Being sick at the office.....dud or fuckin' dud.

seriously I think my cold/flu now ending it's fourth week morphed into bronchitis will become pneumonia.

I have no sick time and lost nearly $500 last week b/c I couldn't breathe and had to stay home. :(

I'm not bothered by working sick, because I rarely take time off for illnesses. Unless I'm running a 105-degree fever, which last happened back in 2001, I'm incredibly reluctant to call in sick. And, hey, sometimes it can be fun to sneeze in the general direction of someone who's annoying you. (Or that could just be me....)

Bizarre Americans. Over here, in all the jobs I've worked at least, if you're sick, you're sick. You might need a doctor's note after an absence of a certain length, but no-one takes away your holiday or refuses to pay you.

Queries can be made to show people who are off for one day usually Friday or Monday etc and it's easy to make a list of staff who are off a certain amount of times in a time period.

Our place sent everyone who was off 5 times in a year to see a consultant, it was going to be 3 times but that meant sending pretty much everyone in the whole college, still the whole catering dept had to go and most of my dept as well.

After lengthy management debates about this problem, a new system on interviews and requirements of doctors notes for people “extending their weekend”.

It wasn’t until just before these measures were introduced that someone had a closer look at the figures and noticed that the figure was very close to 40%, the figure you would expect to occur randomly (each day in a five day week being 20% each).

The policy was quietly scrapped.

Well quite. Why should honest employees suffer cos of the ones who take the piss (and can be caught out)?

Last time I was off sick, with tonsilitis, I was off Tuesday-Thursday. My boss doesn't work on Fridays and was absolutely amazed that I bothered coming in - as were lots of my colleagues. If you're well on a work day you work, right?

(as it happens I was still sick and should have stayed at home, but I'm a fucking stoic profressional type yo)

The worst part is the only reason I came in is because I have been getting the "BOY YOU'RE OUT AN AWFUL LOT" comments because I have frequent doctor's appointments that I have to go to, as they were a condition of my release from the hospital last Feb, so when people come 'round looking for me in the afternoon and I'm gone they assume I wasn't there at all that day.

I hope I throw up on someone. >.

After this, hoping to finish another project from home.

Last two jobs I've had, you didn't get paid for any days you were off sick in the first six months of your employment. Hence why I got to be the bastarding horrible person I hate, that struggles into the office and infects everyone else, because I couldn't afford not to be a martyr. I've now sussed that I can phone in and say "I don't want to infect everyone with my yucky germs, I'll just stay home and do [x], is that OK?" and then your bosses love you and you get paid.

(this only works if you actually do some work at home and can prove it)

At one point earlier this year almost everyone in our office fell to a nasty throat virus thing. I remember one of the bosses (he's american, I think) muttering unhappily about it and saying "they should all get damn flu shots". Pft. No one had the flu!

So what happens is the only time this year I am actually sick the hypochondriac is already gone, we are swamped with work, so my boss asks me to stick it out. I finally give in and say the heck with it and fight through a really terrible day. The next morning, I get called in early as I am on call. I go in and there are messages from both the hypochondriac and my boss saying they are sick and won’t be in today. I end up just working through this on my own for that day and then the next on my own.

What is really screwed up is that I work at a small hospital in the I.T. department.

A couple of months ago we were changing out our time clock system and we had to fax some documents to the main human resources office and I saw the hypochondriacs “sick time” numbers. Mind you she had worked at this hospital for a year or so longer than I have and yet she had something like 300 hundred less hours of sick time. So basically, she has probably been taking two weeks off a year sick for the past few years. It really made me think I am a complete sucker.