Working with someone with a chronic illness

[thatsalliknowsofar]

If you work with someone with a chronic illness which can affect their work - fatigue, more days off sick, time off for hospital appointments would you be annoyed and feel as if they are a waste of a colleague?

To poster above that is a very reactionary and shit employer, you take someone on and help them do their job with adaptations, you don’t react later. And believe it or not you don’t have to take people on that just cannot do a role due to disability, it’s about adapting the environment to a job someone can do.

Also any of us can get ill or have an injury it’s more likely you will than you won’t so stop with the dehumanising of disabled people.

If you read my other posts in this thread, you would be aware that I'm speaking as a disabled worker.

I've been directly discriminated against and I've witnessed it happen to other people. Reasonable adjustments rarely happen either.

I hate this fucking ableist society we live in. Working people dont want the disabled to sit on benefits (which are a pittance these days) but when they work they are critisied for taking time off. Christ we cant win. Do you actually think we get enjoyment in taking time off, its not like we are sitting on our arse happily watching TV with a bag of chips?

I am lucky mine (epilepsy) has been managed adequately for many years so aside from the odd extra appointment I dont take time off for it. Sometimes my appointments run over time because its the public health system and not everything runs to time. I have been discrminated in the past, and I know other people who have been discriminated against for having a disability, I hope you never have to walk in their shoes.

I have colleagues taking sick days here there and everywhere because they have sick kids, and it is their choice to have children, I dont have a choice over my gene pool...

I would not be in anyway annoyed at the colleague, it's not their fault . But it would depend on how management were dealing with it, if I was having to do two jobs and my life was more stressful I would be annoyed.

In a previous life I used to deliver disability equality and awareness training to employers. One of the most profound statements was that disabled employees generally had less time off work than their non disabled colleagues if they had appropriate adjustments in place and flexibility to deliver their workload based on eg larger milestones rather than a 9-5 in the office daily regime.

employers often reported back that this was indeed the case. So more often than not where there is a problem with a chronically ill or disabled employee taking a lot of time off and colleagues complaining it’s due to poor management and project planning by the employers and it’s unfair to blame the sick person.

as a now chronically ill person I can tell you I’d 100% be happier working with people, keeping my mind busy and my days full than feeling awful, in pain and a waste of space to humanity. Being ill isn’t a holiday. Managing multiple hospital and related appointments is a full time job in itself and sadly the NHS and even private providers aren’t best set up to work around traditional office hours.

Blaming or resenting the chronically ill staff
members for things out with their own control speaks more of the privilege and ignorance associated with having reasonable
health. Blame the government for not offering appropriate or fit for purpose supports for those who need to take time off to be I’ll or recover. Blame employers for not building in flexibility or adjustments to allow sick or disabled people to work in a way that benefits them and the company. Blame the nhs for insisting on working 9-4 clinic hours instead of running evening clinics for working patients. Many of the hurdles that irritate you OP can be overcome but society refuses
to acknowledge our worth as contributing members to it and so yet again disabled people get the blame and stigmatised further.

Yes, I think this was what I was trying to say - it is not the fault of the person with chronic illness, but of the management of their workload from the company. Whether that is because they have been put in an inappropriate job role (e.g. one which cannot be worked flexibly) or there are insufficient resources to meet the needs of the workload that isn't the individuals fault. I can see how employees would be pissed off, but that should be directed at the company, not the individual.

I have a chronic condition too. I totally feel for you OP, some work colleagues are just arseholes and can never put the self in other people’s shoes. You are certainly not a waste of a colleague.

I would be sympathetic if I wasn't expected to do the work of 2 people while earning the wage of one

But surely the person you should be resentful towards is your boss/company director? The very people that did NOT make reasonable adjustment for the person who has a CI?

You can’t be resentful of people being off sick because … you know they are actually genuinely ill/hospital appointment.
Its a bit too close to victim blaming and attacking the weakest because it’s safest iyswim.

As a Manager I'd obviously take it very seriously and make reasonable adjustments to their workload etc to help them, but bottom line the work still needs to be done and I would not want it affecting others in the team, including their morale. There is a fine line.

As a colleague, it's a bloody ball ache to be honest.

I imagine with the best will in the world, there’s only so much that can be done. If someone is frequent needing time off for illness and/or appointments then it is going to add to other members of staffs workloads. I reached a point where to keep working would have put too much onto other people and it was not a setting that could easily assign work between staff members. Did I feel sad and pissed off to have to stop working - absolutely. It has seriously impacted my life financially. It just wasn’t sustainable to have to take so much time off though.

lameasahorse. That sums up my situation exactly.

Some workplaces just aren’t compatible with being able to support a colleague who is often fatigued and needs lots of time off. They’re already too busy because they’re understaffed and under resourced.

I’d expect a big profit making company to be able to be much more supportive than a nursery, or hospital, or school that is paid for by the government.

Nice choice of words. In answer to your question, no, I would have empathy and understanding.

Sorry Op, I missed where you explained that those words were said about you.

I wouldn’t be annoyed or upset with them, BUT I think people need to think about what job/company etc would be best able to accommodate and support them. I worked with a chronically unwell lady as part of a small team in a small company - anyone being off had a direct impact, and management could only help so much - there wasn’t really much slack to be spared to help. It meant that others in the team came to work when they were really too unwell, because we could only really manage with one person off at a time. It did start to wear everyone else down, which of course wasn’t her fault, but I would imagine a much larger organisation could have dealt with it all better.

Of course not.

The only thing is though that most of us have ill health in one way or another. If you turn up to work and either there is no one there who is actually well enough to do the job to the level it needs or everyone has ill health but only some are taken seriously and given light duties and the other unwell ones are left picking up even more then it isn't great. This is a management issue though not a personal problem.

I think the problem is that a lot of workplaces have reduced staff to the bare minimum, and so if someone is off sick it impacts on everyone else. Employers make choices about staffing levels, including public services. Employees need not to bow to pressure by taking on additional work if that creates unreasonable stress for them- while they cover for absent colleagues, the employers will not feel it necessary to take on additional staff. If current employees are in fact coping with the additional workload, the employers can use that to justify continued minimum staffing.
So my response would be not to take on the additional work caused by a colleague S absence unless I felt I could reasonably do so. It is management's job to make sure that staffing levels are adequate, not employees job to do whatever monumental tasks are thrown at them irrespective of reasonableness.

I wouldn’t be annoyed with them but I would be annoyed with the situation. If someone has a chronic illness of course they can’t help it but if the work isn’t getting done and your colleagues are expected to pick up the slack then it’s not fair and I’d expect management to deal with it .

Sorry OP 🙈🙈 throwing my comment at who ever said this to you xxx

This. Sorry but its up to management to make adjustments, not co workers

This is my response as well. I worked with someone with a chronic illness and in denial about its impact on them , for 10 years.

Basically, they were only capable of doing about half the job. They needed to go part-time but we’re in denial and hid the impact of their illness. Because it had an impact on our clients, the rest of us picked up the work. HR was pretty useless and because the colleague was not talking about the constant absences and even excused being sectioned as a “medical error” we couldn’t get any extra support to cover the work they weren’t doing.

I used to be reasonably good friends with this colleague but found I couldn’t maintain a friendship under such adverse professional conditions.

What's the whole story then OP? Are you making sure your work gets done and that your colleagues aren't having to take on your work as well as their own? Are you doing everything you can to minimise time off and appointments in work time? Have you asked for reasonable adjustments and dropped hours if you can't manage full time? If so then you have done everything you can and have nothing to worry about.

@Overthebow maybe you should adjust your attitude and research that its the employer's responsibility to make adjustments. Stop treating the disabled person as the problem. Follow the social model that says we are disabled by barriers in society, including attitudes like yours.