To ask why some people behave like illness is a moral failing?

[Merryoldgoat]

I’ve seen it on a few threads lately but I’ve met people who think it too.

It’s like they either think the sheer luck not to get ill makes them superior in some way or that you’re some kind of massive piss-taker if you take any time off for a cold.

I mentioned on a thread ages ago that I’d had three sick days one year - 1 for a migraine and two for a heavy cold. People acted like I should be on absence management.

I KNOW there are some people who take the piss, but AIBU to think that generally, if you’re ill, it’s shitty luck and you need to do what you need to, to get better.

As an aside, wouldn’t you rather sick people stay home and not infect the rest of the workforce?

Totally agree OP.

Vomited at 8PM once, stayed off the next day. Was ambushed questioned the day after why I hadn't come in. Erm, so you didn't catch it?

Yep. This is awful in teaching - there is a total expectation that you drag yourself in unless you are on your death bed. I used to, but ten years in I've realised that employers will take, take, take and actually, I'm in charge of treating my body when ill, not them. It's still hard though - especially as every school I've worked in has required you to send in cover work, so you end up sat in bed / in the bathroom writing lesson plans at 7am!

I'm dying today dying might be a bit dramatic and I feel awful and cancelled my activities for the day. The response from my husband "you're always ill". Like it's being made up or something. Believe me I'd rather not feel like this, I've got shit to do!!!!! I also have a chronic illness which causes a lot of pain and when it's in flare up I get a lot of comments about the frequency I become unwell. Actually colds and things I rarely get, maybe 2 or 3 bad ones a year but my illness flares up every few days. I'm not making it up, not much I can do about it. But you'd think I was effecting the rotation of the earth or something with the way people react.

Some martyred individual dragged themselves into my then workplace with an appalling cold / flu a few years ago, and infected loads of us. People ended up being off sick all over the building for days at a time, some of them with nasty chest infections. Then people kept trying to come back too soon and ended up having to be off again. Most of those were people who were never off sick in the normal way of things - it was a horrible bug!

Someone dragging themselves in caused far more disruption than that one, initial person having had a few days off would have done

I think taking days off for a cold is a bit of a failing to be honest.

In any company I’ve ever worked for three individual absences would out you right on the edge of management procedures I’m afraid.

It may not always be fair but 4 absences in one year is the limit if what is considered acceptable.

Because they believe its something you can control, and therefore they are more in control and thus are better than you.

I think taking days off for a cold is a bit of a failing to be honest

Another example of the worrying lack of empathy people display on MN. Like if you have 3 day periods you just can't grasp for for some women they last a fortnight and they ruin clothes. "It doesn't happen to me so it doesn't happen".

I have had 2 days off sick in the last 5.5 years. One was for a very nasty cold.

I do not believe that I have a "failing" and am generally very healthy. But sometimes, something horrible just gets you.

The illest I've ever felt in my life was with a really bad cold. I don't know why people use colds as an example of an illness that doesn't count. They're absolutely debilitating and make it virtually impossible to focus or concentrate.

It harks back to the 'stiff upper lip' attitude, when weakness of any kind was seen as lack of character!

I grew up in a house where that was the prevailing attitude and even now I literally have to be admitted to hospital before I will take time off work or actually admit to any kind of illness. On the one hand it is quite handy as a single parent, because being ill isn't an option, on the other hand it is total madness and probably means it take me much longer to get better from relatively trivial illnesses because I don't rest up.

I wish this would change but I know a couple of teachers who were sniffy about s colleague being off because their temp had gone above 40 and they could both quote times when they’d been in work with very high temperatures.
Sitting at home with ds with vomiting and squits I’m wishing there was more could be done to prevent it. I’m imagining a sick marshal like the fire marshal who goes round with a thermometer before you get in. Would be chaos for a year but after that would be bliss.

BirdieInTheHand - I assumed that the OP meant a fever/joints aching/coughing/spluttering cold, not just mild sniffles?

In general, it always irritates me when someone comes in with a heavy cold anyway. I live with someone who is immuno-compromised with serious respiratory problems. People spreading those germs around can put lives at risk. But apparently this matters not to Sandra from Accounts who wants to complain about how we shouldn't shirk our filing responsibilities.

Unfortunately I'm one of those lucky people that is always ill, I have a couple of chronic illnesses, I was also lucky enough to have a manager who never beleived anyone was genuinely ill, she would look for the "real reason" and make things up in her head to justify it! She once came into the office, a few days before Xmas, in full flow of a vomiting illness - and did a home visit on someone who was on long term sick and immunocompromised!! I lost what little respect I had for her after that...

Some employers are of the, "if it breathes, it can work," school of thought and so I'm not surprised that people might be scared of the consequences of not turning up.

I'm on immunosuppressants too so any illness can be deadly.

I hate it when people drag themselves in and cough and snot all over everything. Fucking off home with your germs. Frankly. I once had to send my boss home because she came in and announced that she'd been throwing up etc all night. It was norovirus and one of our colleagues has an immunocompromised husband in a wheelchair... I don't usually get shirty with management but on the occasion I basically lost it. So selfish... add to that that she got sick pay and none of the rest of us did! Grrr. It's not a character failing to take a few days of work to get better. It is a character failing to be completely inconsiderate to others.

Fuck off home*

Yes, sick people should look after Number 1 - themselves. And fuck the healthy ones. When I was a manager I always said "stay at home if you are unwell and come back when you are better". Sadly, our sickness management policy forced them to come back too early, those fucking "trigger points" for "concern". Concern, my arse.

Those who blasted you for 3 days off are the types in management/aspirational upwardly mobile wankers who want to impress neighbours, friends, have expensive weddings, holidays in "fashionable" places, want to own a lot of property, care about "ambitions", have careers not jobs - i.e. quite a tiring, if not altogether revolting, type. Avoid them and nevermind what they say.

I’m a teacher (currently on mat leave). If we take days off willy nilly we are chastised. There has to be a very, very good reason why you are not in work. When the weather was bad at the beginning of this year for example, a colleague of mine could not get her car out whatsoever. She lives 30 miles away from college but rather than just not come in, she felt she had an obligation to her class so found a train that was running.

The common cold is not a good enough reason I’m afraid. I reckon I’m one of the posters on that thread you’re aiming this at. I pointed out if everyone with a cold took the day off work, the country would grind to a halt. It’s true. How many people have a cold at any given time especially in winter? It would be ridiculous. I know colds make you feel like shit but they’re not a life or death situation.

I nearly got fired for having the flu once.
My first job as a teenager. High temperature, nothing I said made sense for 2 days. My Mum had to ring in to let them know.
Next shift got called in for a disciplinary. Apparently I should’ve called, despite not being able to string a decent sentence together. Also apparently my one day off accounted to a 30% sickness rate (I think I’d just started). Her maths was completely off but I thought that wasn’t the best time to question. I also had absolutely no control over getting the flu.
I also ended up in hospital once due to tonsillitis (got so big I couldn’t breathe) and the college kept ringing my Dad telling him that I had been absent and needed to come in urgently as exams were coming up. I think he got very very sarcastic with them.
I get ill very easily and fairly extremely sometimes so I’d rather not be infected by people coming in when policy says they shouldn’t!

This makes me despair. I have a raft of long term conditions. When I'm well, I'm really fucking well and I have what used to be called a 'strong constitution' - great stamina in ways, can keep going.

But when I'm sick - well, it hits hard. Everything scrambles, as a type 1 diabetic sugars go crazy from infection.

At the moment, I'm trying to breathe through the nausea of a bastard period enough to stand up without vomming, so I can pick up my bag and go to an interview. My blood pressure is low. I'm fairly uneasy about getting down the stairs, but hoping against hope that after a dodgy start the movement will start to drag blood pressure up and I'll be ok. Equally, I might faint as happens regularly. There's a shit bit where when I'm passing out I can't be certain if it's blood pressure or blood sugar, even though in general I always feel my hypos so I never pass out from those - but it makes me panic because while passing out from blood pressure is not a risk, if I have a hypo when passed out I'm in serious trouble. So in turn, this upsets me.

Sorry but it annoys me when people can't see the catch 22 of having a bunch of illnesses aggravating each other and assuming you're a weakling for struggling.

I blame school. People who asked their parent if they could stay home for illness parents who didn't want to give up thief day to look after you and were treated like fakers and liars who were just trying to avoid school! I had to be in some kind of organ failure level illness to stay home!

This irritates the absolute life out of me. If you come in and you are sick, you may pass it to me. I may not get it, but I may give it to my DC... who will not be able to go to school/nursery and I will have to take the time off to look after them because YOU don’t want it to look bad on your sick record. Well tough! I work in an office with one other person and a few weeks ago he dragged himself into work looking like death. I jumped up and moved into the office next door and asked him to just email me if it was important. My manager came in and asked what I was doing; I told him and he sent my office mate home. I hope he doesn’t come in like that again!

Birdie

I actually got sent home with that particular cold. It developed from ‘usual’ symptoms (which I obviously went in with) to a very sore throat, extreme sneezing and runny nose. By the evening I had a temperature, cough and no voice.

Explain to me how that’s a failing? Some colds are mild, some are very bad.

I have a chronic illness and if someone came to work with a cold, I was absolutely going to catch it and struggle to shift it no matter what precautions I took. Because I'm immunocompromisrf.

Due to this, I now work at home. I have to isolate myself because clowns like BirdieInTheHand think it's a failing not to come to work when sick with colds. Thanks for being so strong in the face of illness while fucking the rest of us over.