To think this is mean

[lizzlebizzle33]

Where I work (very big well known coffee shop) if you are Ill unexpectedly you are required to cover your shift yourself or you have to come in.

This morning a young girl I work with has messages on our group chat to say she is being sick and in a lot of pain, all our store manager has to say is she needs to call everyone to ask if they can do her shift today.

She has been very short and rude with her the poor girl, so now in between going to the toilet to be sick she is having to ring around other staff and other stores to try and get her shift covered.

AIBU to think this is just mean? Why is this not the job of the manager? I've never worked somewhere before that would make you feel this bad about being ill. Nobody wants to be ill, I really don't think it's fair.

My money’s on Starbucks. The company that’s v creative about their tax situation.

Poor girl! It’s ridiculous

I work in a care home with a ‘good’ rating. Every year, people with chest infections, flu and sickness are pressured to come in.

And every year several elderly people catch the bugs and die.

Kitty it so happens I agree. I’m sure there’s a huge problem with skiving amongst younger staff. I know I did it as a youngster myself. People who call in ‘sick’ all the time are a pain in the arse when you know it’s a load of old hokey and they just can’t be arsed/want to do something else/fancy a day off. I get that.
But that’s no reason to make it policy for people claiming illness to find their own cover or come in anyway!

For every ten skivers you’re going to get a handful of genuine cases, serving food to the public! Plus - it’s fucking CRUEL.

Vile treatment of workers. Sadly, I'm not surprised. It's getting worse for the working force, not better. Rights are being stripped away...

Remember the good old days when Personnel would sort this out?

It’s shocking. A managers job is to manage, not his staff’s.

If you have a child with d&v they must stay off school for 48 hours AFTER last bout of sickness to avoid risk of spreading bugs. Working with food and the public, I would say, is more important to observe good practice.

I’m just going to meet friends at a coffee shop, I hope I don’t get more than I pay for!

Frequent piss takers are what absence policies are for. Not just implicating a policy like this.
I’ve been in a new job just over a month. I had to take some time of to look after ds, when I got back I was expecting a dressing down or extending probation. My boss sat me down and asked how ds is and if I needed more time off. Quite a change from what I’m used too. If you think your job is safe enough name and shame. Probably would find your contract ended though.

No, I think you’re right - the policy is absurd. But the idea that no-one pulling a fast one would, for added verisimilitude, set their alarm for the wee small hours so they can send a ‘Help! I’m shitting like a mink and Keith is insisting I find my own cover!’ is naive. And D&V is the magic word to get you off work for 48 hrs - everyone in hospitality knows that.

YANB.
People with DV are being forced to go into work at and food and drinks company.
It's a wonder the place hasn't shut down.

It's a ridiculous policy and when people say they support this sort of practice it really does affect my judgement of them. Do you really want to use a service provided by people with infectious illnesses? Do you honestly think it's not a manager's job to, well, manage?

How do they enforce that then?

So someone is too ill to come into work, can't find cover-how do they make them go in?

I can see that the having to find cover is probably to stop people taking the piss, but can't see how it works when people are really ill.

Diddle they can't but they can and do create a culture where the workers know if they don't come in or find someone else to come in then they won't have a job to come back to or their working environment will become such that it's just not worth having the job.

diddl when you’re on a zero hours contract and/or and temp contract your income can disappear with no explanation or come back.

It IS awful. But so is having people go sick all the time and trying to run a shop/bar etc. I'm not saying your friend isn't really sick, but people can be remarkably quick to 'go sick' at short notice in customer facing jobs. Finding a replacement once, when you're sick is one thing. Doing it everyday as a manager is a nightmare. Especially when you're already having to stand in yourself for that absent member of staff until you find someone, so can't do all the other things a manager is responsible for.

I sympathise, OP - I used to have the same problem when I worked in Topshop a fair few years ago.

The manager expected you to ask every other staff member if they could cover before they'd bother trying to sort it themselves. And if you did phone in sick, she'd scream at you on the phone claiming you weren't ill, you were just hungover/lying/being dramatic.

It was awful because most of us were on zero hour contracts. You knew that if the manager took a dislike to you, you wouldn't have a shift for weeks on end.

I'm guessing a big chain that doesn't have time to have localised HR policies (because this sounds like the sort of wheeze a central London dweller would come up with.

From my experience of big chain brain-dead policies, Starbucks sounds a shoe-in. (And you just know it'll be because they don't just import coffee but US working practices. Sorry practises).

That is awful. Of course this is the manager’s job. When I had a job in a restaurant, if you wanted to swap a shift because you had plans, then you were supposed to find someone to do your shift. But for illness, no way should you be phoning round your colleagues.

shocking!

It's disgusting allowing someone who is contagious sick to come into a workplace serving food & beverages to the public. Name and shame the company on social media.

I used to work for W H Shit and they made me come in and work my shift 2 days after having 3 of my wisdom teeth removed under GA (more complex than usual wisdom tooth removal- as they were not fully erupted and had curled roots that were very close to the main nerve in my jaw). Apparently they couldn't get cover, so it was that, or they said I'd lose my job.
I had stitches in my gums and also had a lot of facial bruising and a black eye as well as being on very strong painkillers and in considerable pain and still recovering from GA, so agreed that I would come in if I could be off the shop floor and in stock room working on putting away the deliveries or similar as opposed to a customer facing role.

They put me on the till even though I could barely speak. Cue every customer making smart arse remarks about my bruises, wanting to know if I'd been in a fight/accident, and asking me to (painfully) repeat myself because they couldn't understand what I was saying. I still had to ask every fucking customer if they wanted to buy chocolate / bottled water / a free copy of The Times or whatever other crap as well. It's a small branch, and I was the only cashier on, and I was also left to cover the phones. What really pissed me off was that there were several other staff members dealing with the delivery upstairs, that the management could have swapped with me! This went on for the whole bloody two weeks that my mouth was healing, as soon as it was better I suddenly found that my shifts went back to a combination of till, shop floor and stock room again.

I think it was just their way (the store manager and assistant manager) of showing who was in charge, because I said I would only come back to work earlier than planned if I was off the shop floor for a while, or else I would have to take those days off until I was in less pain and the swelling and bruising had subsided. If I hadn't been so desperately in need of the money at the time I would have walked out and told them to stick it. The final straw was another member of staff was off for 6 months with an ongoing arm injury (shoulder & elbow I think), she was back for two weeks, then went on annual leave for another two weeks but kept her job, I don't begrudge her that, but I do begrudge that they wouldn't allow me a proper recovery time before returning to work. The difference being, that when other staff member was there she was fairly flexible to cover other sickness absences and holidays as all her kids were adults, whereas I was a single mum with two young kids who couldn't always do additional cover at the drop of a hat. I also think that because we were in different situations as in I desperately relied on my wage, she worked for 'pocket money & holiday spends' (her words, not mine, and again nothing wrong with that), but I felt like the management used this to their advantage and to coerce me into returning to work sooner than the hospital advised me. I was not in a position to say fuck it, if they are going to be shitty with me I'm quitting this job.
I'm self employed and skint now, but handing in my notice there (approx 3 years later) was the best thing I ever did xx

My friend is an assistant manager in a Starbucks and I know they don’t operate this system. Management find cover and if they can’t then the manager or assistant manager have to cover.

I’m not expecting this to be the procedure in every shop though.

Yeah I want to know where this is so I can avoid it. It’s not only mean, it’s morally wrong, unhygienic and possibly unlawful

It reading stories like this that you realise how over rated employee rights are ...

This is terrible.

Name and shame!

Data protection issue too. I bet their data protection policy only covers the company (ie management/HR) keeping their contact details, not contact details being passed out to other members of staff.

Data protection issue too. I bet their data protection policy only covers the company (ie management/HR) keeping their contact details, not contact details being passed out to other members of staff.

I suspect they'd weasel it into being an "operational necessity"