How I'll do you need to be to phone in sick to work?

[swimgywin]

I've had a horrendous cough/ chest infection and I've spent literally the last two days coughing every 20 seconds. I feel awful phoning in sick, I'm on a temporary contract and worry that this will go against me.

How sick do you need to be to phone in? And is your employer sympathetic?

If you aren’t well enough to work effectively (which a 20 second cough suggests) you should stay home. Apart from anything else, nobody else wants to catch it. On a temporary contract particularly. If they had a permanent ine they’d have given it already - if the management is so shit they appoint temporary to check whether their decision is right, I wouldn’t fancy working there anyway.

Depends what the job is. If you are public facing probably not good, but in a warehouse or something it might be ok.

My work is big on well-being so if you aren’t up to working, you call in. It’s fine. With people being off when they need to be most people seem to have around 2-4 periods of absence a year, and work well when they are in.

My employer is very sympathetic and as a boss I am quite good at saying to others no you're not working from home, you're ill, log off, look after yourself. Not so good at doing it myself, tend to try and work at death's door tbh, which isn't good modelling for my team. 2022 I was meant to be chairing a big multi agency event, and couldn't because I was so ill. I got a lot of texts from colleagues asking if I was ok, because I'm never off sick. I was actually in hospital. It's definitely something I need to work on.