To be asked to ring in work each day when you are off sick..

[curlysmum]

I have been off work for almost two weeks with this sickness bug then it developed into flu and I am off this week my second week. In my first week I rang I think 3 times to state I was ill then finally saw the doctor last Friday who took one look at me and said you need to rest and I 'm signing you off for 1 more week.
I rang my boss on Monday to tell him this put the Certificate in the post and now today he calls me at home , sounding a bit on the sarcastic side 'how are you' etc I explained all of it again he says , 'so when will you be back ' I told him next Monday and he sounded not impressed so I told him well I have sent in my Doctors certificate etc, he says well I still want you to call in each day WTF! am I a child or a 38 year old women, my dd father said I shd ring the Human Resources lady and give her a piece of my mind. By the way this is a very big American City Company who treat most women like idiots anyway, any view on this??

Xenia, you are Anne Widdecombe and I claim my £10!

Are you for real?

Hard-working mentality of the South-East? I work for an international financial organisation and I've never seen so many people take sickies (or should that be hangoveries) as when I first moved down here from the NorthWest! In fact, sickness was extremely rare at home because people were terrified of losing their jobs... but then I suppose that's your ideal scenario?

I'd like to believe you're taking the michael or are just on a windup (esp. with that last comment), but I'm scared your posts are actually serious.

To the OP - your boss is an eejit. If you're signed off, you're signed off. How did you get on with your HR department?

Anne Widdocombe - lol - but she says she has 5 kids and nanny and they all excerise all day and eat healthy food !

Sounds like Anne W with 5 adopted kids and on Weight Watchers !!

We love you really, Xenia, you make us laugh like DC makes me laugh on other threads !

Xenia you should spend less time on here berating others who 'malinger' or don't live in the correct postcode for a 'work ethic' and DO SOME WORK. How much time have you lost from work this year on this chat room?

God Xenia that is an outrageous thing to say - you have certainly lit the blue touchpaper now.

What a totally ludicrous and bigoted thing to say. I'm thoroughly ashamed to reside in the South East after your bizarre comment.

Dear God woman, if you must insult people, do it in your own name, not mine as a Londoner.

Some eomployers are just prats. I was signed off work for a total of 3 months after an ectopic pregnancy. I was in a lot of pain afterwards and could not sit upright or stand for any length of time plus of course I was a mess emotionally. I then had suspected heart problems and was having ECG's to check things out, medication to prevent a heart attack just in case etc etc and I get going into work every week with my sick line and every week my boss got more and more grumpy about it... "don't know how we are going to cope" grumble grumble and eventually he said just because you have a sick line from the doctor, it doesn't mean you can't come back to work anyway! Eh? i'm sorry but my the end of the leave I was bored out of my mind just wandering to the school to pick up my ds and would have liked to have done something more but if my doctor is concerned about my health and thinks I should not be at work then I owe it to myself and my ds to listen and take up that advise! I stuck it out a bit longer with that company - who were never the same after they were taken over - and I am now with a great one!

'and mostly Labour supporters/ left wing in Scotland kind of thing? '

Howling with laughter! Xenia, that is the funniest thing I've read all day - and the doorman left a copy of The Sun lying around.

You just don't get it.

And you never will.

So no point wasting time even responding to you most of the time.

I've just nearly chocked on my lunch reading this thread, unbelievable, stereotyping going on in some quarter's.

Maybe Xenia (whose posts are really very entertaining) is really Ruth Lea ex Head of the Institute of Director and now head of the Institute for Policy Studies!!

Does anyone know of her? Very right wing believes having children is no more than a lifestyle choice, very anti any equality measures because of the burden to employers blah blah!!

I say this slightly tongue in cheek of cours
but she (ruth lea) argues that

' that "the 'work-life balance' agenda for further employee rights and regulations is damaging the workplace and will damage it further", and Healthcare in the UK: the need for reform (IoD, 2000), which argued for the removal of the NHS from health provision'

And so on

and just this week we have a report from the Govt saying that mothers with young children are the most discriminated against group both in and out of the workplace.

There you are rant over!!

Giving women too many maternity rights damages them in terms of career and in negotiations with husbands who then make sexist assumptions about who stays home. If I advocate equal parental rights I am doing you lot huge favours, or rather, your daughters and grand daughters.

As for Scotland... what can one say? Some of my favourite men are from Scotland so I'd never do it down but how many times has it had a conservative majority - ever? Surely you can accept there is a huge political difference between Scotland and the rest of the UK. In fact more people live in the SE than Scotland. Perhaps we should have our own Parliament like the Scots in that case.

'Surely you can accept there is a huge political difference between Scotland and the rest of the UK. '

Oh, most definitely. And not just political differences, thankfully.

Oh, yes, some of the favourite people in my life come from Scotland, too .

Ah, so it's conservatives who are hard-working

Don't the English vote Labour, then, Xenia?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you're a nutter.

Only slacker English, HD, who don't know what real work is.

Yes I agree but surely that has to mean that the whole work culture has to change dramatically to enable men to do their share.
It has to change to recognise that all people are entitled to a life outside of work.

ATM with the macho culture in many workplaces esp law firms, corporates men simply can't (and also won't or don't want to) just knock of at 5pm day after day to collect the kids.

I would imagine that's easier in Scandinavian countries which do embrace a better work life balance for both sexes!

Women are principally to blame because they accept that lot at home. If she were saying I won't be there when the nanny leaves so you husband have to be there or else then he'd have to leave but they don't. Women take on domestic obligations and then moan about it. They moan but effect no change. They make a rod for their own back. The main sexism problem in the UK is women letting men do so little and putting themseleves second. This has nothing to do with the hours of work needed to do some jobs. Some work demands people working long hours - it's just how it is so they have to arrange their lives accordingly. Some doesn't.

I went on a ski trip with a friend from work, he managed to bugger his leg on the last day and ended up in a cast. As we were working (overseas) in construction he couldn't go out on site so they sent him to his home country for six weeks, paid! They were US company too, I sure miss working for them.

I actually agree Xenia that a lot of women let men get away with doing very little. They moan that their men don't do the washing or cooking or ironing - these women iron their dh's shirts fgs! My dh and I share the washing responsibilities and if needed something ironing he would iron it himself. I don't iron anyway so he has to.

I think though that it's a confidence thing. Women feel as though that is their role in society and there is nothing telling them it is not. Look at the media - these cleaning product adverts are not aimed at men are they? TV dramas - usually the woman who is the housewife or domestic victim. So whilst women moan about it, they don't feel as though they can change it just because society says that's the way it is.

just to report back I called the HR lady and left an update of how I was feeling on her a/phone . I did'nt ring my boss as I do believe he is bullying me , it is'nt the first time. He has little to no time for me when I am in the office, the background is he is quite a nasty little man who does'nt usually arrive in till about 10.15am and goes home about 16.45pm.
I work now from 10.00am to 6.00pm and this was after a major strop from him when I asked if I could change my working hours from 9.30am - 5.30pm to 10.00 to 6.00pm so I could then take my daughter to school and not have to pay for before school care as well as after school care, (this is when I got the lecture about his wife not working).
He was well aware I had a young child when he employed me, he works from home about 2 days a week and is never reachable usually there is cricket on the t.v. strangly.
He employed only women and I have'nt in the two years I've been there ever taken time off for my dd being ill etc , he did'nt come in for two days when it snowed as his kids were off school. Its like one rule for him, he even takes a whole day off for a dentist or doctor appointment, what a hypocrite.
I am currently doing the job of two people and he knows it and refuses to take anyone else on to help despite concerns being raised by our head office in the US, so as far as I'm concerned he is lucky I'm not off with stress, so I think its no wonder I have become so run down from this flu bug. I think I will see the HR lady when I get back about it all , and in a couple of months look for another job , oh and never work in the city again its been a real eye opener how these companies operate .

cm, what you need to go is get his job. That can be your aim of the year. We need many more women bosses. What was that quote I read yesterday about beer - black at the bottom and white froth on top (that was about racism - lots of black below and none at the top). It's the same in far too many organisations. We need women who want to be the person in charge working their way up. It is much much easier and much more fun if you're in charge.

ooh, can't believe I missed this earlier...

I used to be v senior in HR

AND I was once off work for 3 years

AND I only spoke to my co'y about half a dozen times.

So does that mean I'm a lazy cow - oh no, I'm a labour-voting slacker from the South-East .

It's belief systems we are operating on here,along with notions of morals, IMO.

Calling in everyday, when you have a sicknote, is ghastly. But we do have moved onto public v. private?

Prisons and probation

Health Service

Main line national transport systems

Education

Care homes

Police

Armed services

Refuse and environment

Social Services

er....

Too precious to leave vulnerable to Xenia-types. Careful and accounted monitoring, yes, but not "for profit". Chasing the Yankee dollar would leave us all the poorer for it.

There is an argument the food industry is too crucial to leave it vulnerable to the need for a profit-fix.

Haven't read any ot the thread apart from op but seems very silly when you have a sick note.

I was off sick one day last week (only work 2 days) the next day my boss asked me if i was going to make up the day i had off sickWTF. I started maternity leave today so thought this was a very strange request, especially as we get paid for sickness, have been there 9 years and never beeen asked this before!!!!

pann
Labout and the Tories have contracts out a whole load of that though
Prisons and probation

Health Service - market reforms and all that stuff, nurses hiring themselves back in through agencies, ditto doctors

Main line national transport systems - we did that privatisation

Education - yes would be good to give each parent a voucher to buy places in private schools

Care homes - the private sector is huge in this.

Police public still
Securicor and others run some prisons and transport prisoners around

Armed services public still

Refuse and environment - every council in the country just about contracts this out and has for the last few decades.

Social Services - private.

Why does any one have to aim to be any one's boss ? Do women only have power and prestige by becoming the bosses of men or other women ?

The WORST, anti-feminist bosses I have ever worked for have been female ones. Don't wish to generalise, it is my personal experience of the City, that the women who work there join the boys club, they ain't there to help other women or to get other wome recognised. They COMPETE with other women.

So your theory really doesn't make any sense Xenia, UNLESS women with power stick their necks out for other women. At the moment they don't, not in the corporate world any way. You obvioulsy have no experience of working in the City.

I am all for power to women and all that, but object to patronising comments about men telling me what to do. No man, not even my husband, has ever TOLD me what to do. I stay at home with my son because I WANT TO ! Strange, eh ?