I would just go complaining of a sick stomach and sore throat and then tell him I need one for the day and get it with no problem.
I suppose I’m thinking of a typical office job. I imagine it’s different if you’re working retail or food service, where if you call in sick someone else is going to have to work overtime to cover your register or your tables.
But in all the offices I’ve worked you just email that you’re sick today and whether you’ll be working from home, or for a half-day, or taking the day off. As long as you don’t miss your deadlines or cause anyone else to miss their deadlines, who cares?
“Hi, doc?”
“Yes, what can I do for you?”
“I need you to fax me a note I can give to my employer today.”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“Listen to this.”
“…To what?”
“Hang on a second.”
“…What am I listening to?”
“…”
“Hello?”
“This.”
“BBTBTBRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP”
“…What’s your fax number?”
Some jobs aren’t so much about deadlines, as they are about a queue full of angry people who can’t make your software correctly & need to talk to some one NOW. The more people out of the office on a given day, the more customers suffer for it.
My company recently moved to this system. One of the unexpected consequences - I used to be very diligent about not calling in. But now that a sick day is time I had coming anyway, I just don’t feel bad about it. So I call in more than I used to under the ‘unlimited-please-don’t-abuse-it’ system.
I suspected there is a legal requirement but in Sydney I’ve never heard of it being enforced any employer who tried this on would have a difficult time keep staff up here.
I’ve worked at five different places in Australia and New Zealand over the past twenty years. None required a doctor’s certificate for a single day’s sick leave. A certificate was required for absences of two or more consecutive days. Of course, if any employee was thought to be taking advantage of the rules by, for example, always being “sick” on the Friday before a long weekend, then management would start requiring medical certificates from that employee for all absences.
Depends a lot on the job. I suspect that there are few jobs, even office jobs, that don’t involve other people covering for you to some extent. Perhaps not as much as retail workers or waitresses, but even my husband (a salesman) has to arrange for some of his customers to be contacted when he takes a day off. Only three people in the state do my job-add in my supervisor and that means that only two out of the four of us can be on leave on any given day, because we have to cover two different locations. Part of the reason for the distinction between sick leave and the other types of leave at my job is because of coverage issues- the rules allow my supervisor to require me to request annual leave etc, in advance and to deny my request due to the agency’s needs. I’m not required to request sick leave in advance and my supervisor can’t disapprove it because he’s already short staffed. All he can do is require a doctor’s note in certain situations ( the most common of which is when a person calls in sick after having a request denied- more people want the day after Thanksgiving , Christmas Eve, New year’s Eve off than can be accommodated)
One thing I love about the company I work for… we have a given number of sick days (6, if you work a full year - you accumulate a half day per month worked), but if we don’t take them, not only are they paid out to you, but they are paid with a bonus. If you don’t use any days at all, you get 240$ plus a “floater” which is basically an extra vacation day. If you use only one day, you get 180$, 2 days 130$ and for the rest, you get 30$ per unused day. Pretty sweet incentive to come to work if you can, but you don’t really lose anything if you’re sick. My previous job was a “use it or lose it” system, and of course everyone “planned to be sick” whenever they felt like having a day off. We can still do that, we only need a doctor’s note if we missed 3 consecutive days, but if we are good little employees and come in, then that means more money for us!
Ditto on that.
The company that I work for (National Telco, owned by another international company) has a “flexible” sick leave policy. If you’re sick for a couple of days, you don’t need to bring in a sick certificate, but they appreciate if you do. If you start taking ‘excessive’ sick leave, or you’re sick for a solid block of time (eg when I was sick for a week with fever and the flu) then they do require a sick certificate. If you take too much sick leave you get a warning letter, which will have the following conditions - You must bring a certificate for each day after that that you’re sick, or you get unpaid sick leave. If you go further than that, you end up on unpaid sick leave. The letter is reviewed every 3 months, and if your sick day incidences have gone down, you go back to getting paid sick leave, and then eventually back to not having to supply a letter every time. The company doesn’t put a fixed cap on the number of paid sick days you can have, but they review it every couple of months. So if you’re legitimately sick (Glandular fever for a month, broken wrists that stop you from typing for several weeks etc.) they’ll pay for your whole time off, but if you’re a chronic malingerer who seems to have every other friday off for a long weekend, or falls “sick” every time your team is rostered to work a public holiday then they’ll start limiting how many days they pay you.
Most companies I’ve worked for do the same thing, except they have a fixed number of paid sick days a year, usually somewhere around 14 or so.
Also, sick leave is paid and calculated separately to annual leave over here. For example, I have 17 days of annual leave left this year, but no sick leave (I’m a baddun, on a letter right now). If I want to take annual leave, I have to book it 10 working days in advance at a minimum, and if may be rejected if others have applied for leave ahead of me, and dependant on staffing levels. That’s a necessary evil in the job I work in. If everyone had the opportunity to just call up on the monday morning and say “I’m not going to be in today, I’m going to the beach. Put it on my leave” then the staffing levels would go to hell and it would impact our customers. So people who want leave have to book it, people who are legitimately sick get their certificates and get paid and the malingerers get the day off, but suffer a day’s pay for it.
As for the doctors giving certificates? Just go in, say you’re feeling sick to the stomach and headachy. Most doctors over here (Sydney and Adelaide that I’ve been to) won’t ask why, they’ll just give you a cursory glance then send you on your way.
New Zealand Law (New Zealand Holidays Act 2003):
Employees are required to inform the employer at the earliest opportunity of the intention to take sick leave – preferably before they are due to start work, but otherwise as early as possible after falling sick.
The employer has the right where the employee is sick or injured for three or more calendar days to require the employee to provide proof, such as a medical certificate, of the injury or illness.
The employer can ask for proof of illness within three calendar days if they have reasonable grounds to suspect the sick leave is not genuine, they inform the employee as soon as possible, and they agree to meet the employee’s reasonable expenses in getting this proof.
I have to supply a doctor’s note if I’m off sick from work for more than 2 consecutive days. When I ask for a doctor’s note, I’m given a form that I fill out myself and the doctor signs. I could write down anything and he/she would sign it.
I have worked in hotels and resturaunts my whole life and most (but not all) have required a doctor’s note for any illness. Where I am working currently we get paid time off. It goes into to buckets. One for sick leave and one for vacation days. (This is done because sick leave is a conditional benefit and in Illinois if you quit or are let go you are entitled to all your earned time off, but sick leave being conditional is exempt.).
But my last three doctors haven’t even cared. I call up ask the nurse and she doesn’t even ask she is so used to companies requiring notes she just faxes one over and all I have to say was I was too sick to go into work.
Would you REALLY want someone handling your food when they’re sick?
Called Primary School in Australia, Years K-6.
Cheers,
G
Back when I was in private practice, a patient would call in and say they needed a note for work. They’d get triaged, and if it was determined that they didn’t need to be seen, then they’d get a note stating:
To whom it may concern:
Patient X tells us he was too sick to go to work today.
Sincerely,
QtM, MD
Tellus Health Plan.
That’s the kind of note that would result me in finding a new physician fairly quickly. I strongly feel that a doctor-patient relationship is a fairly personal and important one, and that when approached with a request the physician must evaluate the course of action that results in greatest well being for the patient without violating the physicians ethican and moral principles.
If my physician, when told that “I was too sick to go to work today” cannot with a clear conscience state that “As a physician, I believe he was too sick to go to work today” I need a new physician. I don’t want one who feels that they are lying when they’re doing so either. However, giving me a note that will almost certainly do me no good is something a parent would do to teach a lesson and does not in any way improve my well being. Basically if I tell my doctor I’m sick and he doesn’t believe me simply because he can’t find hard medical evidence to back that up, there’s a problem.
In Carson City we have municipal codes that require food service personal to not be working at the establishment if they’re sick. I expect a lot of municipalities and probably states require the same thing. But just because it’s required doesn’t mean that employers hold to it - when I worked at Domino’s there was a nasty cold going around and half the staff wanted off and were genuinely sick. Most of them didn’t get it off.
In response to the OP, I think that if you echo what other people said and go into the doctor saying you’re nauseated and have a headache (add in a sore throat if you want) you could probably get away with it. I’d take a shower first. Maybe brush my teeth.
Sure would be irresponsible, though. I generally don’t go drinking when I know I have work the next day.
~Tasha
As a New Zealander chiming in,
- I was never required to bring a doctors cert when I was sick…except for the one occasion where I fell sick after having leave denied by a bitchy boss.
- I used to take 3-4 days a year which I called “Mental Health Days” - days that I simply felt un-motivated to turn up. They were for my general motivation and well being, and I suspect ultimately benefitted the employer
- I don’t remember ever being too sick to work - if I was working a sole charge shift, I would have to be actually dead before I didn’t go. I do remember one occasion manning a sole shift in a petrol station when I had “the runs” - very nervous times leaving the store empty while I was in the dunny
My employer will piss and moan at you, and practically harrass you if you call in sick without bringing in a doctor’s note.
I work a night shift, and if you call in too early in the afternoon sick, they will call you back and tell you you have no choice, you have to work, too bad, unless you have a note. If you call in too late, they will tell you you didn’t give them enough notice, and you have to come in.
We also have to schedule ‘requested’ time off 8 weeks or more in advance, or we get it put on our employee records that we violate the time-off request policy.
Sick time and vacation/requested time comes out of the same ‘bank’ of time. In addition, you must accumulate 40 hours of paid time off before you can use any of your paid time, and you can never touch those 40 hours. If you have 42 hours accumulated, you can only use 2. You are never allowed to touch those 40 paid hours off.
I also work nights. If someone who works days feels crummy, they’ll probably try to sleep it off, and call in sick if they feel worse in the morning. If I try to sleep it off, it’s during my sleep time, which is midday. If I try to call in sick when I wake up at 6 or 7pm, they have a fit and tell me I need a note. No offices are open, then, so it’s a trip to the ER at 50$ a pop for a non-emergency just to get a note so I can stay home sick. By the time I get home, having had no rest, it’s just not worth it to stay ‘home’ sick. Just not worth it. Not to mention what a waste of everyone else’s time and money it was.
Most of the time we just can’t now, though. If there’s only two people on your entire staff for your shift, and it’s the other person’s day off, you better not get sick.
Oh, and I work in a hospital.
I don’t really get why some employers require the note when so many people say it’s so easy to just call up their doctor and get a note, usually without even being seen. I’d never ask a doc to write me a note for a hangover, though. At least, as others have suggested, just say you feel nauseated, fatigued, and/or headachey.
In Spain you don’t get an amount of sick days. You can take one sick day on your word (of course, if an employee is suspected of overdoing it, the company will get on his case); for leaves of more than one day you need the “baja” from a doctor; the “baja” means that you are not allowed to work, it states for how long and whether you can give yourself the “alta” by yourself (if one week from now you’ve stopped barfing your guts out and the walls aren’t going 'round any more, you can go to work) or must see a doctor for it.
And if it’s, say, hep… 3 months of “baja” - someone call the temp agency pleeeeese!.. and you’d still have all your “free-allocation” vacation days (if you were off sick over, say, the Easter holidays, you wouldn’t get 4 vacation days, same as you don’t get vacation days in exchange for being sick on Sunday).
What I don’t get is companies telling people “you’re allowed to be sick 5 days a year”. U-hu, mind telling that to my spleen? I mean, it’s never acted up before, but just to make sure it doesn’t, ok?