"Up all night" reason for calling in sick

[cherrypied]

If you call in sick with "been up all night", do you mean you are tired from being ill or still ill?

Had a few recently of staff calling in sick because they "have been up all night" anything from headache /cold / cough/ bad stomach etc minor illnesses.

They call in sick the next day as they are stating they have "been up all night". Am I I taking this too literally? Because to me it seems like calling in sick for being tired rather than unwell?

Even if haven't slept well and have been ill, by the time 6am comes around I will get up and go to work. I'd only call in sick if I was still ill. And have dragged my bones in shattered having been up with a cold or cough etc

I’d take that to mean they were up all night with whatever illness they had so we’re too sick to work. You can’t work sick and exhausted. ( i’m not talking a bog standard cold)

Easy to judge others but dragging yourself to work isn’t always productive and makes illness worse.

I say this as someone with regular insomnia( hence reading mums net at 3:40am!) who does 12.5 shifts often on little sleep. But i’m well so i can draw on all my reserves almost . However it has made me ill in the past.

Thanks for spreading your illnesses.

Op maybe you need to realise there are more important things in life than work.

I thought OP was questioning whether you should be stating "I can't come in to work as I've been vomiting or have an upset stomach, migraine, cough which has kept me up all night" as opposed to "I'm not coming into work because I've been up all night". The first indicates illness which has left you exhausted, the second you've been awake partying or gaming for example and you need to catch up on sleep.

I always go to work if I have a bad nights sleep. Being active during the day will enable better sleep the next night. However on getting zero sleep once I said I’d come in late morning to grab a few hours sleep first. Nobody should go to work if the are poorly however

You can't not go to work because you can't drive! Unless you are on a remote island, or drive for a living, or something. 99% of people who drive to work can just get a taxi, or a lift, or public transport if they are too tired to drive. What would they do if they got a driving ban?

I don't read these reasons as not coming in because they are too tired, but because they are ill. Being up all night with an illness is just a way of explaining how bad it is. They are probably still ill

I'd ask them to confirm the type of illness - as a Line manager I'm expectred to record this

One of my team has used this, not illness, just had trouble sleeping. Last time I just laughed and said he might want to avoid having children if he can't cope with little sleep and pointed out that I am regularly up for hours with both DC and still have to function the next day.

Many studies have shown that being tired is similar in effects to being drunk, whether due to brain wave interruption with sleep waves or impaired ability to make decisions etc.

Would you want somebody at work drunk?

People often call in sick because they 'just can't' or 'can't think straight' etc. I'd say tiredness is the same.
To be honest, most sick calls I've received have been complaining of physical symptoms that are clearly fatigue due to battling a virus.

It's one and the same.

Sure, you could go to work exhausted, but are you any good there?
Or would it have been better to take a day of rest and return useful tomorrow?

If you up all night from being sick it's perfectly reasonable to get rest and not drag yourself into work . Nobody gets a medal for dragging themselves into work sick or sleep deprived from being sick . You work to live not live to work. Think it's a very toxic culture to be expected to show up for work if your not well I did it for years in my 20s couldn't physically stand one day in work was horrendous but was never sent home. Would never do it again.

Some people pull sickies when they’re not really sick. Some people don’t. You’re not going to be able to tell which is which from their description of their illness. If your staff are reliable, then I wouldn’t care if they called in sick with an itchy leg, because you trust it must be really itchy (this isn’t a serious reason, just a draft example). If you know they ring in sick every time you put them on a late shift on a Saturday night, I’d be suspicious even if they said they’d been in a car accident.

Well I think I probably just mean they are ill but even if it's because they are tired the relevance would depend on the job- clearly nobody wants a bus driver working if they have genuinely been up all night!
I suffer with insomnia related to anxiety and used to do a job which involved administering medication- while I never called in sick purely related to the insomnia (as opposed to the anxiety which did cause time off) there were times I had to say I wasn't fit to administer medication due to it.

Department for Education will not have this as an authorised absence for school children. They have to go in.

I don’t know where you get that 99% from, a lot of people tolerate the expense of running a car because they have no other way to get to work, if they got a driving ban they would be fucked. Perhaps you live in an area with adequate public transport.

It's a more compelling way of saying 'I'm knackered'. You don't need to question if they've had literally no sleep, that isn't what they're saying.

If everyone minded their own business, calling in sick wouldn't be the minefield it is. People feel like they have to give detail to be believed, and then others pick over the wording and phrasing until they don't believe what they've been told!

They are trying to provide emphasis on just how bad their illness is

I have but not as sick. I used Flexi. Not unreasonable not to go in though. No sleep destroys me. I would be absolutely useless the next day.

None of your business just accept they call in sick.

“Up all night” is explaining the severity of the illness. It’s a conversational phrase which means the illness is so severe they’ve been unable to sleep. Of course they’re not saying “I’m fine to work apart from being tired”, that would be a stupid assumption. They’re saying “I have an illness, it’s so severe that I haven’t slept”.

@daffodilandtulip

I write my child is sick if she/he isn't fit for school. I don't give a reason. None of the school's business.

I would just tell work I was too ill to go in. I working call in sick if I was ‘up all night’ and well. But I’ve I was ill and had been up all night and my body needed the recovery I would. I know some people will carry on regardless but that’s not me.

I don't know where you work, but I work in a head office environment and many, many people would still come in when they should have stayed at home. If I haven't slept then as Ineffable has posted, I'm not fit to work.

If I said “I have been up all night vomiting” it would just be giving the history of the illness. I take it to mean that it’s something that has been going on several hours rather than something that just happened when they woke up. With something like a nasty headache or a cough it would be relevant that it was an ongoing problem that wasn’t resolving rather than something they noticed when they got up and then decided to call in sick for. It also gives a measure of severity that it has kept them awake so it’s not a mild headache or occasional tickle. Basically I think they’re saying “this illness has lasted long enough and is severe enough for me to justify taking today off sick”.

I also don’t think there are many illnesses that would affect your sleep substantially that are then miraculously resolved come the morning. Yes they might find as the day goes on that they are better but that’s only something they can say in retrospect- it takes time to diagnose “better” just as it does “ill”