Author Topic: what's your personal sick-call policy?  (Read 18416 times)

MicroRN

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Re: what's your personal sick-call policy?
« Reply #50 on: February 18, 2015, 01:55:52 PM »
NEVER, EVER call in sick on a Monday or Friday. Go in, throw up on someone's shoes and be sent home sick, but you never want to be "that guy" who people roll their eyes about "giving themselves a long weekend."

If you really are sick on a Monday, you better call in sick on Tuesday (maybe Wednesday too) and when you do show up again, better look like death. (red eyes, nose, sneezing)

I live in Seahawks land and called in sick on Superbowl Sunday this year.  I don't watch football at all.  I almost wanted to go in, just so I wouldn't be "that girl," but I was afraid I'd pass out every time I stood up. 

cjottawa

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Re: what's your personal sick-call policy?
« Reply #51 on: February 19, 2015, 10:10:19 AM »
NEVER, EVER call in sick on a Monday or Friday. Go in, throw up on someone's shoes and be sent home sick, but you never want to be "that guy" who people roll their eyes about "giving themselves a long weekend."

If you really are sick on a Monday, you better call in sick on Tuesday (maybe Wednesday too) and when you do show up again, better look like death. (red eyes, nose, sneezing)

Screw those guys. If I'm sick I'm staying home, could care less what their lazy behinds think of my work ethic. I get paid to produce, not to show up. People focus on all the wrong things.

*as a disclaimer this is not a personal attack on you. I know people who do and say what you're talking about when people call in sick and I hate that trash. People need to mind their own business, you don't know what is going on in that person's life.

I appreciate you qualifying that statement. :)

I also agree with you. The sad reality (of my experience at least) is there are a lot of busy-bodies who don't mind their own business and a lot of really awful managers who do "keep score" but of the wrong things. (attendance versus performance)

Fortunately, I have one of the good ones these days.

FarmerPete

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Re: what's your personal sick-call policy?
« Reply #52 on: February 19, 2015, 11:06:48 AM »
In my last job, I started in an hourly position.  We got 4 sick days a year.  When I was promoted to a salary position, the rule was that you had no fixed sick days.  Just don't come in when you're sick.  The unspoken rule was that if you abused the system, they would start asking for doctors notes.  I made a point of at least taking 4 days a year, since if I had stayed hourly, those days would have been credited to me.  Normally it averaged out to be 4-6 sick days a year.  Typically I could have gone in if I wanted. 

One of the jobs I had applied for gave their employees 35 days of PTO a year.  Sick and vacation, all in one pool.  I really like that system.  I feel like 35 is a bit excessive, but still, you'd have a lot less unplanned absences if you let people use their sick time as PTO.

DeltaBond

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Re: what's your personal sick-call policy?
« Reply #53 on: February 19, 2015, 11:34:31 AM »
I cringe at the selfishness of the people who go to work when they could be contagious.  And if someone KNOWS they're contagious and they go out in public, then I don't hesitate to write them off completely from then on.  There is no place in my life for that level of evil.

Sounds extreme?  So be it.

NCGal

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Re: what's your personal sick-call policy?
« Reply #54 on: February 19, 2015, 12:28:51 PM »
New York has a fairly new law, which among other things, specifies one can take sick time for medical appointments.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dca/html/law/PaidSickLeave.shtml

We used to take vacation days or call in the morning of an appointment pretending to be sick.  I like that we can now plan ahead, without lying or wasting vacation days....working from home I hardly call in sick but people in the office have been told to leave when they were spreading germs, and we get emails from HR reminding us to stay home when sick. Many co-workers were hit by the flu.

startingsmall

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Re: what's your personal sick-call policy?
« Reply #55 on: February 20, 2015, 04:39:36 AM »
I've found it really interesting to see the differing employer tolerances for sick days in various workplaces/professions.... and this thread has been on my mind a lot over the last few days.

It brought to mind a message board post that I ran across a few weeks ago on the Veterinary Information Network (primary database & discussion board for vets).  A practice owner had posted that he had a 'great vet' who had left work early due to migraines twice in the last six months.  There is no mention of any other missed work days, just two days that she left early.  The responses were pretty evenly split between a) it's no big deal, as long as it isn't happening more than once every few months, b) it's not a dealbreaker  IF she goes to a doctor and starts a treatment program of some sort for the migraines so that they become less frequent, and c) fire her either immediately or the next time it happens. 

In a previous job about 5 years ago, the owner and I were both sick on the same day.  This was one of those rare days where I would have called in sick (thus making 3 days in nine years) - I had a fever of 102-103 and was generally miserable, lightheaded, etc (probably the flu, but I don't remember).  When I called him to tell him that I wouldn't be making it, though, he was home sick with a stomach bug and couldn't leave the restroom.  Closing the clinic was not an option (I don't know why, when there was an emergency clinic right down the road, but the veterinary profession is weird like that) and so we determined that I was the "less sick" person.  I spent all day laying on the couch in his office with a glass of water and a cool rag on my forehead, the receptionists turned away all but the sickest appointments, and I had the staff members bring those pets back into treatment for their exams so that at least I wouldn't be exposing the clients.  (If it was an easy visit, they did all of the client communications.  If not, I talked to them for the bare minimum time necessary to convey what was necessary, and did so while standing outside the exam room.)  I don't remember if any of the staff caught it or not, but that was just stupid.  Why did we not CLOSE THE FREAKING CLINIC?  Yes, the clients with sick pets would have had to pay $100 to be seen at the 24-hr clinic instead of $40 to be seen at ours, but so what?  That was how it was on the weekends, anyway, so why not for one day during the week?  Insanity.  Just insanity. 

Now, I get that migraines aren't contagious (which seems to be the emphasis on this MMM post) and are hard to prove to others, but I still think this thread, combined with recently seeing that migraine thread, combined with remembering the story above has kind of hit home what my husband has been telling me for years - that the veterinary profession is nuts and I need out :)   FI is too far away (15-20 years), so I've been considering a career change... and this thread may have just given me another nudge in that direction.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!