Jerks who have sick days and come to work sick anyway!

The BBQ Pit
21

The place I work for (a law firm specializing in employment issues, by the way), gives us 10 sick days a year.

However, in our evaluations, if we even use half of those days, we get a lukewarm to bad mark in “attendance”. I should know, I used four sick days last year, and my review and bonus was downgraded (slightly, but it WAS downgraded) for my attendance.

EVEN THOUGH I often would come in weekends to work, and stay late as necessary. My billable hours (for you non-legal types, billable hours are extremely important for lawyers and paralegals) were good to very good for my position, but I still got downgraded relative to those who worked less hours than I did, because I was sick four days.

And here’s the topper: I get three weeks vacation per year. Last year, I used about 6-7 days. That’s actually normal for me: I usually “burn” a week or more of unused vacation time per year (you stop accruing after one week).

So, even though I burned more than a week of vacation time, and my unused vacation time was GREATER than the number of days I called in sick (meaning: I was out of the office fewer days than someone who never called in sick but used all his or her vacation), I didn’t get a good attendance rating.

Relating back to the OP: I certainly won’t come to work if I’m not feeling well, as there are things more important to me than money. But with policies like the one above, I can understand if someone else would come in when sick. I could easily have cost myself a couple hundred dollars, maybe even a thousand. I’m serious about that.

22

You think that government jobs are easy? You have to have a chronic condition, or nobody will sympathize with you if you take off for sickness.

23

All those of your who worry about what people will think about your true motivations when you call in, I hear you.

When I am sick, I don’t call in. I come in green and pukey, and yak up some green shit in front of everyone. Then I say,

“I don’t think can make it today, I’m going home.”

Everyone is happy to shoo me out the door.

24

At the school that I go to with the schedule I have, I can’t afford to miss more than a day or two of school without being totally swamped with work and things to do to catch up. Plus, I’m in volleyball and multiple clubs. If I miss a meeting, then I’m out on important info that I need to know. I don’t get sick often, and if I do, I go to school unless I can’t keep my balance. I really hate it when I fall behind even by a tiny bit. But to tell you, I’ve never gotten anyone else sick b/c I came into school with a cold. I tend to be the last person to get it after everyone else has had it.

25

What a bunch.

I can go to work sick, or I can send my kids to school sick.

WHICH DO YOU WANT??? I have a limited number of sick days per year (6) and 2 kids. Sometimes you do what you have to do.

I stay home when they are sick, and unless I am too unwell to get out of bed, I go to work. I dont hack and spew over everyone either.

Actually I often do what Lex does, go to work for a while, demonstrate that I am really sick, tie up any projects pending, and then go home. If you can stick it out till after lunch, you dont lose a sick day either.

I daresay you will pick up more germs walking through the mall,waiting in a doctors office, or in a bar, or wherever people gather than you will in a decently ventilated workplace. I bet you dont avoid these place though.

If sick people bother you so much, go live in a bubble.

26

I very rarely get sick, but today happens to be one of those days. My sinuses are bleeding because I’m sneezing every five minutes (or maybe I’m sneezing because my sinuses are bleeding), and, well, never mind the rest.

I’m taking a sick day for the first time in years.

Trust me, you wouldn’t want me siting anywhere near you today.

27

Trust me my friend, if you come sit next to me and start sneezing blood, I will take the sick day!

(hope you feel better soon!)

28

Whoops. I had empathy and/or support for everyone in this thread until kellibelli posted. Now I have to throw sympathy into the mix, and take advantage of this being in the pit to chastise her a bit.

Germs do spread through the workplace. Just like they’re spread around schools. When you go to work when you’re sick or your kids go to school when they’re sick, germs DO get distributed to others.

Sorry about the limited sick time, but when you and your family share your germs during normal daytime activities you force OTHERS to burn their sick leave.

Now it’s possible that everyone that gets sick during a flu season would have gotten sick anyway, but IMHO if everyone that was sick stayed away from the public, there would be fewer sick people.

I don’t think it fair to everyone else to make them burn their leave because you don’t have any left in the bank.

29

This thread has really opened my eyes - guess 26 years with the gov’t has kinda sheltered me. I had no idea sick days were such an issue in some private industry/businesses. Seems to me if they expect workers to come in sick, the least they could do is provide quarantine offices with separate ventilation and IVs instead of coffee…

30

I work for a large multi-national .

My company has a policy of giving you “counselling” if you have a have 3 cases of absenteeism in 6 months ( even if all where accompanied by sick notes ) after that it’s verbal and written warnings .

I’ve actually asked a manager if I broke my arm a had to take time off and then came back to work for a day and broke my other arm and then my leg would I get “counselling” . Yes, was his reply .

This way of dealing with absenteeism has created an athmosphere of fear in the workplace and has led to several people coming to work when they were very sick. An ambulance had to be called for one girl when she collapsed on the production floor.

I don’t know the legallity of actually firing somebody if they have doctor notes but it would definatly go against you if you go for promotion .

BTW . I was threatened with a verbal warning after having four seperate incidents of absenteeism because of being in a car crash ( directly related to work ) and trying to come back to work and not being able to on 3 occasions . This was only averted after I went to HR( bastards) and treatened them with lawyers . :mad:

31

This is a huge pet peeve of mine.

As most of you know, I’m in medical school. The first two years were almost nothing but lectures for four hours every morning. Attendance was neither noted nor required at these lectures, and every one was accompanied by a complete handout. Most people in the class had no problem skipping a lecture every once in a while.

(I personally stopped attending the lectures entirely about halfway through the second year; after 18 years of schooling, I finally realized that I never learned much of anything from a lecture. I would stay home and study from the book and get the handouts later. My grades shot up dramatically.)

However, there were about 20 people out of our class of roughly 100 who, if simultaneously stricken by a three-limb amputation, a gaping head wound, and three or four different strains of the Ebola virus, would insist on having their blood-spewing, virus-shedding carcasses wheeled into the lecture hall and propped up in their usual seats.

Keep in mind that we are in the med center, so we tend to come across real hum-dingers of infectious afflictions. The close quarters of our lecture hall ensured that if one person got ill and hung around, everyone else would as well.

As someone already pointed out, by the time most bugs really start to cause definite symptoms, they’re no longer contaigous. That’s why I tried to get the message out to our classmates–don’t wait until you’re halfway dead to stay home, because by then you’ve given it to all of us. When you start to feel iffy, stay home. We’ll get you the notes and everything you need, we promise. This couldn’t work for people with limited sick days, of course, but people in our class really had no excuse.

Dr. J

32

If you hadn’t said “sisters,” I would have thought that you worked with me. My family’s motto was “[my last name]'s never get sick.” If you complained that you didn’t feel well, you were teased and called a malinger. My Dad would always say, “You’ll feel better if you go to school.” The only time I ever got to stay home was when the school called him up to come and get me. I remember one particular time when that happened, and the next morning he said that I could stay home. But he came home in the middle of the day to check on me, and found me eating and watching T.V., so he drove me back to school.

Growing up like that, it never occurred to me that people should stay home if they were sick. It was only about three years ago that I finally felt comfortable enough to take sick leave from work (even though my company has a fairly liberal policy.)

I sort of understand where he was coming from, though. Apparently his mother treated him like an invalid when he was a child and frequently kept him out of school. Consequently he was always behind. He didn’t want the same thing for his kids. It’s amazing how difficult it can be to get past those ingrained ideas.

I sympathize with the OP, but I also know what it’s like to come from a completely different point of view.

33

So if we feel ‘iffy’ we should stay home, and then when we are too sick to work, and have no sick days left… then what?

Re-read the posts above. tons of people work in places that SAY they have no limit to sick days, but instead of a better atmosphere, it creates panic and insecurity.

SouthernStyle, you said: **Now it’s possible that everyone that gets sick during a flu season would have gotten sick anyway, but IMHO if everyone that was sick stayed away from the public, there would be fewer sick people.
** That would be great, wouldnt it? Most of my hardships start not in the workplace - (I wash my hands alot, etc to avoid germs) but at home. My kid goes to school, picks up a bug from another kid, whose mom couldnt/wouldnt keep him home, then I have to stay home with him.

I am pretty lucky, I have a good immune system. I didnt even get the flu this year (flu shot-which I highly recommend to people working in a full office) Any sickness I had was generally related to headaches, and I worked through most of those.

34

That line from my previous post should be

35

I’ve got a really good one. I work in a hospital and we only have three of these things that are called “occurences”. After the third one, you have to have doctor’s excuses. I work in a hospital, for christ’s sake!! What are these people thinking when they come up with this bullshit?!? I just want to smack them senseless. :mad:

36

My boss is very understanding about illness and our kids’ maladies in my office. We are allowed,through company policy, five sick days per year that can be carried over if not used during the aforementioned time period. However, some in our office abuse this policy.

My former supervisor, before I changed jobs, would come in to work, regardless of how contagious she was or what most recent bug would cause, even when she could have worked at home and gotten paid. To make matters worse, when her pre-pubescent daughter would stay home from school sick, she would bring her into the office. Last year, I made it entirely through the cold and flu season, just to catch it in early summer from the daughter who came into my office vomiting, coughing, sneezing and touching everything, including my keyboard and phone. Although I Lysol’ed everything, it didn’t help. And they wondered why I went to the doctor that same month.

Another abuser is a writer in my office who uses and abuses his sick days for everything under the sun. Just this year, he’s had FIVE WEEKS off with pay for some calamity or another. None were life-threatening, none were emergencies and the rest of us in the office had worked under the same circumstances. And he thinks he gets another week’s vacation in November. BTW, he only receives two weeks vacation per year.

Personally, if I feel ill, I stay home. If my child is sick, he doesn’t attend school, baseball practice, Boy Scouts, or any other activity where he could spread it to others.

The way I see it, life’s too short to be spent consuming cold and flu medications because some dumbass has the ability to spread such ailments and so little compassion for the rest of us.

Responsible adults who have some semblence of a conscience do not share the latest flu and cold germs just as we do not knowingly spread STD’s. ((Climbing down from the soapbox now))

37

I’m a part time (36 hr), evening shift reference assistant at a large public library. Part timers don’t incur benefits for 4 years. I’m in college, so I can’t move up to full time.

Nights, I’m on the departmental reference desk with a rotating staff of professional librarians. Their hourly wage comes out to 2-3 times mine, plus benefits. I work six days a week. I get friday nights off, but i have to be in at 8:00 on Saturdays.

My unpaid “vacation” time, in the past three years, has consisted of:
-6 days, spring 99
-4 days, spring 00

The shithead librarians, who get sick time, who perform essentially the same duties that I do at twice the price (and frequently half the efficiency and accuracy), will STILL come in while they’re sick so they can use their sick days to pad their vacation time. These are people who get almost as much time off as french teamsters.

I HAVE to be there. I got a “note” put in my file by a manager who thought I was faking a migraine so I could get off a half hour early. In addition to that half hour of “sick time,” I’ve been late for work ONCE. In fact, departmental policy is that I get there five minutes EARLY every day, just so whoever I’m relieving can beat rush hour by five more minutes.

Fuck every last one of them. If I ever get the ebola virus, you can be damn sure I’ll be reporting for work. They can get ME sick, but I still have to show up.

Sometimes I wanna stick my finger in the crack of my ass, then handle each of the departmental donuts individually.

One of the few good things about having the flu.

38

As I said earlier, I don’t get sick often. I’ve missed one day of work with the flu in the last 5 years. Since my office doesn’t account for sick days separately from vacation days I get to use all of my time off as personal days.

One of the guys that I’d worked with at another office was also blessed with considerable tolerance to illness. He had more than 20 years with the company and had accumulated more that 1,000 hours of sick leave. Eventually, he decided that all of those banked hours were “his” and he was going to take them. So every Friday morning he’d call the office, find out what was happening that day, and if he didn’t think that he was necessary to the day’s plans, inform the secretary that “he wasn’t feeling well and would see her Monday”.

I think I loathe people like this as much as those that bring all of their germs to work.