On being sick

When you post on a public message board, you are not allowed (physically or philosophically) to restrict replies to the ones that make you smile. You’re going to get real advice from real people who understand how the real world works. Sugarcoating will not help you improve, it only validates your behavior, and I don’t think that’s helpful to you at all. Anaamika’s advice was excellent, honest, and much milder than most inclined to criticism would have provided–you should be thanking her for her niceness and honesty on bended knee. Because the truth is, you *just *got this job, and your actions make you look like a total flake. If you can’t *do *the job, for ANY reason (whether because you’re unskilled/a poor fit/too anxious to handle normal work-related stress–the latter of which is where all indicators are currently pointing), then you’re going to lose the job. Because, despite the fact that you NEED the money and you really NEED the job, *no *company owes you a job you can’t do.

It’s good if you don’t exceed the allowable points in their system, I guess, but it might not matter. Probationary employees can be let go for any reason, or even no reason at all. So you might get let go if they feel like you’re flaky, even if you don’t exceed the allowable points before October. If you truly want to keep this job, then you have to suck it up and go even if you feel anxious (at the VERY *least *until your prob period is up). Unless you are literally vomiting blood or crapping your pants so hard that you’re passed out on the floor, you shouldn’t be calling in sick during the prob period–you are putting your job at severe risk! This is reality.

Maybe this all seems overly restrictive (and perhaps to you it sounds unfair), but I can assure you it is what being a probationary employee entails… you literally *cannot *call off, unless you’re at your deathbed or an immediate family member dies. I really don’t know what you’re thinking. If you can’t make yourself work through your symptoms you will lose this job, because your employer deserves someone who can do the job. You’re emphatically *not *doing 100% of the job… you’re probationary… so they have every right to let you go. Them’s the facts. If you *do *lose this job, then you need to talk to a therapist ASAP and sort yourself out before you get another one. If you’re so anxious you end up physically sick at the thought of going into work, though, you might qualify for a psych disability. Perhaps that would be a better route to pursue than applying for job after job that you can’t make yourself do anyway.

Best of luck. I know from personal experience that mental illness is a hard road to travel. You need to be realistic about what employers will tolerate, though, and please realize that a probationary employee is being absolutely scrutinized for future “problems.” Chronic call-offs are a major problem for employers, and your current number of call-offs are a huge red flag. I’d be very surprised if you keep this job, unless your manager or HR department are unusually sympathetic. Still, whatever happens, view it as an opportunity for self-improvement rather than a criticism of you. Someone who can’t be at work very near to 100% of the time simply isn’t a good fit for full-time employment. You might need to come to terms with the fact that you’re a better candidate for part-time work, or a less-stressful job than the one you currently have. Or maybe your baseline stress tolerance is so low that you just can’t work. That’s okay, too. Just be honest with yourself.

I’m not being mean, but you really can’t tough it out and go into work?

I personally have never experienced a work environment where calling in sick 3 times in the first two months of employment would be tolerated, unless you were hit by a taxi in front of the office or some other dire verifiable event occurred; and even then, you are still taking a chance at losing your job.

Why would you want to go racking up any points against yourself at all, especially after being unemployed for so long?

As I was reading this thread I was thinking the same thing. If you go to work and are sent home for being ill, it reflects better on you. According to the point system, BP has been late also or did something else for the other three points.

My company allows one call in during probation. Two if one has a doctor’s note. I have no reassuring advice. Anaamika hit the nail on the head about the “eyerolls” and his reputation being damaged. He will have a lot of making up to do if they allow him to keep his position.

Why didn’t I go into work? Because I had stomach problems. As in, repetitive trips to the loo. Yeah, bus wasn’t happening.

In response to “Rachellelogram:”
Since you were so “straight up”, I’m sure you can appreciate my willingness to respond to you with similar candor and not be accused of defensiveness for doing so. Here’s my thoughts:

I obviously didn’t restrict replies to ones which make me smile. I actually indicated how neurotic I’m feeling over this, and how I’m dealing with some very stressful stuff stuff in my personal life, so actually some perspective on how to look at tomorrow with a more optimistic outlook – what you might call “sugarcoating” – would help. I think you’re being condescending by telling me I’m “not allowed” to ignore what people write. I did read the negative responses and felt a punch in the gut with each one. How I can feel more neurotic, how I can feel worse, how I can look at my employees’ perspective on how much of a “flake” I am, how I can reflect on how maybe I deserve to be fired…I would characterize all that – in light of what I was asking for – as yes, obnoxious. I refuse to bend my knee and kiss the hand of anybody who ignored the explicit text and obvious subtext of my OP, no matter how popular a poster he or she is, no matter how many people agree with said person’s response. I’m sorry that you took my response to Anaamika with such indignation, but I’m sure you’ll understand that in my view, I shouldn’t censor my thoughts on what she wrote, and I don’t think you should dismiss them either.

Bpelta - Oh, cry me a river. You have a job. You’re expected to attend it regularly. If you don’t attend, you won’t have a job.

Sorry you feel like crap. But sometimes you have to fake it until you make it, to coin a trite phrase. You pull yourself up, you go into work, and you do the best you can. There are days I wake up with a killer sinus headache and think, “hmm…I’ve got 26 days of paid time off accrued - I should take one”. Then I take my migraine meds, take a shower and go to work. And, in fact, the very act of being up and active usually makes me feel better after a couple hours. By allowing yourself to call in, you’re making yourself more anxious and rightfully worried about your job.

In the last three years I’ve taken 12 hours of sick time. Which has left all the accrued paid time off (for my company, with the years I have in, 208 hrs per year) as vacation time.

StG

If you find the truth obnoxious, that’s not the fault of the truth-teller. Anaa had nothing to apologize for.

I really hope you can hang onto this job, but I think it’s too late. As stated above by others, I’ve never known someone to pass their probationary period with the number of absences you’ve had. I don’t say this to be obnoxious, but to prepare you for what appears to be an inevitability.

I’m not crying. I’m not saying I wasn’t irresponsible. I’m not saying I deserve to be cut a break.

I’m just trying to move forward.

Jesus Christ, I pit most y’all. Thanks for the cynicism, the anger, the negativity, the indignation. Empathy would have just been sugarcoating things and hurting me. Or something.

ps:
“If you find the truth obnoxious, that’s not the fault of the truth-teller.”
Couldn’t agree more. Night.

Moved MPSIMS --> IMHO, the forum for offering advice and commentary.

Topics handled in IMHO include medical, psychological, employment-related, legal, financial, and epistemological issues.

Note that there is no expectation that advice in IMHO, like commentary in MPSIMS, is going to be what the OP wants to hear, as long as it is offered politely, as everything in this thread has been.

twickster, MPSIMS moderator

Well, considering how unhelpful this thread’s been, I’m going to let it go…But y’all clearly have different ideas about etiquette than I do. I’d think if I was to write, “Twickster can cry me a river about my take on other peoples’ comments,” that would be an impolite phrasing; he apparently disagrees. I’d also think that if I was to lecture somebody on how they can’t ignore the truth, that would be condescending; I’m apparently in disagreement with Dopers on that too.

Night all.

Bpelta, I’m afraid few are us are going to be able to say all the “right” things. Not everyone has dealt with severe anxiety and we aren’t inhabiting your body. “Stomach problems” can mean lots of things.

Does medicine work? I would tackle whatever symptom is the most debilitating, which sounds like the stomach. Pepmo is good for that, I think. Suck on some Tums or something.

That’s what you can do in the short-term.

In the long-term, you need to work with a doctor. Get a prescription for something. Valium, Klonopin, something that you can take only “as needed”. Work with a therapist, if you can swing it. We live in the modern era. Anxiety does not need to be debilitating.

When I used to suffer from work-related “Oh shit they’re gonna fire me!” anxiety, I used to compensate by coming into work early and staying late. And basically being “johnny on the spot” and always being on my game. So when you go back to work, do the damn thing as the hip-hoppers say nowadays. Make yourself memorable in a positive way, and maybe it will mitigate the lost days.

Sorry you’re suffering.

I’m guessing if you have a history of depression and anxiety you likely know this anyway, but the thing is if anxiety and nerves can actually make you so unwell that you can’t physically get yourself to work, then you have much bigger problems than your next performance review at work. The way to make a better impression at work is the second step. The first is to do something about your anxiety so that you can deal with stress like everyone else does.

Have you tried immodium? It’s super-cheap and will lock you right up within an hour. I have a high-stress, extremely busy animal emergency room job on the weekends, calling off is bad, bad, bad, and immodium is my good, good, friend.

I’ve read this thread and the one you wrote in The Pit and there seem to be missing pieces here.

Everything you’ve said so far would make more sense to me if the problem you let get out of hand while you were unemployed was using drugs or too much alcohol and are now making adjustments to accomodate your new job.

Is that a missing piece of what’s troubling you? If so, good for you on your efforts.

Regardless of what the rest of the picture is about you do sound quite ready to seek out some additional help other than what can be achieved online. Perhaps it’s time to consider that?

I think this is good advice. You’re more likely to get sympathy for your issues if you show very clearly that you’re trying to go the extra mile to make up for it.

I’ve been in a situation where I had to cover for a coworker who wanted to use up sick days. It definitely would have made a difference to me if the coworker had made an effort to do more than their share when they got back to work.

Just so y’all know, I went in today expecting to work, feeling up to it finally…and was sent home because of some coughing which I didn’t see as such a big deal. They said they appreciated me coming in but they realized I was clearly too sick to work. And it sounded like because I came in, I won’t get any points.

But in any event, when I go back in Friday (tomorrow’s my day off), I’ll take the advice of those who here advised me to work hard, and I’ll put in some extra effort. I’ll also have a discussion with the manager, as advised here, and I think he’ll understand. If I do get fired after the probationary period, even if I am seen as irresponsible and a flake, I know for myself what happened, I know for myself where I erred in letting pressure build to the point that I made myself sick, and I know for myself that – whatever other problems I may have in the future – I’ll never allow this sort of situation to fester again.

So I just wanted to reiterate that I really appreciate a lot of the good advice I received here…particularly the words of 6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast which I’ve been reflecting on.

Here is my policy about calling in sick. You might try it.

I don’t, unless I know for a fact I’m contagious, which is essentially never. I leave it to my boss and my co-workers to tell me that I look or sound so bad that I ought to go home. If that happens, they don’t mind at all that I stay home for an additional day or two.

I wonder, Bpelta, what are you doing outside your job? Do you have any hobbies/friends/activities that keep you active? I used to get sick a lot, but the more active I have become, the less often I feel sick. Exercise really helps me cope with my anxiety and can release all that tension building up. You don’t have to run a marathon - even just taking a 20 minute walk can make a difference.

I don’t know, 3 days in a row wouldn’t get me eyerolling. It’s when somebody calls in sick every week in a row like clockwork that it gets eyerolly. If somebody calls in contiguously I’m much more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt* than if they call in, come for a few days, call in next wednesday, come in, call in next Tuesday etc.

  • Unless there was a recent high profile video game or book release or something.

Okay, as someone who often internalizes anxiety until it has me running for the bathroom, fighting a debilitating headache or feeling achey and awful all over, let me share with you what’s worked for me in the past.

I set the smallest goal possible and tell myself that if I can just do this one thing, I am a champ.

So here’s what my day would look like:

  1. Let’s get out of bed. I know you can do it.
  2. You are the queen of getting stuff done now! I mean, you got out of bed! I bet you could take a shower too!
  3. Now that you’re clean, let’s not put those dirty PJ’s back on–lets put on something that reflects how awesome you already are today.
  4. Who brushes their teeth? CHAMPS BRUSH THEIR TEETH!
  5. I know your tummy hurts, but just try to walk to the bus stop–if you can’t make it, you can turn right around and come home.
    Side note: Maybe try to evacuate as much as possible before taking this big step.
  6. Who is drenched in awesome today? This guy/girl! I just have to ride on the bus and get off at the right stop–I could totally go home at any time if I needed to, but let’s not stop just yet.
  7. Just a few more steps to my job–if I don’t feel good yet, I tell myself to try to stick it out in 15 minute increments. Every 15 mins, I ask myself… “Can I stay another 15 mins?”

This might sound ridiculous to some people, but I’ve been at my current employer for 11 years in a variety of roles and am a trusted, valued employee. But every time there’s a very high-stress situation at work (new product roll-outs, big projects due, etc.) I start to feel the anxiety bug creep back and I literally have to revert back to minute-by-minute pep talks to get myself in the office door.

Good luck!

<gasp> Not differing epistemologies! Anything but that!