Social media use whilst off work sick

[DesertOrchid558]

At work we've seen colleagues who are on long term sickness or 'working from home' posting images of themselves raising a glass or happily socialising ..either posted themselves or tagged in by other people. Not to discredit their situation but it is hard to swallow for those of us stuck for hours in a hot office day in day out. Maybe it's part of their recovery process?

I mean the logical course of action would be to see if they can work from home.

Yes, I agree. However, changes of working pattern/shift aren't always available on demand - there can be all sorts of politics and red tape in the way of new requests.

But then I don’t really get adults who are miffed by what other adults do

Surely you can see that, if someone is stuck in a hot office and sees another person, supposedly working too, apparently living it up in a restaurant or bar, that would be rather annoying?

I don't really get how an adult in that situation wouldn't realise it's tactless, to say the least, to post pictures of that sort of thing on social media.

When I was off for a couple of weeks with stress I chose not to post on my public fb but did post on a private group where the audience knew the situation.

My BIL was on long term sick for ages. On social media you’d see him having expensive holidays and fancy meals out. My DSis is a high earner and hates staying in! BIL also has a serious, life-shortening lung condition and has now been retired on health grounds. He was very upset about this, he was desperate to return to work but all attempts failed as he wasn’t capable. I’d hate anyone to judge him like this.

@jacqueshammer

I think there is a difference between stopping to have a break and watch the cricket and drinking wine and socialising whilst you are being paid to work. That is what I think is wrong.

I found an employee who was claiming SSP posted on our fb page about his dj ing work!

A relative of mine is currently on long-term sick leave and her social media is full of pictures of her travelling, going to wonderful places, drinking cocktails and champagne and spending time with friends and family. She has recently been diagnosed with multiple brain tumours and has good days and bad days. Anyone who wants to judge her can fuck right off.

I think this depends entirely on individual circumstances. If you are signed off with certain conditions then socialising or a holiday can form part of the recovery process for other conditions it may not be appropriate.

I can see how people get annoyed if they are doing extra work and are put under more stress due to their colleague being off sick. Seeing them appear carefree and having fun on SM is like rubbing salt in the wounds. You also get ‘repeat offenders’ when it comes to absence from work, chances are it isn’t the first time someone else has had to pick up their slack.

A colleague of mine is off sick because of stillbirth a week before due. I so hope that she will manage to get out of the house and see friends and family.
Regarding wfh then I'd never seen anybody posting on sm while supposely working so don't know if that happens

You are BVVU in my opinion.

A good friend of mine had her second (second!) unexplained heart attack at the age of 39 last year, five years after her first one. She was signed off work for quite some time as doctors couldn't understand why it had happened (she is healthy weight, on medication after her first heart attack etc) and thought it might be stress related, plus she needed time to recover from it.

About a month after it happened a group of us went out for dinner and she asked us not to put pictures on SM in case anyone from her work saw. I thought she was being paranoid but having seen your post and some of the replies on here, can see she was not. 90% of the time she was at home, tired and trying to recover. She had one nice meal out with friends and because of people like you, had to worry about being seen and judged by people at work.

So yes, you are being unreasonable. Being sick doesn't mean you don't have the right to any sort of social life.

I can see how people get annoyed if they are doing extra work and are put under more stress due to their colleague being off sick. Seeing them appear carefree and having fun on SM is like rubbing salt in the wounds.

Yes, and some places encourage this kind of thing to divide a team. Especially if it's long term sick, no one should be being put under extra pressure or having work load increased to cover an absentee, for whatever reason. Short term it's practical and doable, but longer term it smacks of bad management to not sort something else out so colleagues aren't under extra pressure. Unfortunately it's become commonplace, I suspect because it saves money.

Depends on the type of job and the illness (and the company sickness policy... some of them are utterly stupid). If they work from home, as long as their work gets done where's the problem? For all you know they might be back working again while you're at home watching TV at the end of the day.
If they're too sick to turn up to work, however, and someone else has to pick up the pieces, it's generally just common decency to stay at home rather than socializing.

I broke my arm and had an operation on it two days before I was due to go on holiday. The hospital signed me off for two weeks to recover. I was fine so went. When I got back I had a chat with our HR manager who told me that I was entitled to claim my 10 days AL back as I'd been signed off, even though I went on the holiday and did pretty much everything I'd planned to do. Apparently those are the rules.

I didn't do that as I would have felt incredibly guilty, although if I'd had to cancel/postpone the holiday because I wasn't able to fly etc I probably would have claimed the days back.

Being signed off from work is just that. It's not being signed off from the whole of life.

I think you have to very careful. Obviously some people will always take the piss but being worried about being seen to be taking the piss is also a problem in a lot of people's recovery. I was off work for 6 months, for the first 3 months I basically couldn't leave the house apart from medical appointments, after that I was so worried about being 'seen' it really got in the way of my recovery, I wasnt mobile enough, I wasnt seeing anyone, it impacted on my relationship, it was really horrible and made a really awful time even worse.

My Dh was off work sick for 6 months. It was a physical illness. During that time we went on holiday, shopping, to the theatre. He was unable to travel anywhere unaccompanied mind you.

So many people really don't understand how WFH works 🙄

I've WFH today. Started work at 7.30 and worked fairly solidly until 2. I then went to the cinema with my little boy then out for tea.
I've done a couple more hours this evening which takes me over the 7.30hrs I'm contracted to work. My organisation couldn't care less as long as the work gets done 🤷

Some of my most vibrant photos of my mum in recent years were taking walking the dog on the way to the hospital for her chemo (rural area so too long to leave the dog, so we made a day of it). I'd give merry hell to anyone who suggested she shouldn't be on my facebook photos, up in the hills, enjoying the sunshine. She died weeks later in her own bed. Anyone who judges can mind their own fucking business.

again - when people are recovering (from things like heart conditions/operations) they may have family overseas & doing facebook showing themselves doing positive things can alleviate the worry that other family members might have about them . (& yes sometimes it can be a bit faked to give abetter impression) I can remember once I had chest infection -I lived in bedsit without a fridge so I had to go shopping & get my script, my immediate manager saw me & commented on it when I got back - would she have preferred I starved?

Depends what they are off sick with. If it's depression, they absolutely should be out socialising. Also, not everyone updates their social media in real time. The event might have happened days before the post. Not your business, probably.

A colleague of mine is off sick because of stillbirth a week before due. I so hope that she will manage to get out of the house and see friends and family.

I’m so sorry to hear this. I hope your friend is aware that she is legally entitled to take the full year’s maternity leave after a stillbirth (and in fact must take the immediate two weeks) instead of being off sick.

If you banned it, they’d carry on regardless without the FB posts, so it’s something you can’t control.

Jemima, thanks for being really insulting but I am not having a go at anyone with long term health complications. I am talking about those who abuse the system and take time off for reasons other than because they can.

I haven’t had a sick day in five years, I don’t get paid for it but I have colleagues on old contracts who take a week or two per year (never for anything chronic just generic colds etc) because they do get paid for it. Guess who has to cover their workload?

Oh and yes Jemima I am their manger so can I stick my beak out now?!!

I’ll trade you my bipolar for your hot office if you like...

I think it totally depends on context. I post daily on Instagram, but “bank” photos, so I might post a picture tomorrow that was actually taken three weeks ago. If I was off sick, I would caption it along the lines of “the glory days when I wasn’t in bed with tonsillitis” or similar. That said, I don’t really have colleague’s on there anyway. I don’t have Facebook, and only use Twitter for work. I’m a lecturer and when I was off sick with a horrible cold at the end of last term I tweeted to tell my students I wasn’t at work and would reschedule seeing them to the following week, as well as putting up a message on the virtual learning environment. (We have a class Twitter group.)