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?

Gone

I wondered that. My son is one of those ‘sick all the time’ kids and I’m asthmatic so when he gets sick, I get sick and often worse and one of the reasons I took my current role is my manager said in my interview that they’d be flexible with working from home and making up days to accommodate childcare issues and sickness [of my child]. It seems to be so unusual for employers to be kind these days.

Sorry for lack of punctuation

I was a teacher in a former life and worked in a school that had a high number of immunosuppressed children during the same time that I was pregnant. I was regularly absolutely fuming at parents that would send their obviously ill children into school... but now I see why! Because there are companies out there that penalise the parents for sick days, so god only knows what would happen to their jobs if they had to take time off to care for their sick child.

Gone unless someone is signed off long-term sick and a temporary replacement can come in, other people in the organisation have to pick up the work of those who are off sick.

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

I disagree. I prefer to take 1-2 days off to nip the cold in the bud rather than let it fester (and infect others in an open plan office) and then take 4-5 days because I'm really ill. I'm not a martyr, and studies showed that turning up for work when you're down with something causes heart problems. I'm not willing for work to do that to me.

I would rather someone didn't come to work if they are not up to it, and I often send colleagues home who I feel are pushing themselves, or who sometime could just do with a day or two off, and while I accept the theoretical arguments posted above by many sound reasonable , the actual facts are that the average cold lasts 5 days plus , so taking a day off is not keeping the germs out of the workplace.
I think we need an illness that somewhere between a cold and flu, when I get a really bad cold every couple of years it goes on chest and I end up on inhalers and steroids, I hate saying at work I have a bad cough., it sounds so minor compared to the hell i'm going through trying to cough up a lung.

But OP you may accept that when you work with people a good while you know if they ring in and say they feel wretched they mean it, three days off in a year is nothing and all for good reasons, but there are those where its no surprise its Monday morning and they were at a festival all weekend, funnily the 8 sick days they have had this year were all Mondays and usually when they showed up on Tuesday there was no sign of the illness.

Even more annoying are the people (specifically my DH and DM) who think anyone taking painkillers or cold remedies are morally inferior to people who tough it out. DH will be pale and wincing from a headache but god forbid he takes a paracetamol. DM will complain endlessly of her sore throat/streaming eyes/runny nose but recoils in horror at the mention of a Lemsip. As if somehow their recovery will be a superior sort of recovery If they suffer more beforehand. They drive me crazy.

As someone with a lifelong health condition it pisses me off when people come to work ill as I usually end up being hospitalised if I catch it.

Blackrock

I absolutely agree excessive sick leave needs to be managed - it’s not acceptable to have people taking the piss. I’m not saying I have all the answers but the vibe you get from some people that you are worthless just because you’re unwell is really nasty.

@Loonoon

My DH was like that until I introduced him to Solpadeine. He’s never looked back.

GoneWishing I have a chronic illness and I was ‘let go’ with mutual consent after exhausting the sickness policy.

I used to go to work when I really shouldn’t have - I was sick and fainted on more than one occasion and then was not even fit to drive home! It was more for me than than my employer though, I was having a very hard time coming to terms with the fact I was ill and would be for the rest of my life.

My employers were actually fantastic, never used to Rota me in and so if I actually made it to work I was a bonus!

Wrt businesses who trigger special measures after three sickness days a year deal with those with chronic illnesses? Are they just fired?

Chronic/serious illnesses are dealt with separately. Documentation would be available from the relevant medical team and a long term plan put in place with HR/Occupational Health/Management/the employee which works for everyone.

I know the OP said the companies I referred to were a disgrace but they dealt very well with employees with cancer, depression etc

A colleague of mine who’s child had cancer was also dealt with very sensitively and given as much time off and support as needed.

The four day rule refers to four individual occurrences of illness in a year. So if you are off ill for a week following a surgery that’s only one occurrence.

Sorry, haven't read all of it. GoneWishing asked about long term illness/chronical condition? In good workplaces there are policies for managing that, meaning things like phased return to work, reasonable adjustments (this could be from special chairs to reduced hours or relocation to another department on the same pay), work from home arrangements. These are usually big companies, and small businesses are probably the worst (the kind where you're expected to ride it out and "not let everyone down" kinda bullshit).

In my twenties I neglected sinusitis, thinking it would be "better tomorrow" but it got much much worse before I went to a doctor. For years after, every cold I got went to my sinuses and it was agonising. Colds can be mild or severe.

Thinking back, there have been many times when I should have stayed off and got better more quickly. Most notable was a couple of years ago when, along with most of the rest of the staff, I had a persistent cough that went on for about two months after the feeling ill part was over. We all worked on, three of us with cracked ribs from the coughing.

I think the attitude towards this is probably related to the number of people directly affected by an absence. For example most teachers have the attitude you're complaining about, but remember that a teacher is probably teaching more than 100 children that day who will miss out on a quality lesson and instead get poor quality cover work (or with sixth form, no cover at all). Whereas if you have an office job and can catchup on the missed work the next day, well I can see how it's not such a big deal to take time off.

I hate it when colleagues come in with colds and spend days coughing and sneezing over everything. It's alright for them and their smug "keep calm, it's only a cold" attitude but I've got asthma so when I inevitably catch their bloody cold it goes straight to my chest and I end up with an infection.

Re: colds and how they spread. I've found that a flu jab actually protects from getting a cold for about 5-6 months, so if you have it in autumn, winter season and some of spring get covered. This is my experience, don't know how efficient flu jabs are for others in regard of colds.

In the past, at work, I would get quite paranoid about catching someone's cold before long awaited holidays and ruining it. So I moved away from coughing people, use disinfectant gel and with friends we had this agreement: if one of us has a cold, we'll postpone the scheduled meeting/drink, and no offence was taken.

@MargoLovebutter - yes, of course, sadly. I don't have any good solutions here, really, more wondering about how things go. I suppose Bumbumtaloo's example must be fairly common. Many people's reality is that they're not "sick enough" to be on benefits, so are just doing their very best to struggle along and trying to stay in employment, and with that in mind three absences a year sounds quite little.

I guess DH is lucky to work in a large company, in a large team, where a single person's absence won't immediately double another person's workload, and people can be moved inbetween teams; and in a field where working from home is possible and common.

In his situation of course there's always been good documentation, GP or a consultant's letters, and OH has been aware of longterm diagnosis. It must be worse for someone with a longterm condition that regularly flares up in a way that doesn't require consultant care but is debilitating anyway, or that makes the person more susceptible to catching the common bugs doing rounds.

unless someone is signed off long-term sick and a temporary replacement can come in, other people in the organisation have to pick up the work of those who are off sick

not necessarily, especially if there are non-generic, non-replaceable skills involved. For example a person who deals with X language won't know Z language which specialist is ill. Sometimes - horror of horrors! - work and customers just have to wait. We all get ill.

The trend now is that people drag themselves in with all sorts of germs, which doesn't make you in the least bit heroic. How do these people know if they have a colleague or family member, who would get really ill if they caught the bug?

From my management days, it was a 3rd occasion off sick that triggered an informal chat about things. I'm pretty sure most companies focus on occasions not days.

Those that take the moral high ground don't deserve a medal as they went to work sat with D&V infecting the whole office. (Hypothetically!)

When it comes to forums, social media, anything online, if I see something that winds me up I just ignore it. It really isn't worth the bother arguing with people who feel superior for whatever reason.

As a manager I'd prefer you stay at home over infecting colleagues & possibly customers. I recall as a teenager working in a shop, I had a really bad cold that just got worse as the day went by. People didn't want to be served by me, due to the risk of catching what I had.

I would definitely suggest if you see something that appears personal or winds you up personally, scroll past, give it 10 minutes, then see if you think there's any point replying. I'd guess 9/10 the answer is no.

In my first year at my current job I had three major chest infections in a year was signed off by a doctor and hospitalised at one point. But I was still forced to repeatedly go in and 8 years on my co workers still bring up that it was a pisstake.

Funnily enough the 2nd/3rd chest infections came about after colleagues came into work with nasty colds and impacted my already week immune system

Drives me insane. I didn't choose to be ill!! Just because you weren't as bad doesn't make you better than me

I've been on the receiving end of this in the past. I worked in a shop in the late '90s and I had very few days off sick. In the 6 years I was there,I had 5 days off for illness,2 were when I had sciatica,2 for a suspected blood clot in my leg (which thankfully turned out not to be) and one for an absolutely stinking cold. When I went back in after the 2 days absence with the suspected blood clot,the manager said that she was thinking of reporting me to the head office,for 'frequent and prolonged absences'! I was like WTAF?! In the end she didn't,but only because I said I thought she was being totally unreasonable,in view of the fact that in the previous 6 years I'd had only THREE days off due to illness! Shortly after this incident,I found another job and left.

GoneWishing I’m actually one of the lucky ones, for want of a better word, I’m actually in receipt of benefits and my husband has given up work to become my carer. But it wasn’t easy to get here. For far too long I didn’t want to believe I was ill, it then went to they won’t give me anything anyway - it was actually the reaction I got from others including the people that carried out my assessments that made me believe I was as ill as they said to now being made to feel like benefit scum but people who don’t understand how the system works or what you actually have to do to get the benefits you are entitled to. Sorry to derail the thread.

I worked for a company where you would be walloped with disciplinary proceedings for a ridiculously low amount of sickness and I used to have to drag myself into work sometimes, passing my bugs onto everyone else.

Now I live in a different country where the attitude is practically opposite and people stay off all week with a sniffle, while coming in while sick is strongly disapproved off. Never had any hassle from my new bosses about sickness, just concern that I’m fit to return.

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

That’s a stupid thing to say. When I have a bad cold I literally have to have a tissue clamped to my face all the time, because I’m just constantly streaming with snot. Decongestants won’t touch it when it’s like that. I can’t do anything except mop up, and it’s grim and disgusting for anyone else in the vicinity. I think attempting to work in that state would be a total failure of common sense and consideration for others.
And as for it not being a life or death situation, well, no, it isn’t. But neither are most jobs, and it’s not Victorian times, so we get to avoid abject misery for the noble cause of lining shareholders’ pockets. That’s a good thing.