2nd day of new job calling in sick ????

[xogossipgirlxo]

I’m mortified. I had bit of cold yesterday, took paracetamol and ibuprofen, went to my first day at new job. You know what it’s like, adrenaline keeps you going, but I came home and felt really really run down. I barely slept at night, because meds didn’t really work. I know it’ll look bad calling in sick on my second day but I’m genuinely ill, my temperature is about 39C, my throat is aching so much, shivers, headache, my face feels really tender to touch on my cheeks like it is with sinusitis. Are they going to think I’m taking the mickey? I was so upbeat yesterday, really enjoyed my first day, I’m gutted today😢

Yes I agree and as I typed it, that possibility did occur to me. But using the same logic why no commendations now? Because everyone attends? Errr… nope!

Being off sick constantly, a day here and a day there every few weeks simply didn’t seem to happen. It does now. Why?
Any doctors? Economists?

I'd think about do your colleagues also want to catch it because I wouldnt want to and take it home to their families. Maybe take a day off and apologise.. tbh you aren't much good to them feeling ill. It's not a case of you don't want to work.

If you would rather people force themselves in and have to go home again, having achieved nothing but potentially spreading their germs about you are both a stupid and an uncaring employer, and i bet your employees hate working for you.

I had this in my first week at my current job years ago. I had tonsillitis, got profressively worse through the week until it was hard to talk but I still kept going in as I really felt I couldn't be off sick in the first week. Left work on the Friday, called 111 and got an out of hours gp appointment that night. It turned out to be a quinsy and she sent me in to hospital. She thought it was hilarious that I had been at work trying to make a good impression when I couldn't swallow my own saliva or talk... When most of my job is talking to people.

I think that ‘butch’ it out mentality is out of date now and it’s considered anti social behaviour to go in sick

dont go in, ring your boss, I think you will sound ill on the phone anyway so it’ll be believable. Say how mortified you are as you enjoyed yesterday so much.
hope you feel better soon 💐

For me personally I was brought up to never take a day off sick. I once broke my nose tripping over the front step on my way out to school. My mum drove me to a&e, I had an xray and they gave advice and then my mum drove me straight back to school for the rest of my lessons.
I was off with a badly sprained ankle and my mum took me to work with her. I had to lie under her desk all day bored out of my mind and the student teacher came after school to drop off worksheets for me. I was the same when I got to working age. I didn't take a day off for the first 4 years of working but did get sternly asked if I should be in by my boss once or twice. Twice I've been to work, been sent home and then been admitted to hospital later that day, once for 6 days. Then when I was discharged in the morning I just went straight back to work after washing my hair. But something shifted for me in covid when I was forced to isolate for defined time periods. I realised that other people weren't dragging their half dead selves in and that it's much better for your reputation if you only go in when you can actually perform. Also i wonder if overcrowding things like most under 30s living in house shares, kids in big nurseries under 2 (previously would have been in tiny preschools from a bit older when they lick the floor less), more international travel, loads more uni students packed into cities, whether all that means we are catching more colds and minor illnesses more often? And with antibiotic resistance and viruses doing whatever clever things they do, morphing into more and more virile strains that are spread easier with fewer droplets and staying infectious for much longer etc maybe we are catching more?

Bold of you to assume that people who are chronically ill DON’T live like hermits. I dont have the luxury of doing anything other than going to work funnily enough so I don’t want to be put at risk by someone KNOWINGLY. That is the key word. Of course there are always bugs and germs lingering and people won’t always be aware that they have one but IF you are aware you are sick and you go in, you are selfish.

It sounds like you can’t win either way ! If you go people will wonder why you came in, and spreading germs, if you call in sick they think you’re copping out. So phone your boss and offer to help by borrowing a laptop to take home to work with.

Lazy office jobs? LOL...spoken like a truly jaded retail worker. Some of us made the effort to do better in life so we wouldn't have to stand on our feet all day, working unskilled&monotonous jobs, being paid peanuts, bitter at people who work highly stressful office jobs which require a degree - That involves using a computer.

You surely can't be a medical professional, either because no Doctor/Nurse would say what you just did, you don't work an office job which requires a degree/without a degree or you wouldn't have said that. You don't work emergency services because you also wouldn't have said what you did, because I don't think emergency services are that ignorant (I work with them).

This only leaves retail, or stay at home yummy mummy. 🤷‍♀️ Either way, you're projecting. Go work on yourself if you want better in life.

OP - Are you in England? These symptoms are concerning with the outbreak of meningitis. Please don't be scared about contacting a medical professional just to be on the safe side. I hope you get better soon, and congratulations on the new job.

I missed a whole first week of new job, flu, stuck in bed, they were really ok about it all and didnt mind at all and just amended my start date by a week later.

that is utterly shite. If someone contracts an infectious disease (or cold, flu or whatever) you are just making them pass it to everyone else, and then punishing them for a normal human event.

@pouletvousno, she probably won't die, but she may be working with someone who is vulnerable and could. A cold is just a cold to most people but to some people it is a matter of life and death. But a cold doesn't cause a temperature of 39 and a fever that doesn't respond to over the counter meds does it?

yeah, that's an ET waiting to happen.

OTOH: if you have immunocompromised people in your home, you are the one who should be masking up when out and about, and washing washing washing your hands.

We DO take all the precautions (and I don’t disagree that the main onus is on us to be responsible). Would just be nice if jobsworths would put health (theirs and others) over their pride.

Agreed. And what a low opinion of managers we have. So if a new member of staff is unfortunately unwell, their manager’s first thought is that they’re a liar/taking the piss?? This is someone who presumably has gone through a rigorous application procedure/interview/references etc. If a manager doesn’t believe them or have a level of trust, they are a terrible manager.

Nobody should work for a company that threatens to sack people for having time off sick! Yes there are skivers out there, we've all worked with them but your attitude of trying to intimidate and terrify a very sick person into going into work by using character defamation and job threats shows that you work for a toxic organisation and you now have a very toxic mindset! What if she was vomiting everywhere and shitting herself silly from norovirus? Would you still be toxic and tell her to go in? It doesn't benefit anyone else when that toxic culture forces everyone to make everyone else sick no matter what tie consequences!

For the record my friend had a bit of mental breakdown in his new job and had to have counselling and even he passed his probation eventually, you are being cruelly over dramatic!

The problem I see today is that too many companies employ the bare minimum of resource that means someone being off sick causes big issue! I'm the same in the team I work in, we are drowning in and we walk a tightrope and have actually requested to get a new member added to the team. You and everything we would hate in a boss because I bet you stay home when you're ill but everybody is a scumbag unless theur limb is severed! Perhaps if places stopped trying to run on the bare minimum of staff and offered flexibility! My place has hybrid arrangements so we work from three days a week and we are always allowed to work from home.on days when we don't want to make each other ill, I have a team mate who is approaching 70, he attends a heart clinic, a stroke clinic, he became a first time grandad last year so when I had a shocking virus in the winter with the worst cough I've ever had, I didn't go in on my office day to avoid putting him at risk! I rarely take off sick and was so poorly one day that I did take it off but it would screw our team if we shared our germs and it made some of us too.sick to work for days.
Rather than being a bully boss that bans people from having time off sick, employ enough people and offer flexible working where possible! I would never want to work for someone like you

I never worked with anyone really that's took time off sick frequently, it's not a problem that I've seen.
The only issues I've encountered in my career is people playing the off with stress game, saw it a number of times in the many years on the railways, one guy I worked with played it for about 4 years by the time I left to a different industry. Every 6 months when his full sick pay was due to drop he'd come back on a phased return and within weeks go off again fir another 6 months.
It was the opposite issue on the railways, guys coming in when they blatantly ill "oh I'm not well today, young un has brought a sickness bug home from school" - it was the one time in my adult life that I ever caught norovirus! The amount of bad colds and chest infections I used to get because these guys would come in like death! I had a chest infection at my dad's funeral that I caught from work.
I work for a place now where we work from home three days a week and we are never expected to go in ill and it works better, we rarely have anyone too sick to work but we don't have to work in the office when we've got something either and risk giving it to team mates who.have more vulnerabilities.

However though when you look at some of the attitudes on here and bad bosses hating on people being off sick, you can guarantee those workplaces have big issues with sickness because people are forced in to spread it!

Wow triggered 😂 I feel I hit a nerve for you there. Perhaps you have a very low threshold for sickness too. FYI I am out there day in day out grafting. I work 7 days a week for my family. Staff work the hours they agreed to, from 4-30, their choice. Furthermore, i never expect anyone to do anything I wouldn't do despite being twice the age of most of my team. I pay a decent wage and will not apologise for being from an era where you don't stand on your phones all day and use work time to check your own emails etc. work is work, it should be enjoyable and employees should be valued but this works both ways and work is work not a hobby. I expect people to be reliable and if they are off sick to give me a decent amount of notice.

If new starters do a no show in the first week it's a red flag fore and if that triggers you so much, that really is a you issue

Bit unnecessarily rude there eh, but it seems that the responders to my comment are on the same page as the op.

We are talking about taking day 2 of a NEW job off, we are not talking about an established employee having time off sick. The two situations are very different. Surely a person wanting to make the best impression would go in. Speak immediately to her supervisor and they would make a plan or video call but to not go in on day 2 is not ideal and I stand by that

can you let us know your company so we can avoid it?

You may "graft" 7 days a week for your family - but employees are there to get their salary/wages. And the way you write about someone taking (genuine) sick time off tells me all i need to know. I wonder how much advance notice you want of someone getting norovirus or flu? 2 weeks?

If a couple of days off sick throws your company into disarray? you don't have enough staff or you don't have robust enough processes.

Probably help if you get a doctor’s note.

Wow people just reel off a load of assumptions on here 😂 I have a small team of dedicated staff who work with my company because they want to. They work whatever hours suit them by arrangement and I have no problem with people giving REASONABLE notice if they or one of their children/family starts to feel unwell. No an hour before they are due in or on day 2 of their employment. If I have customers booked it is not fair on them and their neurodiverse children to cancel them last minute. So before making assumptions perhaps think about how many people can be negatively affected by last minute sickness. Had the person messaged me the night before when they started to feel unwell (sore throat), I could have postponed bookings but people were already en route when the person called in sick. If you were the customer and it was your child, you may see it slightly differently.

so again: you are fine exploiting your staff and demand they work when sick because nobody can give 2 weeks notice of a sudden dehabilitating illness.

Again: your structures are not robust enough for your staff.