To wonder about this person calling in sick at peak time

[bestfakesmile]

Had a crazy busy week at work with a major project on. One of our team who has been very involved in all the planning for this project and was supposed to be supervising the completion of it has been off sick for the entire week with a cold. This has put massive pressure on our team, we would have been stretched even with that person, so without them it’s been very difficult. It has meant that everyone on our small team has had to put in loads of extra hours to cover her work between them. She could have helped out a bit by doing some work from home even if she couldn’t make it in but no.
The irony is, I know she is still going to expect the credit and the sales bonus in her pay packet this month. Even though the sales would not have been fulfilled without everyone else stepping in to do her work while she’s been off.
If the rest of us hadn’t done that work there’s no doubt we would have lost a number of important clients and that would have had a devestating impact on the business. Quite literally she would have put herself out of a job. She must be mightily naive if she hasn’t worked that one out.
Obviously it’s a time of year when coughs and colds are running riot, almost everyone I know has had something in the last month or so but most people know they can’t just drop out of life when they have a cold. But this person is the type to refuse to have a lemsip because they don’t like the taste, and won’t take a tablet either cos she can’t swallow it. It’s as if she actually enjoys being ill and wallows in it.
Personally, it would have taken hospitalisation for me not to come in to work this week. Firstly, I would feel absolutely awful if I let my colleagues and boss down at a crucial time. I don’t think I could face them afterwards knowing I’d left them in the lurch. Secondly, I’d hate to miss out on the satisfaction of completing this project that we have all worked so hard for, I could not bear to let it all go down the drain and see these clients walk away.
It feels a lot like she couldn’t be bothered or possibly couldn’t cope with the higher than usual workload this week so just bailed out and left everyone else to pick up the pieces. I’m going to find it hard to work with her when/if she manages to drag herself back in next week.

An entire week is a lot of time off for a cold tho isn’t it?

Depends. All my colds turn into chest infections and i once ended up in HDU with what I thought was 'just a cold'.
My Dad ended up in the same place too with what he told us was just a bad cold, it was pneumonia.

I must say you don't sound a very supportive team.

Health comes first, work second. You can't perform at your absolute best when you are ill ? I doubt when most people retire they think to themselves " really wished I had come into work when I had that streaming cold "!! No medals for martyrs !

A couple of years ago, I continued to go to work when I had what I thought was "just" a cold. It turned out to be the flu and not only did I end up having to stay at home for over a week but so did over 40 of my colleagues who caught the flu. Your colleague may not be lazy but rather considerate of her colleagues' health.

She’s definitely not a team player

You're slagging a colleague off on an online forum because someone who's hardly had any time off has suddenly needed to take a big chunk off at a crucial time.

You're not coming across much as a team player yourself to be brutally honest, and that's me being polite.

I'm surprised by the responses.
OP, YANBU!
I hope she says thank you and brings you in some goodies at the very least!!

You don't know a fucking thing about it OP. Stop being a crank.

What she told you or what she told her boss may not be the same as what she told HR. Or what she may have even actually told the boss.

Are you this bitter generally?

But this person is the type to refuse to have a lemsip because they don’t like the taste,

I fucking hate the taste of Lemsip. (comes from memories of being fed warm juice when I was little for illnesses - still can't stomach a herbal tea or anything warm juice related which lemsip is to me). Why is that precious?

brings you in some goodies at the very least!!

Me too, but I hope she coughs on them first.

Jonsnowswife, When did I say she hadn’t previously had time off? She has.
The ‘not a team player’ comment was what she told me others had complained about her in her last job. As I said, it’s a very weird thing to tell a colleague.

But i get we the OP is coming from we had someone similar as soon as we all had to get the nose to the grind stone she would be off ill for that week / period of time but also demand she gets her bonus despite her not being their.

(our boss contented on to it and made the bonus relaint on actually being there and doing the work rather then a standard everyone gets it (i think they gave her a £1 bonus as it was in her contract to get paid bonuses but they felt she didnt desevre a proper one).

I dont believe its a cold.

I bet she's said something quite different to the boss and this is a game of Chinese whispers.
The DCs Dad, who is in his late 40s and hasn't been near a hospital since he caught malaria and was seriously ill when he was 12; ended up in hospital with breathing problems this year with his cold. He works in the hospital and his job is just as important but when he turned up because he didn't want to let people down the first thing his boss did was send him to A&E and he was kept in. All his colleagues were concerned with was if he was going to be okay.

Thing is OP, it's actually none of your business.

Your colleague has a right to take leave and she is exercising that right. Whether or not you believe her is beside the point.

Your place is to behave professionally by focusing on the task in hand and treating your colleagues with respect. I think you need to up your game. You come across as the office busybody, the sort everyone loathes.

You never mentioned she had had previous time off in your OP.

As I said, it’s a very weird thing to tell a colleague.

More fool her for confiding in her colleagues.

Me too, but I hope she coughs on them first.

positivelyPERF

I hate 'team' work - always have.

If I do well, I want the credit, if someone else doesn't that is their lookout.

But then, my working life has not tended to be like the Apprentice.

This isn’t about her being off with a cold. You just dislike her a lot.

She’s definitely not a team player

How ironic

I suppose my issue is that I don’t believe she really was that ill

Sack her then. Or don't award her her bonus as she hasn't achieved her target.

Oh wait, you are not her boss?

Not really anything to do with you and certainly not down to you to decide if she's ill or not.

Wow, I had a week off too, no cold or cough but was aching all over and had a very high temperature ; I hope my colleagues are not making allegations of freeloading behind my back, that would be very upsetting

Yabu
It doesn't matter that you believe she wasn't that I'll. My 13 yr old dc who has never missed a day off school ever has been off since most days lunchtime with a cold. She has had crippling headaches, her throat is on fire and she has had one piece of toast in 3 days.
By the sounds of it if she hadn't done all her previous work on the project you wouldn't have had one to finish off so I think she's earn the her bonus.
Maybe the all the work shes done previously has stressed hr out and run her immunity down.
You sound like an absolute martyr who comes in when they are knowingly ill spreads it about and then complains when others take time off because their asthmatic child has caught it- I work with someone exactly the same.

I have a lot of specialist knowledge for my role. There's only one of me, and a couple of other people who have similiarish knowledge who can help out and cover the non-negotiable things I have to do.

If I'm ill, I'm ill. I call in, and I leave instructions for what needs to be covered if I am well enough to do that. I put my out of office on. And that's it. Because I am too ill to work.

And luckily my colleagues are supportive and positive and they make it work, because a) covering for sick people is part of all of our jobs and they know I'd do it for them, b) the support for our users is the most important thing and c) we don't work in a ridiculous environment with a bonus structure designed to make us hate our colleagues.

I would hate to work somewhere that made me feel like you do, OP. If it's that ridiculous of a workplace, find something better for your soul.

I hope you don't believe a Lemsip can cure a cold, OP? All it does is alleviate some of the symptoms. Doesn't make you better, doesn't make you less infectious, doesn't make the cold less likely to develop into something serious.

And if you have anything even as banal as high blood pressure, the pharmacy will (rightly) refuse to sell it to you.

This incident is the latest in a pattern of behaviour- whenever a busy time hits she is ill. Now, she may be genuinely ill but the pattern is clear, she can’t cope with any upturn in workload. However, in this industry peaks and troughs are an inevitable feature. It’s at these points that the team have to pull together and get all hands on deck. In our place the atmosphere is good, it’s actually a lot of fun and really satisfying when we complete the challenge together.
Maybe though she just finds it too stressful and that makes her ill. A person who can’t cope with that, for whatever reason isn’t very well suited to this kind of work. Once in a while is ok but when it happens again and again it puts too much strain on all the rest of the team and that is bad for their health in turn.

I lead major projects and went into work with a heavy cold 3 weeks before deadline so as to not let the team down

I fucked up royally because i couldnt focus properly... because I was ill... and ended up creating more work for myself and others who had to rectify my mistakes - which would have impacted seriously on our customers and cost the company a fortune had they not have been picked up in time.

If you are ill, you stay at home

YABU