To wonder about this person calling in sick at peak time

[bestfakesmile]

Had a crazy busy week at work with a major project on. One of our team who has been very involved in all the planning for this project and was supposed to be supervising the completion of it has been off sick for the entire week with a cold. This has put massive pressure on our team, we would have been stretched even with that person, so without them it’s been very difficult. It has meant that everyone on our small team has had to put in loads of extra hours to cover her work between them. She could have helped out a bit by doing some work from home even if she couldn’t make it in but no.
The irony is, I know she is still going to expect the credit and the sales bonus in her pay packet this month. Even though the sales would not have been fulfilled without everyone else stepping in to do her work while she’s been off.
If the rest of us hadn’t done that work there’s no doubt we would have lost a number of important clients and that would have had a devestating impact on the business. Quite literally she would have put herself out of a job. She must be mightily naive if she hasn’t worked that one out.
Obviously it’s a time of year when coughs and colds are running riot, almost everyone I know has had something in the last month or so but most people know they can’t just drop out of life when they have a cold. But this person is the type to refuse to have a lemsip because they don’t like the taste, and won’t take a tablet either cos she can’t swallow it. It’s as if she actually enjoys being ill and wallows in it.
Personally, it would have taken hospitalisation for me not to come in to work this week. Firstly, I would feel absolutely awful if I let my colleagues and boss down at a crucial time. I don’t think I could face them afterwards knowing I’d left them in the lurch. Secondly, I’d hate to miss out on the satisfaction of completing this project that we have all worked so hard for, I could not bear to let it all go down the drain and see these clients walk away.
It feels a lot like she couldn’t be bothered or possibly couldn’t cope with the higher than usual workload this week so just bailed out and left everyone else to pick up the pieces. I’m going to find it hard to work with her when/if she manages to drag herself back in next week.

[IcanMooCanYou]

Uabu. She was ill

[Bratsandtwats]

YABU.

What if she'd 'infected' the rest of the team and you were all off ill? No bonus then for any of you I'd imagine.

[bestfakesmile]

An entire week is a lot of time off for a cold tho isn’t it? In my experience people mostly take a day or two off.

[Crunchymum]

How do you know what she was off ill with?

[MrMeSeeks]

Yabu, massively.

[SparkleFizz]

A week is a long time off for a cold, yes.

But could it have started as a cold and developed into something more serious?

[KeepServingTheDrinks]

The thing is, you don't know what's going on for her.

It sounds like the most important thing is the project, and you've done that? If so, congratulations and celebrate!

[drquin]

I think most folk could see that it may look a bit inconvenient. Although there's rarely a "good" time for anyone to be off sick.
But it's a risk every business has to take. They employ humans - humans will fall ill from time to time, most certainly not on anyone's schedule.

Don't be the martyr and insist you'd have carried on whilst dying, when they're off with a sniffle.
If you're right - and your colleague is taking the mickey with a less than genuine illness, she will get picked up on it. Maybe not immediately but eventually.

[bestfakesmile]

I suppose my issue is that I don’t believe she really was that ill. I think this is a lot more to do with the fact that she just couldn’t be bothered to work a little harder than usual this week so she decided to bail out leaving the rest of us to work extraordinarily hard in order to keep us all in jobs. This week’s work really was so crucial that if we didn’t fulfil then our clients would have walked away, the business would most likely have folded and we’d all be out of a job.

[RaeSkywalker]

How do you know what was wrong with her?

[Lukeandlorelai4Ever]

Yabu

[bestfakesmile]

I feel really pissed off that she will get her sales bonus this month when she hasn’t completed her work.

[Myheartbelongsto]

Yabu she was sick.

Are you after her bonus op.

[Glumglowworm]

How do you know it wasn’t something sensitive (mh issues, miscarriage etc) and “a cold” was just so you all didn’t know what was going on for her? You can have no way of knowing unless you’re her manager or her doctor.

Working when you’re ill is miserable anyway. Working a crazy busy week when you’re ill is even worse.

[bestfakesmile]

She told us it was a cold, she told the boss it was a cold.

[Myheartbelongsto]

You sound like you have a bad dose of the sour grapes.

[RiverdaleJughead]

I once had a cold so bad it developed into a chest infection which left me with about an hours sleep over two days, the rest of the time i was coughing everytime i took a breath which resulted in me vomiting on the floor all night because i couldnt get a full breath in. My step dad had to give me his emergency inhalor to just breathe. No hospitalisation but i couldnt have worked that week.

[thecatsthecats]

YABU, and tbh, I bet this attitude would stop colleagues considering taking time off when they really need it. It's just a job, and guess what, you managed without her. You all worked harder for one week, as you would have if she had broken her back, or anything else you deemed acceptable.

[bestfakesmile]

I get my bonus anyway, but some of the team that stepped up to do her job don’t work on a bonus basis.

[LemonysSnicket]

Its annoying but if youre sick, youre sick. If she does it often when finishing projects then the company needs to consider if its genuine, if not then im sure shes grateful for the support.

[shouldnthavesaid]

I used to tell my colleagues it was a cold. In reality I was in and out of gynaecology wards. Only my boss and occ health knew and they didn't know the whole story. My GP used to pop 'abdominal pain' on the certificates so they didn't investigate too much.

[Amanduh]

I've had a cold for a week. It's been hideous. Constantly streaming nose, sore throat, sore and streaming eyes, temperature.

Anyway yabu. Not your business to diagnose how ill she was!

[Sally52014]

So what if she told people it was a cold? How do you know for sure that she hasn’t experienced something deeply upsetting and personal that she doesn’t want to share with others?? You sound so judgemental and narrow minded.

[pigeondujour]

She told us it was a cold, she told the boss it was a cold.

Who told you that, her boss?

[bestfakesmile]

There are lots of other things about her behaviour that shows she is a bit of a freeloader, I guess I have to be patient and karma will kick in eventually.