No, the important thing isn't that someone rang in - because in what kind of workplace should an employer be grateful that someone, just anyone rang in. Again, it makes me wonder what kind of limited experience people have if the workplace and the low expectations they have of employee behaviour.
When you take a job and sign a contract (which in most cases will spell out that if you are sick you are expected to phone in personally for it to be an authorised absence - maybe not in contract but employees handbook) you actually take on some serious responsibilities, although some people seem to think it is a very laid back arrangement, especially if the staff are young. You contract to provide a service and to behave in a particular way and if you don't behave in an appropriate way it can negatively affect the business.
Although most people don't call in sick when they aren't, the UK economy suffers from a lot if persistent low level absenteeism - so firms do suffer from people faking illness or calling in with minor ailments. Now no one is saying those who are to sick to work should go in at all, of course they shouldn't. But work places have policies and there are standard expectations to try and reduce this. They aren't draconian but usual practices although I'd think some people on here would be surprised and shocked at some of them, because it's almost as if lots of people think work, especially for the young, is just something you do if it's convenient and having a day off for a slight illness or to go shopping or because you feel tired because working is hard if you're young or have a strict boss, is usual and to be accepted as normal.
It is very normal for workplaces to chart periods of absence and for a worker to be called in to discuss absence if they have more than 2 or 3 individual periods of absence in a year - a period is every phase of absence and includes 1 day. Although this might easily be explained by an employee and accepted by the employer, it prompts monitoring and can lead to disciplinary action if it isn't explainable or acceptable. This often makes workers think twice about taking odd days off when they just feel a bit under the weather.
Likewise some places if work don't pay for periods of sickness of less than 3 days - again it is the persistent individual days taken off here and there by those who struggle to maintain reliability at work that is a real problem for business.
Most places will insisit the employee calls in sick themselves and by a certain time of day for that sickness to be authorised for pay - not calling yourself or by that time will result in non payment.
Yes, people get sick and need time off. No one is quibbling with that and it is important that workplaces deal with that correctly and don't harass workers when they call in sick but have policies for pursuing frequent absence in the right way. At the same time, some employees do take thebpiss and are extremely flaky and a lot of the policies above have come about in response to that - because some people do take the piss, these measures are out in place not to prevent those who are genuinely sick taking time to recover, but to make it more difficult for he pisstakers who cost businesses thousands every year, to take the piss. And if it's too easy to take time off with no consequences or inspection at all, human nature means some people will try to take advantage, or set the bar for illness so low that businesses lose out.
This is why most businesses of any size at all have policies which include things like the employee phoning in as standard. Tiny businesses might not and those which haven't really developed staff polices might not, but those that heavens kften are those that suffer from flaky and unreliable staff - those businesses and those which pay so poorly and have such high turnover that decent staff behaviour is less frequent. Perhaps lots on this thread have worked in such businesses or not worked for a long time, which is why they think it's fine to just get someone else to ring in, and that the business should actually be grateful they even did that.
This girl was 16 so might not have known, but can be expected to understand and follow protocol when it's explained to her. It seems other adults might need that basic protocol explained too and I suspect some would get quite a shock if they went to work for many organisations at exactly what is expected of employees. And if you're in work, it doesn't matter if you're a teenager or 65, basic employee behaviour is expected for the wages paid. Those expectations do have to be made clear though.