Sick leave in the public sector? (title amended by MNHQ)

[Cutecat78]

Not really an AIBU but wonder what happens in other workplaces as I feel like I'm in the twilight zone.

I work for the LA. Loads of redundancies and loads of people going on "long term sick".

Call me cynical but the people who do this (there are two repeat offenders - oh and our manager who was moved to our team and didn't want to be then went on 6 months sick leave on full pay) do not seem stressed they just go off with it or a bad back when they don't like their job (they couldn't possibly leave and work somewhere else as then they might miss out on redundancy in the next wave of cuts - which have been every year for the last 5/6).

Offender one has been suspended for 4 months on a disciplinary - but is now "on long term sick leave" as his GP doesn't seem impartial to handing him out sick notes like smarties. Last year he had 3 months off with a bad back and the year before had about 4 months off with said back but has also had time off being suspended too - he's utterly incompetent and anywhere other than the LA he would have been sacked years ago.

Offender 2 has been off for 7/8 months (1st 6 months full pay, next 6 1/2 pay). Also utterly incompetent (moans constantly about being over worked whilst swanning out of office for 2 hour nail appt etc).

She had been told to come back or she will be dismissed. Although when we questioned where she was our manager informed us "well she has so much leave to take".

Our LA's are going bankrupt yet this is allowed to carry on because of some overly PC policies on acid.

It's so frustrating.

Thanks MNHQ

ConkersDontScareSpiders - "in my experience those that are genuinely sick will make effort to stay in touch (or have their family do it)."

Really? Um. When I was in a secure psych ward I should have been regularly phoning my boss for a chat about coming back?

I'm sorry but that's an incredibly insensitive thing to say. Yes, I vanished for four months. It was absolutely necessary. And I think an expectation that someone who is experiencing serious issues (in my case, a psychotic break) should be phoning up for weekly chats isn't always reasonable.

I find it very amusing and hypocritical that people professing to have had MH issues are calling me evil and vile really?

And you say I am judgemental?!

I agree with OP. I worked for a local authority for 15 years until recently. They are crap with sickness management. 6 months full pay then 6 months half pay and if you go back for a week you can then go off and start all ver again. Monitoring of absence is pathetic. I saw people set target after target that they did not meet and were just set new ones. Almost anything could be counted as disability discrimination. I had an HR rep say to me about a member of staff 'Well if her perception is it is a disability, we would be better treating it as such'- under active thyroid. LAs are pathetic!

OP, I am also employed in the public sector and would agree with some of what you say - it does seem the last bastion of blatantly taking the piss wrt time off sick. I am categorically not including people with genuine MH issues here.

My colleague handed in his notice (our grade requires 3 months') and then promptly got signed off by his GP for the last 8 weeks with 'stress'.

He quite happily admitted to me that he just didn't want to work out his notice period, and felt perfectly justified in doing so and had a GP who was happy to agree.

I have another, newish colleague. He has worked with us for about 18 months. During this time, I honestly don't think he has worked a full week, ever. He is sick or has personal issues constantly. Again, he has confided in me the he just hates his (really well paid) job and is biding his time until he gets a better offer.

My husband works in the private sector. He has had back surgery (took one day off whilst in hospital) and has had treatment on a benign brain tumour (one day, again). He wouldn't dream of taking time off unfairly. It really is a different culture.

Monty27, you think the OP sounds evil

There seems to be a number of posters who are taking this very personally despite the OP talking about her own workplace.

Op I agree with you about badly managed suck leave in the La's.
People taking the piss and other people buckling under the stress was one of the many reasons I left my job after 16 years

There was an obligatory work place assessment went I started work.

I had major lower back surgery in my teens. I suffer with back pain but I manage it well myself. I pay for private treatments do correct exercise, visit my GP for medication.

They said my manager had to buy me a chair which cost over 300.

It's really really not different to anyone else's chair.

Yet we aren't allowed to do our jobs properly for our clients.

As in buy them a coffee, buturesources we need for parenting courses, do any trips with young people,

Sorry buy resources for parenting courses ..,,

I think the OP needs to contain her hyperbole a wee bit. I've worked in local government for the past three years, and have yet to reach the point where I'm entitled to even three months' full pay. I've been hospitalised five times in thirteen months and have reached the point where my annual leave is being used up so that I've got money in the bank from one month to the next. Colleagues with cancer have exhausted their pay, came back and had to go off sick again and claim ESA because this supposedly wonderful treadmill system of occupational sick pay has actually been gone for years.

Please don't believe everyone in public service is as woeful as OP's colleagues.

I was a teacher. I had six months sick before taking early retirement. During the six months, I spent most of the time in bed. When I went out it was for necessities or dd would take me out for lunch or a cup of tea, and show me that life was worth living. Two years later, I'm still lucky if I have 15 minutes purposeful activity in a day. But you wouldn't know that if you saw me. You just wouldn't know. I wasn't taking the piss then, and I'm not then. I'm broken, but for a few hours, I can put on an act of being ok.

not then? not now. duh. the brain doesn't work, either.

OMG - I am not talking about people who are genuinely ill.

I had a lot of time off with my pregnancy due to SPD. It is not as easy as you think to take lots of sick leave in the public sector. I had a sympathetic employer, but I still needed letters from my GP and saw the lea occupational health. What was frustrating was that I wanted to work, but the lea deemed it unsafe.

There are people in the public sector who know the system inside out.

The two on my team are these people the rest of the team are of the same opinion- they are a joke.

The same people have had bereavements and family illness which the team have been supportive of.

Other team members have illnesses etc and family issues and we are all very supportive to them.

We always have a whip round and send flowers and cards even for the blaggers.

I know what you mean, OP.

Long time ago, when I worked in the NHS, we employed a Lab Assistant. She was a small woman in her 40s or 50s, and she was told exactly what the work involved, including lifting things. She said nothing about having a long term back complaint at this point, nor did she say that she wouldn't be able to lift heavy things, which would probably have resulted in her not being suitable for the post.

So she got the job, and within a month had "hurt her back" (she may well have done!) because she was lifting heavy things that she couldn't manage, despite there being plenty of people around whom she could have asked for help, rather than struggle.
She went off long-term sick after being employed for a month and we never saw her again; BUT that whole time, we couldn't employ anyone else to do her job either, in a very busy lab, that had really needed that extra member of staff.

As I say, she may well have genuinely hurt her back - but she knew that was a risk, she knew that lifting was part of the job and she took it knowing that she might end up hurting herself and going off sick. That's what made us cross, the seeming deliberateness of her actions.

And it does happen in private companies too - last year, DH had a sales manager who apparently had cancer. We say apparently because it was never determined what sort or where, he had treatment that seemed sporadic, he never produced doctor's notes, would just miss work days (some of which happily coincided with school holidays). DH was working with HR to try and decide what to do, the man was due a disciplinary for something bad that he'd done, so he resigned on the grounds of ill health before HR insisted on seeing medical corroboration of his illness.
Next thing DH knows, he's getting a request for a reference from the company that this man has just got a job with - suggesting that he wasn't as ill as he was making out.

The worst of that scenario was that DH's direct boss had died at the beginning of the year of liver cancer; and he'd worked right through, only taking days off for the treatment, but never missing more than he had to.

This other man never even looked ill after the treatment, but in reality it was the lack of detail and the lack of medical corroboration that made everyone doubt it was real.

I've experienced this in a LA job. Also came from 3rd sector and was totally gobsmacked by the difference in general attitude to work.

One of my colleagues used to go off sick every year for six months on full pay with a bad back, and make a miraculous recovery just before he was due to go to half pay. He was pretty open about taking the piss and he was far from the only one doing it.

No wonder people feel ill working with the likes of you OP and some other posters

Really monty?

I set up a project for young vulnerable people which is now at risk of going under while these twats are on full pay.

Their other colleagues are being made redundant.

Yes I am an evil bitch.

OP, you have my sympathy here. I can't believe people are calling you evil and demanding to know how you are qualified to assess genuine sickness. You've clearly stated some of these staff have threatened or announced their intention to go off sick, so you have nothing to prove.

When I worked for a large utility company this sort of thing was rife. Many of the staff planned their holidays around the full-pay sick leave they could blague in a year along with emergency leave (5 days for children or parents) and any bereavement leave they thought they could get away with claiming. They were quite blatant about it and would teach all the new recruits how to work the system.

Most staff weren't that dishonest, but the ones who were always got the maximum time off work they could possibly squeeze out of the system, every year.

You don't need to be a doctor to know if someone is genuinely ill when you've heard them say they want two weeks off in August but they've only got 2 days annual leave left, so they'll claim a bereavement for three of the days they need and go off sick for the rest. Or say they'll go long-term sick if they don't like what job they get in the next re-shuffle.

You've called yourself an 'evil bitch'

I bet your 'sick' colleagues are as committed to the vulnerable. a lot more than you are

People get sick, all the time. Lots of people, lots of times. There is always going to be a small minority of people who take the piss but it would never be as much as people who are genuinely sick.

One person's threshold for going off sick may be lower than somebody else because we are all different. We don't really know what the medical situation with any person is and it's not professional to be bitching about it like this. After all, this thread isn't about the generic issue of long term sick, it's about particular people within your department.

Actually, having just read your last post, I couldn't be arsed working with someone who has an attitude like yours. I can't believe you are allowed to be involved with 'young, vulnerable people' because the bitterness just drips off your posts.

Well put sparkle.

The abusive name calling that the OP is being subjected to continues to undermine any reasonable point that the name-callers might have.

Some people take the piss when it comes to sickness leave. Most do not.

Does anyone actually disagree with that?