AIBU or is she a CF?

[Iamnotacerealkiller]

OK fully expect to get flamed here.

There is a woman that i 'work' with she is in an important role however she keep vanishing for months at a time supposedly on sick leave, now fair enough, people get ill and sometime it is stress and mental heath issues that aren't very apparently when you look at people however... I have worked at this place for 4/5 years and for this entire time this woman has been on a cycle of being off for long periods then just as her pay is about to get dropped to half pay she returns. She then has to go off again to spend all the holiday she has accrued so that's another few weeks for a total of about 6-8 months at a time. While she is in we perhaps see her for half a day a week (this is when she is on full time) the role she does involves a lot of meeting and site visits but certainly not enough to fill even half a week. she will frequently saunter in at 10-10:30. She will then go off on sick leave a month or three later.

When she is 'in' she will make all kinds of excuses about why she isn't in that day or is late i.e. family member has gone to hospital (this one happen once a month or so) she has been in a car crash (again) literally it got to the point where i stopped asking her how she was because the response would be ALWAYS be 'oh not good x has happened and now i have to deal with it' i was only making small talk as i hadn't seen her in a while!!

When she is in all she talks about is...

a) How desperately she wants to go to the pub 'can we hold that meeting at our local teehee' 'oh i've had enough already (at 1pm) shall we do for a drink?

b) Whatever disaster has befallen her or someone close to her that day (this is usually a massive as occasionally she will contradict herself about details or who has e.g. broken their wrist, at one point she told me her father, and then a moment later a colleague said oh x won't be in because her son has broken his wrist, huh!!)

c) all the lovely trips away she has booked and what a lovely time she has had at x festival/cruise etc

The only 'work' i have ever seen her do is to complain about the work people have done for her in her absence, i hear a lot of one sided phone calls where she is saying what shit decisions people have made and 'if i was there that wouldn't have happened' etc etc undermining other peoples work often in the middle of them doing it.

We have all had to pick up stuff in her absence and there is frequently stuff that crosses over with her work i have ended up in ridiculous discussions where she has criticized my work (different field to her, and 10 years of experience) and that i don''t know what i'm talking about simply because it is 'interfering' with her part of the project. (her field is creative where as mine is more technical so i'm usually abiding by planning/safety rules or whatever whereas she is just flouncing because pesky rules don't fit with her 'vision') she is generally very difficult to deal with, plays the victim a lot, lots of emotional blackmail.

The managers are all very aware of what is going on, they have even hired permanent contractors people to cover for her because they know how unreliable she is. I think they are afraid of firing her in case she makes a claim of unfair dismissive or claims we are discriminating against someone with MH issues or something as she knows the system so well.

It is also absolutely shit for office moral, she will have these tantrums in the office/ on the phone and then she will say she is stressed and then leave for the rest of day and the rest of us are left in the rubble discussing wtf happened!? I usually end the resulting conversation with 'but maybe we are being unfair, stress is a terrible thing etc etc' but what do you think, is this taking the piss?

Of course it is possible that she has mental health problems AND is a CF at the same time...

I have worked in several high pressure environments over 20 years or so and without a doubt my current place is the most chilled out cushy job i have ever had, basically no hard deadline, lovely staff and atmosphere etc if i had gone off on long term sick i would be back and getting stuck in and being pathetically grateful to those who had covered for me not complaining and make drama!

I am ranting i know but i don't feel like i can properly discuss it at work with anyone without being the office gossip and being potentially harsh so needed a forum to get it all off my chest and ask if i am over-reacting??

Two full time jobs!

Like those men who "work away from home" and actually have two families. But more lucrative, I imagine.

I don't understand the 'public sector' references. I work in the public sector, with very strict attendance management policies which it is standard to implement. Clear time frames to follow, clear rules on keeping in touch, planned meeting points and reports, consequences of loss of pay and dismissal; an effect on performance management, any increase to pay stopped and increments removed.

This sounds more CF than mental health! It's people like this that use mental health as an excuse that gives those of us with genuine mental health diagnosis (i'm bipolar) a bad rap!
In all seriousness it's sounds like alcohol is a big factor here.

Its at the point where i honestly don't know if she realises and is doing it on purpose or genuinely thinks she deserves this time off because work is sooo streesful (she goes on about how stresssful it all is) it really is the most easy going office i have ever known.

I suspect its a bit of both, she has some genuine minor personallity or MH issues, but thinks that this justifies basically taking us for everything in a 'i have contributed for years and now noone respects me so i DESERVE this' kind of way.

Can't identify with this at all.

So glad people mostly agree, i was beginning to think i was being unreasonable.

NinaNoSleep

i believe that's how our system is supposed to work, we have an HR department and everything but i honestly think she has made such a nuisance of herself that management just sign her off as its easier. i know the rest of us feel that way, simple relief that we don't have to deal with her. We also the love the person who is temping to cover the role so long may it continue!

I have heard snippets of conversations that suggest they are pushing for a more permenant end to the problem but its difficult to complete with that level piss taking.

What a waste if money!!!

Years ago I used to work in an NHS management team. There was one guy who was never around - he worked across two sites, so each site thought that he was at the other. Fuck knows where he actually was. He would also miss every deadline for work and when asked about it would sigh, bluster and mumble some incoherent bollocks. He would mansplain my job to me (I was senior to him) and treated all the other female managers like they were stupid and incompetent. He'd bully the administrators (both male and female) and blame them whenever he was caught out not handing in a report or something.

The good news is, we had a really good senior manager and fab HR dept and he was managed out.

Snowysky

Absolutely, i have anxiety and tend towards depression myself so it is a real kick in the teeth. That's the reason i changed jobs to be here because its so laid back and low stress which is why it is so strange she is like this.

My last place was driving me to a mental breakdown. i still only have had 3 days off ever over the two jobs and that is in 7 years! I probably should have had more off in retrospect but i really hate letting people down.

Public Sector! what a surprise!!!! ( ex ps worker)

Hopefully management are working on a way to ease her out. It can be very difficult, because useless whiners like her tend to have a good knowledge of how to play the game, and will run off crying to some ambulance chasing lawyer if the employer doesn't follow every step of procedure. But sooner or later there comes a point where they can do something like retire her on medical grounds or offer her enough of a payoff that she can't turn it down without looking greedy enough to lose any court case she might try to bring (this often happens when the management realise that though that might be expensive, it's cheaper than paying the cunt's salary for another five years on top of the salary for whatever cover they have had to arrange)

Zeezeek, bloody hell, i hope 'managed out' is a euphemism for sacked on gross misconduct!

A friend of our got a job doing website work, he was put in an office with another guy and left...just left. no one came to see him or bring him work. if he asked he was told to wait and someone would be in touch etc etc. he chatted to the other guy, turns out the same had happened to him and he had spent the last 9 months working on his own projects and being paid for full time work doing literally nothing. Our friend left after two weeks...the other guy stayed.

I work in the public sector too (LA) after leaving NHS. I thought both systems were very robust. I was off sick with flu for a week (5 working days and first instance) and I've been told I'm only allowed one more instance of 3+ days and I'll go to stage 1. Which is fine and touch wood I won't get anything else this year. I don't understand how these CF get away with it??

I had a work colleague bitch behind my back yesterday (told to me by another work colleague) for leaving at 4pm. I'd been at work since 7.30am (we have flexi and core hours we 10-4) but apparently 'she works her arse off all week and doesn't get to leave early' like me. She starts work at 9.30/9.45am every day because she couldn't possibly put her only precious child in breakfast club, she needs to speak to the teacher! My 3 DC's go to breakfast and after school club, I'm a lone parent and work FT. But leaving at 4 on a Friday isn't good enough apparently. CF everywhere

I was in a team with someone like that for a while, annoyingly he was meant to be the one in charge and on the big salary.

He didn't drink - at least I don't think so - but either he was off sick, or there was an issue with his ( adult and non SN DS) that seemed to require both he and his DW ( who worked p/t) to take him to the hospital ( non major illnesses) or there were problems with his computer that stopped him dialling into important meetings, or there were traffic issues.

Amazingly when I ratted on him, I was the one who "wasn't stepping up to the mark" and "did I really need him at these meetings". Well yes, because that's what he was bloody paid for. Its amazing how some people get away with this rubbish and even more how their own conscience lets them.

I was off work for 3 months, not because of my bipolar but following a car accident. I was forced to go on it by my manager (who was amazing, and put her staff first!) and my division was handed to my colleague. As my division was 3 times her size, I was in touch daily, checking emails etc. It was amazing the amount of managers that tried to pull a fast one 'snowy said this, snowy said we didn't have to do that' etc, obviously they were all oblivious to Snowy reading this daily.

But the best was one manager who had been given several opportunities with me, then tried to pull a fast one with my colleague. So in the end I sent my colleague an email of actions, and said send this to her. Within 30 minutes of the email going, she was emailing, saying I had authorised all these things (which I hadn't), and calling my colleague a bully. She sent the email out to over 30 other managers.

As it was I seen it almost immediately, and was able to send a 'ignore and it's being dealt with' type email to the 30, and I emailed her manager a scathing email. Within 2 hours she was suspended and facing disciplinary.

Turns out, she was another 'take her max sick leave', return when her pay was about to drop, and repeat. She blamed stress, her mental health etc on her behaviour. Luckily we could evidence that different depertments had given her more than enough support to do her job. I had put in extra resources over a three month period, given her way more than anyone in her area, then not only does she not utilise that support, she lies through her teeth about what I've said, obviously expecting my colleague to believe her, then accuses her of bullying.
Some people really are their own worst enemy!!

This doesn't sound like MH, it's definitely a case of being a CF and very likely she has alcohol problems too. It's awful the way some people use MH problems to justify blatantly taking the Micky.

I also don't understand how public sector workers can take advantage like this. My DH works for the public sector and they're robust when dealing with sick leave, as other PPs have said.

YANBU but your management team will be stuck between a rock and hard place in how to resolve this. I'm such a manager also in the public sector , I have my own MH CF who exhibits very similar behaviour with regards to lengthy absences, and I have to handle the morale of the his colleagues who see him getting away with this. My CF is also a union member, so has union representation in every meeting to run rings around our HR department;. Through OT assessments they have managed to have not only their MH but another physical health issue classed as "life long" thus meaning that they class as disabled under the Equality Act, so HR have to make reasonable adjustments and tread even more carefully.

I'm rather glad that this person will not be my problem much longer as I'm moving to a different role. But I pity their colleagues who will continue to have to put up with this waster who knows how to play the game.

I’m PS as well and I’m glad that we have long term sick pay and policies that support people when they need it, when they are genuinely unable to work. BUT there are some CF who absolutely abuse the system, through long periods of absence (stress/anxiety) usually hand in hand with a grievance or disciplinary issue and often use it as a way of engineering a financial settlement.

I'm sure every office must have a CF like the one you've just described! There's a woman in my team who's exactly the same. I just wish HR had the balls to deal with it as it massively impacts on the rest of the team.

My DD has had to manage people like this! She had one woman who always went off sick on the Thursday or Friday before a bank holiday Monday. Had done for years and years and no one called her on it. My DD went back into the HR archives and confronted her with the evidence. Tears, blustering " this is bullying" , but miraculously her health improved and she managed to keep healthy over bank holiday weekends from then on.

YANBU

There seem to be far too many CF who abuse the system. If management is doing it right, they can still get rid of people. No one has to put up with that nonsense.

the sad thing is that this behaviour ultimately hurt people who have long term genuine medical issues and can lose their job because they are genuinely unable to go to work.

(she tends to overblow other people's reactions to her and take things very personally) so a normal discussion where someone disagrees she takes very personally and it becomes a big argument where her only reply is 'ive been doing this for years so you should listen, im the expert!!' never actually addressing the real concern. she will take this as a massive confrontation (i know because this was me a couple of times!!)
I am a manager and have a colleague just like this in a neighbouring department with whom we frequently interact.. Screaming and rude to staff and clients, many personal problems, many tasks that she couldn't/wouldn't do, manipulation of hours which her lovely boss covered for ( he took early retirement partly because of her), loads of sick leave due to stress (all seemingly of her own making).
Finally, new boss starts disciplinary and suspension action when clients refuse to see her, en masse. She then collapses just before she is notified of suspension. Extensive medical tests can find no physical cause but now has 6 months off full pay before coming back to be suspended. I feel sorry for her but also for the others that now have to cover her work for the next 6 months and feel that it sails class to the wind of what's morally right whilst being within the letter of the law.

This isn’t your business. However I would imagine that behind the scenes either the management have a plan to get rid of her, or they know more about her situation than you do.

Either way, they aren’t going to tell you about it.

nakedscientist

that's a good way of putting it. yes all the 'stress' was caused by her own decisions and attitudes or because people wouldn't put up with her shit!

Iamnot - he was basically given enough rope to hang himself!

*This isn’t your business. However I would imagine that behind the scenes either the management have a plan to get rid of her, or they know more about her situation than you do.

Either way, they aren’t going to tell you about it*

I wouldn't be so sure . This has been going on for 4/5 years.
I think it is definitely ops business as others including the OP have to deal with this woman when she is there and deal with her work when she isn't.

Public sector worker here aswell. We have those people too who take the p with their sick absence.

Where I work they relatively recently implemented a new absence management policy and a few long term "offenders" have been sacked under it. Generally everyone likes the policy because it's got rid of those people who take the piss, and if someone if off long term you have more confidence they actually need to be away from work rather than working the system. The new policy also provides more stringent requirements for managers to adhere to when people return, so they can't do a half arsed job as was the norm before, and have to support their team members and help them stay at work Before, you could be off work for six months before anyone even contacted you, providing you kept the sick notes rolling in!

They also changed the sick pay t&c's for new starters so there's no incentive to go off sick for months at a time.

So hopefully your CF employee IS being dealt with but it's a slow process. Even with the serial offenders where I work, it took months and sometimes years to dismiss people under the new policy.