People off sick at Christmas

[madcatladyforever]

Pissed off with it basically. When I started nursing years ago the only reason for being off at Christmas was your sudden death! if you genuinely were sick you would have to present yourself to management and they would look at you and decide if you really were sick so you'd better be genuine.
Now people ask for Christmas off and if they don't get it they just go off sick - not even with covid.
We've got 12 off right now, none of them with covid, we have a skeleton crew, and all of us will be working our arses off and will not have any kind of a Christmas by the time we get home because we'll be covering for the shirkers.
This is the 2nd year running this has happened and I'm feeling absolutely pissed off, run down and just totally demoralised. There is no comeback and the same people do it year after year.
I just think people have no sense of responsibility any more whatsoever. If your relative in hospital doesn't get a wash this Christmas this will be the reason why ff's.

*When I started nursing years ago the only reason for being off at Christmas was your sudden death! if you genuinely were sick you would have to present yourself to management and they would look at you and decide if you really were sick so you'd better be genuine.

Really now? hmm.*

Obviously this doesn't happen these days, I'm talking late 70's, early 80's. You'd get mangled for calling in sick on christmas and they would insist on seeing you in person before letting you go home, this was in the days of matron. Can you imagine the kerfuffle if you had to do that now?
Anyway I went out earlier and brought myself a massive bar of chocolate to work my way through tomorrow.

We aren’t all skiving

I know, I'm talking about the never ending repeat offenders.

Do the same next year, OP. If you can't beat them, join them.

Do the same next year, OP. If you can't beat them, join them.

Don't tempt me

You should do! It sounds like an ongoing, year on, year out issue for you. Let's face it, it's not as if you are getting any thanks or recognition for it, is it?

Also a nurse, and I agree that's it's crap for the team members left behind.
I do fundamentally cringe though, at working in a role where I could be dragged up in front of management and inspected, as to the validity of my illness. It really solidifies why I left frontline nursing. It's really no way to live, especially when you have a young family.

@lubeybooby

sorry it's making it tougher on you OP but that's a management problem or even higher... government decisions etc problem not the fault of anyone ill

Ill people should not be working especially not anywhere near other people. covid or not. This culture of carrying on despite illness needs to get in the sea and stay there

Agreed. I worked with someone who boasted of never taking a day off sick in 8 years.. but was happy to come in with Norovirus which took down half of the staff and some patients.

Really now? hmm

Yes really.
I was a nurse in the 80s.
I had surgery to remove a (benign) lump in my breast and was pressured to go back to work on a busy orthopaedic ward whilst I still had stitches. I ended up popping down to have my stitches out in my tea break.

I developed an infection shortly after and felt dreadful. Shift ended at 9pm and I explained that I felt shocking and wouldn't make it in for my 730am shift the next day. This wasn't acceptable and I was informed that I must phone in the following morning before 7am to report sick if I was indeed still unwell.

I didn't have a phone where I lived so had to get up very early and walk to the public phone box about 10 mins away to make the call.

Having said all of that, I absolutely loved working Christmas. Best one was 7 straight nights finishing Christmas morning then a glorious week off

I don’t blame you for being pissed off but what can you do? You can’t prove they’re not ill.

Like you say, many people don’t have any sense of responsibility, this year has shown that.

We appreciate the nurses like you OP so thank you ! Please do not do what a pp has said and join them next year.

💐 for you.

I worked Christmas Day, then New Year’s Eve night two years running.
One woman claimed there was no public transport to avoid working over Christmas and New Year. A quick check showed there were trains available, and someone had offered her a lift as well.

So relieved I changed jobs.

I can understand both parents being unable to work Christmas Day if no childcare is available.

I mean Christmas Day/Boxing Day/New Years day nurseries aren’t open, many child minders aren’t either. If you don’t have family or friends what are you supposed to do, leave your small children home alone?

I so frequently see ‘find a child minder who doesn’t celebrate Christmas’ or similar suggestions from people who obviously live in cities or areas that have lots of options and magical childminders desperate to take in stray children for 3/4 days over the Christmas period.

This is not the case for the majority and is ridiculous to present as an ‘obvious solution’.
I couldn’t possibly source childcare for Christmas. DH is a shift worker so I work in an office which guarantee’s me bank holidays off!

Doesn’t seem fair that anyone who has a child should be ruled out of shift work though. Perhaps employers requiring parents to work on national holidays should be required to provide childcare options.

I'm a nurse and was single parent to a toddler when I qualified. First two wards I worked on were very supportive and I got Xmas Eve and day off in exchange for working all new year. I was very grateful. Ward after that was run by absolute cunts and purposely put me ion Xmas shifts despite other staff offering to work them. They were happy to swap and I'd work their new year but the senior sister refused the swaps. The resentment in us all was very real! Especially when the staff in the 'in crowd' got everything off. That ward were awful in many ways, when I rang in sick (not Christmas) as I'd been trying to resuscitate that morning a neighbours 2 month old baby that sadly died, the response I got was that one day off was quite enough and if I couldn't cope with that situation and still come to work I should reconsider my career. I am a paediatric nurse, this was a paediatric ward....
Under normal circumstances I'd crawl in out of my death bed to honour a Xmas shift. covid does now make it easy to swing the lead for those inclined to not care about their team or patients.
I now work in a delightful team and we all look out for each other and get the cover and our requests. All happy bunnies :-)

The problem with Christmas though is that it's in the middle of autumn/winter. Kids have been mixing at school for weeks and are then at home in close quarters with their families. People really do get sick and some people like me have a tendency to get sick when they are stressed, and plenty of people find the run up to Christmas stressful!

That said, I have never been sick on Christmas though have been on plenty of birthdays

@Gwenhwyfar, so....the colleague should have just never had children because of the off chance of her having to work Christmas day every so often, including one year when an entirely unforeseen worldwide pandemic would curtail all her normal childcare options and require her and her husband to work the same day? Really?

Everyone can be unlucky once, but the chances of being ill twice or more over Christmas are pretty low - if someone does phone in sick then they should automatically be put down to work the following year - if they are sick again that year that's pretty unlikely to be a coincidence!

Also, if organisations know that people will be skiving and they will have to pay other staff to do a double shift to cover, why not increase the amount paid (only for those who actually turn up!) for the "bad" days, to try and get willing volunteers as your first option?

I’m a nurse ( nhs ) and I know where you are coming from . The repeat offenders know the sickness policy inside out and it’s incredibly frustrating that they “ get away with it “ .

I'm NHS but not a nurse, similar situation here with a colleague off sick (but surprisingly active on social media) and has annual leave booked to start just as sick leave ends so the few left in are having to cover. Its definitely a pattern with this person and management are aware so unlikey to get promotion etc but infuriating when youknow they're being paid while getting their Christmas shopping done, organising their presents, enjoying time with their family and not feeling any guilt whatsoever. If we didn't have such a generous sick pay how many would still be off? I'm not talking COVID or winter flu type illness.

"@Gwenhwyfar, so....the colleague should have just never had children because of the off chance of her having to work Christmas day every so often, including one year when an entirely unforeseen worldwide pandemic would curtail all her normal childcare options and require her and her husband to work the same day? Really?"

I didn't know that working Christmas was an "off chance" for a hospital nurse. I thought it was par for the course for that job.

"People really do get sick and some people like me have a tendency to get sick when they are stressed,"

I tend to get sick when I have holiday from work because of the release of stress so I do sympathise with that.

As a nurse I fully agree there is no excuse for ringing in sick at Christmas other than actually being dead.

Gwenyfar. Are you serious? Of course she is aware she has to work days such as Christmas just not at the same time as her husband. I am not aware of any childcare you can pay for on Christmas Day. Surely you can see that she would work it if her husband wasn’t also working. My god the lack of empathy is baffling. You really don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect to at least let her alternate Christmasese with her husband. Never mind they might like Christmas together.

I work in the nhs. Thank god I managed to get myself into a role that had bank holidays of. I will still be working over the Christmas period. It sucks. I have worked Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve in the past. Never again now.