Why oh why do people turn up to work when they’re poorly?! 😡😡😡

[slippedawaylikeabottleofwine]

I hate it. My colleague turned up, whinged about how sick she felt for two hours, then threw up in the middle of the carpet and went home. She admitted she’d been feeling poorly all weekend. There’s no excuse for it

You were admitted to hospital every four months for sickness?

She threw up cos it’s Monday and she’s hungover but didn’t want to call in on a Monday morning.

This.

Did to me at school once. I had about 30 seconds' notice of imminent disaster (which was about 2 seconds less than I needed to reach safety!).

I agree with you OP. Some people are just martyrs. I bet she rolls her eyes when other people are off sick too.

I'd have no choice but to go to work so I can understand why people do.

People shouldn’t be calling in sick just because they feel sick. I would not accept that as a reason for someone not to come in to work.

it happens, people get ill at work and need to go home. Poor woman probably feels bad enough without the judgemental comments.

" People shouldn't be calling in sick just because they feel sick" .... what?🤣

My old boss would give us all so much flack for being sick. I had severe food poisoning once and was off for three days. When I came back he made it clear that he didn’t believe me and a year after he was still making snide comments about me phoning in sick for food poisoning. I had slept on the bathroom floor for those three days and was still not fully recovered when I came back. It enrages me when I think about.

I’ve had it happen, wasn’t even feeling particularly unwell first thing, I just about made it to the loo in time to avoid throwing up in front of a client. I’ve had similar happen at home when feeling unwell turned into feeling sick very suddenly.

On another occasion I threw up on Waterloo bridge - that time I was newly pregnant and it was the first indicator of HG. Commuters just walked past and probably assumed I was hungover on a Monday morning.

People do not call work and say they are not coming to work because they feel sick. There is a different between feeling sick and being sick as in vomiting…

Must do. Can't think of a reason a person would choose to vomit publicly on a carpet if they could have helped it, can you?

And this is exactly why people don’t call in sick - because there are managers like this who think that grown adults are incapable of deciding whether they’re fit to work or not.

Luckily I get to work from home so I'm not spreading any germs, but I'm not well and working when really I'd like to have taken more days to rest. I get sick pay but if I'm not around my work will back up and I'll have even more to come back to.

This isn’t a thing for everyone. DH alway talks about salivating before vomiting and I literally have no idea what he means.

If I vomit it’s usually with little to no warning, and I’ve been sick in my mouth while running to a toilet, or into my hands.

It doesn’t happen often (a handful of times in my adult life) but I don’t get a forewarning to take myself off somewhere. I know I’m about to vomit and have to sprint to try and make the toilet.

It is actually because some people are lazy and will do anything they can not to attend work.

Well I really hope you are not a boss then

Well ok, but it clearly wasn't the case with the OP's colleague as she had reportedly been feeling nauseous for the whole of the preceding weekend!

Yes. Guessing you’ve never had a stomach bug?

This

Our Sickeness Policy is so sensitive and easily triggered to a stage one monitoring

Staff feel under pressure to attend and also don’t want to drop others in it

I am thank you.

Because they're frightened of getting a disciplinary. If my husband has more than 3 occasions in a year (not even in the same year but in any 12 month period) he gets an official warning. So my husband goes into work unless he's on his last legs. I've faced a similar culture in a former workplace. If managers were more understanding about sickness then people wouldn't feel the need to come in even if they're really poorly.

I would also be annoyed by this OP. Every NHS trust I’ve worked in has had very clear sickness policies that state not to come into work until 48 hours after the last episode of vomiting . It’s for protection of staff and patients.. it’s in our annual mandatory infection control training and drummed into everyone again and again.. You’re right that this can be an absolute nightmare if something like norovirus spreads in a clinical environment, particularly if there are vulnerable or immunosuppressed patients around. Whilst I would have sympathy with a colleague who is sick , I would be unimpressed if they ignore the policy and came in when they had been vomiting. Perhaps they were worried about triggering the Bradford score, but even so, protection of patients and staff from a potential vomiting bug has to trump that.

Worried about all these judgy people lacking empathy. A few possibilities:

• she's already taken lots of days sick for whatever reason and worried she'll be reprimanded for more
• she's pregnant
• she thought she was getting better but wasn't
• she's from one of those families where work ethic is everything

I wait for the next post - why do people take sick leave for every little thing?

Because some of us were brought up to work hard and only miss work if totally unavoidable. I have family who work in the NHS and they tell me people taking the piss with sick leave is rife.

I also have a DB who works in a factory environment. The union got them very good sickness terms/cover for the staff. All of a sudden they deemed it as sickness leave, as in they SHOULD take 12 days sick every year. Efficiencies dropped and the Union themselves decided that staff were taking the piss so much they advised removing the benefit as it was crippling the company.

A bit of sickness is nothing if the base staff have a good work ethic.