The argument against sick days is fucking bonkers to me. You want people to come in and get the rest of the office sick?? One of the many many reasons I prefer working from home.
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
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Work Reform
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It's not even that.
In an office setting sick days literally help productivity, because metrics and workload should account for employee's work hours.
If someone's on leave for a day, theyre taken out of production numbers.
If they "tough it out" then production numbers say they should produce a normal days workload.
You end up looking worse encouraging a work culture where people don't take days off.
I don't agree with measuring productivity that way. Coworker recently had covid, but they still worked from home. Granted, they put in maybe half the hours they would normally. But, boss was good with it as the alternative was zero work done at all. They still got some work done without burning any sick days.
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I got a bad cold or something one time. I spent 2 weeks working from home then the boss told me to go to a doctor. Went and they found nothing so I had to come in. 1.5 weeks later I was over it but not before the rest of the office got pissed at me for getting them sick. I just told them I was forced to come in.
That's the problem with Gen Z: they don't want to SHARE
GEN Z IS KILLING WORKING YOURSELF TO DEATH
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I worked really hard at my first year at a big company and didn't take any sick days. During my performance review, I scored 4/5 for attendance, even though I arrived early for every shift and did every overtime opportunity. When I asked my manager, she said it's policy not to hand out 5's because it sends the message that there's no room for improvement.
No one could tell me how I could improve my attendance.
Absolutely rage inducing. Care to name and shame the big company?
I will, Raytheon has this policy. Also, fuck Raytheon!
Naw, it wasn't a bad experience overall, once I fell into the habit of mixing sick days with vacation days.
They had some exploitable policies, doctors notes for 3+ sick days in a row but no questions asked about 1-2 days, vacation days with 2 weeks notice one day at a time with no right of refusal if there's proper coverage.
This meant you could book Wednesday to Friday off two weeks in a row, and call in sick Monday/Tuesday two weeks in a row, giving you 10 days off for the cost of 4 sick/ 6 vacay. Other exploitable shenanigans were possible around Stat holidays.
The front line managers knew what the situation was, but HR never got wind unless something tripped the system,so if everyone works together on their sick days it was pretty good.
Okay well then you don't have to shame it; just name it.
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This is pretty typical and not related to one specific company.
Always max out at 4/5 effort, so there's always room to grow.
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Surgical tech here. We have a couple boomer nurses (nurses... y'know... people who've taken microbiology and made it through nursing school... FUCK!) who think coming in to work when they're sick is some kind of display of godlike work ethic.
One of those fuckers came in with a stomach flu or some shit last fall, and proceeded to infect pretty much the entire department and who knows how many patients.
We had so many call-ins through the following week or so, that we literally had to cancel a TON of surgeries because we just didn't have the staff to do them.
Good job, Nurse Karen. You really are a rockstar for sucking it up and coming in even when you didn't feel good... all it cost was stabbing your entire team in the stomach, costing the hospital probably a few hundred thousand in lost revenue (then again, that shit should be free anyway, so, honestly fuck the hospital), and maybe killed a patient or two after coming to us when their body is already fucked to the point of needing to cut it open to fix something - yeah they don't have the same immune system we do.
Shit pisses me off. If you're sick, stay the fuck at home!
Covid taught me that a nurse’s education is wholly inadequate. I also think they may be becoming irrelevant with so many specialized techs.
I'm actually in nursing school right now - trying to switch over to the dark side!
From what I've seen so far, at least judging entirely by the program I'm in / the half of it I've progressed through, the education side is fine.
When I first became a tech, one of my culture-shocks way early on going into the medical field was that there are people at all levels who are just fucking stupid. Even doctors, who you'd assume are just all-around really intelligent people, are susceptible to the same bullshit that tricked grandpa into posting anti-vaxx rants on facebook.
The kicker is that none of us are really 'all around' good or bad at anything. Aforementioned doctor might know the absolute shit out orthopedics because that's what he studied; but the instant your orthopedic doc sticks his toe outside of that very specific bubble, crank the skepticism up to 11, even when it's other medical topics... Dr. Bones starts ranting about epidemiology and I'm going to assume he got his education on that topic from Fox and twitter memes.
Covid taught us that education takes a back-burner to values. If jeebus says vaccines are demon jizz, then vaccines are demon jizz. And the bar for the later is fucking low. Like, if a news anchor says a preecher said the vaccines are demon jizz... yup, they're demon jizz! Whether or not it's an actual part of you religion or w/e doesn't matter (still waiting to see the part in scripture that says "covid vax bad; the other 500 vax you've gotten so far were all fine"), so long as some charismatic bobblehead confidently says it's against your religion, suddenly it's against your religion. Even if you've studied vaccines and know better "naw all those scientists lied. This new info is coming straight from GOD!"
...and the depressing part... dafuq do we do about it? We can't just fire Nurse Karen for spreading pathogens and misinformation - Nurse Karen is thousands of people, and every one of them is plenty good at starting IVs and typing shit into a chart and such. Take them all out of the equation, and every single hospital there is just became short-staffed to the point of complete dysfunction. We need those dumb fucking monkeys to keep putting needles in veins, so we just collectively tolerate all the bullshit that comes with them.
I hate it.
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Is this something I'm too European to understand?
Yes. American work culture is bonkers. Most places have a limited number of sick days, if they have health PTO at all. In my experience, if they offer it it's usually 2 weeks worth, as if people are capable of controlling how often and how long they're sick for.
Before the Rona times, people would legit flex on how dedicated they were to their jobs that they didn’t see their families as much. That’s not a joke. The work culture in the states has been absolutely toxic for ages. I’m fucking stoked it’s changing.
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From my experience, it is everyone, regardless of age. COVID changed things.
I've started wearing a mask if I'm feeling sick, which was unthinkable before 2020.
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For some people perhaps. I sadly still go to an office occasionally and I'm astonished that there are people clearly unwell coughing and sneezing all over the place. Last time I went I came back with Covid and was out for nearly a week.
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I really wish companies would realize workers are more productive when they can take time to take care of their mental and physical health.
Stressed out, overwhelmed, and exhausted people naturally make more mistakes, and mistakes cost money. You'd think they'd understand this because...well... profits?
But no, a bunch of sociopaths Machiavellianed their way to the top of companies and seem to enjoy making their workers miserable while claiming profits are the motivation for horrible sick leave policies.
The US is fucking awful about this shit. I really hope it changes soon.
This is why unions are actually helpful to businesses in the long run. Workers see problems that management doesn't, and then are empowered to make changes.
The behavior of business owners makes more sense if you think of the goal as power rather than money. Money is often a path to power, but there's sometimes conflicts between the two. Watch which one they pick and you'll see what they actually value.
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Still so crazy to me how there are limited "sick days" in the US. You shouldnt need to take limited days off when you are sick. If you are sick you are sick.
They’re limited in number otherwise lots of people would be off work more often. Can’t be having people with long term chronic conditions not working now! Wealth before health!
In developed countries everyone has access to nearly unlimited, socialised healthcare. And I bet we take less sick days.
Damn you people in the default country are insane.
I only know the world where everyone takes paid sick days. And usually it's more like a week.
Maybe you should rename the community into "Work Reform USA"?
If we're lucky enough to get vacation days, many of us are encouraged to only take 2 adjacent days to the weekend off. Month long vacations like Europe? Never. 4 days off in a row, normal.
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Heck, I'm a millenial and I take mental break days when I'm feeling too overwhelmed.
Good. Mental health is health.
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My former boss always said, if you're sick, take a day more off. Would be a problem if half the company got sick.
It's in europe tho. Has it swapt over finally?
It's in europe tho.
Hahaha you had us U.S kids in the first half, not gonna lie. :D
The newer trend with fancier jobs here is "unlimited paid time off"...Which sounds so amazing!
How it actually shakes out is there's no actual number of how much you can take, you're just guilted and looked at suspiciously and passed over for promotions by using any amount whatsoever.
I'm sure someone can correct me though because I've never had that. My last job gave me a rate of "A week's shift's worth of PTO per year."....I worked 19 hours a week.
(Also PTO isn't "sick" days, it's paid time off...sick and "I'm just not putiup with it today" used up the same resource.)
Company has no loyalty at all to the employee. I could let go every day that I go to work. It's not a question of if, but when I will be let go. So, as a consequence, I must ask myself the question: After quitting the game, will I regret sacrificing my health for yet another company?
Older coworker here (Xennial). I've always used all of my sick days. One job had a week you could carry over to the next year. I held that week if I didn't need it because next year I'd be making more money. Next job started with sick bank but stripped it away and lumped everything into one PTO bucket that they weren't legally bound to offer carryover from. Oddly enough, they started having trouble with attendance in November and December as people just took days off whenever. Oh well.
A long time ago at a startup, we had a generous vacation time that had no carry over limit. Most of us didn't take the full PTO allotment. The morons that the VC people wanted to change the policy to have carry over limits.
I'd send an email about this time every year to ask if they were going to limit carry over. Because I need to know when in October I have stop working for the year. Most of the founders had similar PTO accrued.
After about 3 years, they finally did it. I had to take 3 separate 4 week vacations in order to finish the year at my max carry over.
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Between the younger generation and COVID redefining the acceptability of coming to work sick, the workplace does look a lot better.
Every single day it seems like there's an article describing how thing is redefining the workplace.
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Every company I have worked for has explicitly encouraged using sick days. Specifically so the person doesn’t bring whatever bug into the office and sharing it around, causing multiple people to get sick and take time off
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I'm a manager and it infuriates me when I hear someone bragging about not talking sick days and coming in when they aren't feeling well. Even before the pandemic that seemed pretty stupid and I argued against it. How anyone still thinks it's a good idea is beyond me. If you want or need to work, fine, do it from home. Don't come in and make other people have to deal with being sick.
It's especially stupid where I am because sick time is discretionary by manager, and there's no cap. So it's not like anyone is going to run out of it.
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How does it work in the US? Do you have a limited amount of sick days? It sounds like it in every article I read about it... Or is this dependent on the employer?
Also dependent on the state. Some states mandate minimum sick leave, others don't. Then there's the issue of paid vs unpaid: if you're living paycheck to paycheck it doesn't matter if you have all the unpaid sick leave in the world, you're not going to use it because you literally can't afford to.
You don't get any federally?! Damn, I don't want to complain too much as a Canadian but you guys are really bringing us down.
Many of us get none at all. I haven’t had a sick day for the past five years.
It’s not something to be proud of. It’s exploitation.
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Totally employer dependent. Some places give you sick days and want you to use them if needed, some give you them and will absolutely throw you out if you use them, some don't give you any, some people want you to use your PTO for sick time.
That definitely sounds like something the Best Country In The World (tm) should have laws on.
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