Sickness & not being believed?

[NinjaPig]

I am the first to admit I don't have a great sickness record - I had around 5 weeks off after Mum died last year & have also has D&V.

I walked to work on Wednesday, to keep the service running, but when I got home, was quite ill (no idea why) & as I work in the NHS, was not allowed to return till today - I followed protocol & phoned in on Friday to advise my return.

However, as I was joking around on the Wednesday about having a "snow day" with my boys, I feel that they're now assuming that it's what I did (even though I was genuinely vomiting) and are being a little 'off' with me.

How do I get them to see that I really was ill & not milking it (like a lot of the other staff do?)

Bumping

Were you looking after your children when you were off sick?

You don't have a great track record and you were joking about taking a snow day before you went sick? Err... you won't get anyone to believe it now. Work up your track record and don't laugh and joke about sickies immediately before taking one, obviously.

@SomeKnobend did you read the post? Five weeks off after a bereavement, that's hardly lots of short 'can't be arsed to get out of bed, I'll phone in sick' sort of illnesses that I would imagine would be fairly obvious as taking the piss. And joking about a snow day in the circumstances? I'm sure lots of people did.

To be honest if one of my team ended up poorly after joking about a snow day I’d probably have a laugh with them about it and tell them they jinxed themselves. It doesn’t sound like you’ve had a particularly awful record, if you exclude the time off for bereavement then you’ve actually only got one other absence that you mentioned.

People get ill, it’s never convenient for you or for work but it will happen whilst we are still human. As long as you are still within whatever levels are acceptable at your place of work then stop beating yourself up and just crack on with your work as usual.

@mirime I did read the post, where the op said herself "I don't have a great sickness record". Whether there was a load of short periods off as well I don't know as the only detail was "and I've had d&v" that could be 2 lots now (including the Weds-Fri just gone), or it could be more. Either way I think my comment was fine.

I know it seems unfeeling, but it's unusual in the public sector to have 5 weeks off for a bereavement, unless it's unusually tragic, e.g. the death of a child. When my father died, I was given the day he died, the next day to go to the undertaker's and the day of the funeral. Fortunately, my brother was able to take a fortnight to support our mother and sort out various forms.

This may be colouring colleagues' reactions to Op taking time off.

WGAF what colleague thinks and jest about. It's between you and management how you manage your sicktime/leave/daysoff etc.

Thanks for your replies, with regards to the bereavement, I'd been caring for mum, in between working, running a home (my husband was fantastic) & driving back & forth for a hour each day 3 times a week - I basically had a breakdown when she died.

I think the main problem is that a colleague is consistently "milking it" & I don't want to be tarred with the same brush. I do worry about things excessively though