If you have a hangover and go to a doctor, would he give you a note so you could get the day off work?
The day off work? Where do you work that you need a doctor’s note to claim a sick day? Even minimum-wage jobs don’t require that. I’ve always just called in and said “I’m sick, I’m not coming in to work today” and they say, “OK!”. Usually you get a certain number of sick days a year and if you go over that, you get a stern talking to possibly followed by a dismissal.
Maybe you are confusing the word “work” with “grade school”? Only problem is, very few people in grade school are old enough to legally drink so I doubt that would fly anyway.
<b>Rigamarole</b> not every country works like ours, and it does occasionally happen in the US. For example most retail jobs will require you to request major holidays off in advance and if you are scheduled you cannot call in sick on that holiday without a doctors note. There is a special form for it (I believe it’s an OSHA form but don’t call me on that) that has the doctor specify what you can and can’t do, for how long, and what the problem is (illness, injury, etc.) and is it or not work related. I’ve seen those signed for severe sunburn (it required antibiotics and opiate painkillers so it wasn’t just regular sunburn), for example. Yeah it’s your own damn fault you laid out in the sun, so I don’t see why you couldn’t get one signed for a hangover even if it’s your own damn fault as well.
Whatever the legal situation employers let you have a day off without a medical certificates the exception always being the day either side of a public holiday.
If you have a pattern of calling in sick, my employer tells supervisors like me, that I can make the person bring a doctor’s note after just one day. At my workplace, everybody has to bring in a note after calling in sick for more than three days.
The forms I deal with say that you can’t call in sick because of “moral turpitude”, which I’ve always interpreted to mean that you can phone in sick because you’re hung over or stoned, etc.
Here in Singapore a medical certificate is required for even one day’s sick leave. It is common practise to request and enforce (which is something I have been fighting since I started work here)
If you went to the doctor and told him you have a hangover - no he probably wouldn’t give you a cert, but if you went and told him you were suffering from nausea, headache and dizziness he wouldn’t hesitate. Medical Certs are ridiculously easy to get, with non-specific symptoms from almost any doctor.
New Zealand and Australia and Japan. In all three countries at the numerous jobs I have had you must have a Doctor’s certificate if you are not at work or run the risk of being fired.
It sounds like the USA is very different. I do not actually know what ‘grade school’ is.
When I worked for the Federal Government, we needed a doctor’s certificate to come back to work if we had been out for 3 days or more. Once I had the flu and was still obviously sick, and had to miss another half-day of work to go get the certificate. The doctor asked why I needed it, and laughed when I told her, saying, “wait a minute, don’t you work for the Feds? Aren’t they trying to reduce the cost of health care in this country? Well, if they can’t tell that you still have sinus issues, they really have bigger problems.”
When I’m sick enough not to go to work, I’m too sick to drive to the doctor’s office (and then again, does the doctor want an infectious person sitting in his waiting room?).
If he doesn’t, he’s in the wrong business.
This is a good point. I would hate to have to try to get a doctor to document that I was having explosive diarrhea every half hour, for example.
I would take Rigamarole’s comment as sarcastic. Grade school is the school that children attend from about age 5-11 (first through fifth or sixth grade).
Actually, in grade school you don’t need a doctor’s certificate, just a note from your parents. 
Jeez, that’s totally fucked up. You mean your work requires a note from a doctor to certify that you’re really sick? Wow, that’s positively medieval. And people complain that American workers have no rights. What happened to treating your employees like adults? It’s one thing to require medical evidence to go on disability leave, but missing one day of work? Who cares? If you’ve got the flu and can’t go to work, how can your asshole employer expect you to haul your sorry ass to the doctor’s office to get a note? Shouldn’t you just stay home and rest?
Well, I think we all know that the employees don’t always act like adults, theycall in sick for an extra day off, i suspect we’ve all seen it done.
Well, these days, the employeer is probably paying for your medical, so it seems reasonable to mandate the employee go to the doc and get a note, if only to insure that the guy is out sick for as few days as possible, that is why jobs offer medical right, to keep their employees healthy and working, right?
No. Benefits are offered solely to attract and keep quality employees. If that were not the case, I believe most employers would drop all health insurance like a bad habit.
I’m surprised–I wouldn’t have expected this to be routine in Australian workplaces. The culture and lifestyle of Australia have always seemed rather relaxed to me, but then I’ve nothing to go on but commercials promoting tourism, and films.
Yeah the funny thing is that there is a stereotype about Aussies always taking a ‘sickie’. That means to have a day off work when healthy, but phone work and tell them you are ill. But you must go to the Doctor every time. Maybe there are some workplaces where they do not need Doctor’s certs, but I have not encountered them.
And so what? If the employee takes too many days off then deal with that. But a few days here and there? Who cares, as long as it doesn’t blow any deadlines?
I think the distinction between “sick days” and vacation days is silly. You should get a certain amount of paid time off per year, to use as you like. If you want to take Friday off because you want a three day weekend, what’s the big deal?
If we leave work sick, we must have a doctors note to return to work. We get suspended if we miss more than two consecutive shifts being sick (even with PTO time, which must be scheduled and approved 2 weeks in advance)and fired if it happens again. We have had a bad cold/flu bug going around that is knocking everyone senseless. So instead of folks being able to call in and say “the bug bit me on my ass and I’m an oozing, sneezing, coughing, phlegmy pile of goo, please use my PTO time until I’m a human again.” We drag ourselves to work to spread the goo farther and wider so as not to risk our jobs.
We had a girl last week throwing up most of the night. She dared not leave. The supervisors just got her excused from the table long enough to barf and return.
Why is it like this? Because we DO have employees that took advantage of the situation. If you called in, it was a write up, but if you left sick, it wasn’t. They would come in, not like their assignment/rotation and plead sick. So now, we are all screwed. We also can not have someone else pick up our shift unless it is approved ahead of time.
The funny thing? Our boss is a germophobe and keeps a spray can of disinfectant that he uses liberally.
We have had people come in with pink eye, shingles, you name it, and be allowed to work.
The way employers treat employees is directly controlled as to what employees are willing to tolerate. The problem is that there is so many of us that if you don’t, somebody else will. That doesn’t mean you have to if you don’t like it. Sometimes doing what feels right will make you much happier than doing what’s practical.