sick Pay leading onto Incapacity Benefit (i.e. a state benefit you can receive if unable to work) - you can get those in this country whilst still being in employment, but your employer isn't bearing the cost.

And why *wouldn't* you be able to stay home sick if you had a migraine? It's a recognised medical condition and I'd be willing to bet the majority of folk on this thread have chucked at least one sickie for far less.

I remember my mum getting in a tizz about it a few years back because it was for birth or adopted children only and my long-term foster-brother was ill and my mum wasn't going to be allowed paid time off to spend with him despite being his legal guardian, though I bet that's changed now.

It's this kind of shit that puts me off moving to the US... we've considered it because at least then we could afford to live in a house instead of a cupboard, but fuck working 51 weeks a year.

I was only half-joking but like Andrew said: enjoy life!

"my wife gets all of one week paid maternity leave...one frickin week. "

Here they get three months.

I was joking about my complaints: Employees should get sick leave etc. Only, it sucks that employers get fuckall.

If you go in at an hourly job though you're basically almost always fucked.

I realize I seem to be contradicting myself by pointing out that employees are given shit for taking sick time, even if they are given it :\

I wasn't sure what our maternity leave was so just had to go look it up. SUCKAGE! There's no extra maternity leave past the federal family leave act. Basically new child qualifies you for this and you must use up all your sick and vacation leave and then are extended 12 weeks of unpaid leave time. So you have your baby, use up all your sick and vacation time then get to come back to work. Great for new families!

Yeah, we earn .5 sick days and less than 1 vacation day per month (though after two years it goes up to 1 1/4 vacation).

A friend of mine has a salaried job at F3d 3x and he gets completely screwed on time off (hardly any vacation, ONE sick day, no paternity time).

Is it normal to not get ANY vacation days for the first entire year of employment? Because, hi there.

Do they really though? As I said, the burden for paying long-term sick employees doesn't fall on the employer in this country. And also, don't you have insurance to cover this sort of eventuality - paying a temp or covering for loss of earnings if you fall ill and cannot run the business?

(btw, I know someone who did what stonemonkey's story was too, except add on six month's maternity leave before the sickness kicked in. She was eventually laid off two years into this sickness, but she'd already had another kid while off sick)

I mean, I feel sorry for the woman who had the stroke and all that, but if she had a business she should have had insurance so that she didn't have to work if she wasn't well enough to do so. "insurance doesn't keep the shop running" - well, if she was that desperate to keep her business running despite not being fit enough to work she should have had some contingency plan (e.g. insurance!) to allow her to pay someone else to run it for her.

If it's just a short-term illness, yeah, I guess it sucks, but presumably you had someone to advise you on all this before you went into business for yourself.

Absolutely - and it's one of the most painful, debilitating non-life-threatening things you can have in my experience - worse than all but the peak of flu, for example. If I know I'm going to get a migraine - which basically means if I start seeing the sparkly shapes - I just pack up my stuff and go home (or, turn around at the railway station, as I did the other day) in the hope that I'll manage to get back and into bed before the horror kicks in.

meaning you get to keep the wages you would be paying if she were there and then pay them to someone else to do her job while she's off.

WTF. Do you comprehend anything about paying employees? It's impossible (or rather too costly) to pay for someone to temporarily fill her in. If she's home for a few months that would be the time I needed to train someone and on top of that I would be paying a few thousand euros. It's not that I stop paying for the employee who's sick. Sure I will pay less, but I will still be paying a certain amount. You have to take into consideration that we are talking about a small business here.

It's very easy to say: Well, you should have known beforehand what you were into.Life isn't that simple. 20/20 hindsight.

But isn't the point of having employees that the shop or whatever doesn't have to close if you're not there?!

Not necessarily. It could be to take a bit of the workload off and do things that I can't do.

I feel like I'm being treated fairly shoddily by my employer because they stick to the legal minimums across the board, but they seem very generous in comparison to anything one might encounter in North America (20 days' annual leave - actually rising to 22 after first year of service; two weeks' paternity leave at SPP [£108/wk]; twenty-six weeks' maternity leave [90% of salary for six weeks, £108/wk for twenty weeks) - actually I think this is 39 weeks now). Couldn't actually afford to take paternity leave this time.

I'm off sick a lot more (odd days here and there - probably 8-10 in the 16 months I've been here; no doctor's note required, fully paid, obv) in this job than any other, probably due to stress and poor working environment (noisy office, squashed in four-to-a-desk, sitting under a leaky air-con unit). The first eight years of my working life were hourly paid, so I was one of those sad sacks dragging myself into the office when staying under the duvet was the more sensible option. I wasn't ill all that often back then, though - maybe 2 days a year?

I'm sorry, I have very little sympathy for people who have to work on through illness because they haven't had the foresight to wonder how they'll cope if they are unable to work. Surely that's the one of the first things to consider when popping all your eggs into the one basket - what happens if the basket breaks?

Because insurance is free.

*bangs head off wall*

OK, you pay LOTS LOTS LESS THAN YOU WOULD BE PAYING IF YOU HAD TO PAY A SICK PERSON'S WAGES FOREVER.