AIBU to think too many people being off work is causing the country to fall apart?

I think sickness absence is a problem in lots of places, but I don't think it stems from laziness on the whole. As a nation too many people are knackered, with poor mental health, a poor quality of life and no end in sight from the relentless drudge of working to just about keep afloat. Everywhere I go people seem run down and fed up, I think our lifestyles are having an impact.

We're always told that the UK has low productivity and I can believe it, but the answer isn't people working more - the answer must be getting us healthy, motivated and feeling rewarded for our efforts. Long hours, little sleep, minimal social interaction and poor diets are the issue.

Agree - there should be systems to cover short term illness.

But consider why it’s the case.

Employers have taken a position of cutting costs to the bare minimum, so there’s no redundancy in the system and if one person doesn’t turn up then services fail. A sensible company should plan for this, but it’s likely to get worse as national insurance and minimum wages increases.

And it’s pretty much impossible to get primary healthcare at the moment, and so getting something like antibiotics for a chest infection is practically a miracle - and so people are getting more ill with less serious illnesses, and therefore having to take the time off work.

And people generally aren’t paid enough to care - they may as well take the day off as their employer isn’t paying enough to buy their loyalty.

I say this having had two sick days in 13 years - so I’m not workshy, but I understand why this would be happening.

Op, when you say "rain or shine" do you mean you attend the office when ill? I'm not sure I would want you in my office while ill. I have a colleague who is under a lot of stress and will try to come in when ill but we have gently encouraged her to stay home as we really don't want the germs ourselves!

I think there is no resilience in the system (rather than lack of resilience in individusls)

I work in schools and in all of them the budget is so tight that staffing is cut to the absolute minimum to function on an ordinary day. Which means no flexibility if someone is ill or something unusual happens.

I imagine all public services are the same or worse and a lot of private companies are similarm

It's like we worked out what was needed on an easy day, staffed the country to just almost manage that, then act surprised that a pandemic with known long term health issues had an impact

I think it's more likely that businesses and public services used to be able to have staffing at a higher contingency level so that services could still go ahead with one less member of staff. However, continuous cost cutting has led to many services being staffed by one person at a time and of course will fall down if that person is off.

Perhaps years of under investment in the NHS are to blame?

I’ve been sick twice in the past two months with awful colds. What do you want me to do? Drag myself into work because you’ve decided I’m not sick enough? Fuck that. Just because you’re happy to martyr yourself going in when you’re poorly and spreading it about doesn’t mean we all have to do the same!

I think there's been a lot of cost cutting, trying to 'do more with less', so when someone is off there's less wiggle room. Also added stress to remaining workforce, meaning they are more likely to go off sick, and then it becomes a bit of a vicious circle really.

I think people work too much actually

You are not wrong but a lot of this really is illness.

there’s a lot more about since Covid. My DD’s girlfriend has a brain tumor, so many of my friends have had heart attacks or strokes.

and straight up tummy bugs with d and v and covid are everywhere.