To ask why my colleague has been off sick for weeks and is on the beach?

[waitandseee]

My colleague has had nearly a month off sick leave, yet on facebook, there are photos of her on the beach, and on days out at cafe's. She is paddling in the sea, looking happy and very healthy. Am I being unreasonable to ask why this being allowed by management?

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• * Edited by MNHQ ** Hi all, and thanks to all those who have replied so far. It looks like the OP has left the site and won't be back to update the thread. We'll let the thread run as it's an interesting discussion. ===========================

You are absolutely right @FruitLoopyLoo. If someone can’t cope with any levels of stress or time pressures at all, then law is not likely to be for them. However there’s a big difference between the inherent demands and nature of the profession and a toxic work environment and culture of overwork and undue stress. I am also a
Lawyer

The fact that she has posted photos on Facebook shows that she has nothing to hide and is confident in her decisions. Good on her for not feeling like she has to hide away in a dark room because she’s off sick and actually showed the world this.

@SengaStrawberry

You are absolutely right *@FruitLoopyLoo*. If someone can’t cope with any levels of stress or time pressures at all, then law is not likely to be for them. However there’s a big difference between the inherent demands and nature of the profession and a toxic work environment and culture of overwork and undue stress. I am also a Lawyer

Exactly.

It was often a common occurrence for multiple colleagues to be crying in the break room or just getting up and walking out of the office in tears quite clearly heading for some sort of breakdown because they were being overworked so badly. Usually all of this after having spoken with management about it, but receiving 10 new files the next day anyway.

I don't understand why people think that's an acceptable work environment or why management would not look at that and think 'yeah, we need to sort something out here'. It is not something to be encouraged or excused by saying 'that's just law', it's an appalling way to treat your employees and in my opinion it's often what leads to the rubbish experience many people have with solicitors, they are often too overworked to give the level of service they would like to. It's completely demotivating being in that situation and feeling like you have absolutely no help from those above you.

The majority of people aren't some emotionless, work robots never affected by anything ever, if you think law is any different then I don't believe you've ever actually worked in a large law firm!

I used to be a legal secretary. I saw the pressures the solicitors in the firms where I worked were under, due to demanding clients and sheer volume of work. It was stressful at times as a secretary, but the key difference was that I could go home afterwards and just chill out. That wasn't the case for the solicitors there.

@MichaelMumsnet

Hi all, and thanks to all those who have replied so far. It looks like the OP has left the site and won't be back to update the thread.

[edited to add] We'll leave this one up as it looks like an interesting discussion.

Is no one actually going to comment on this?

Why do people think the OP has left Mumsnet?

I'll hazard a guess...perhaps they didn't like being piled onto by dozens of people being borderline abusive about her point of view?

Every month we have someone posting a thread titled "AIBU to think Mumsnet has become a horrible place", followed by hordes of folk saying "don't be stupid, it's always been robust".

Yep...robust enough to drive users to deregister. Great environment.

@MichaelMumsnet I can't say enough how I am about "we'll leave this up as it looks like an interesting dicussion".

More like "We're now at 350+ messages which is proving great numbers for the advertisers, dwell time etc, so let's keep this one going who needs the OP"

@Mittens030869

I used to be a legal secretary. I saw the pressures the solicitors in the firms where I worked were under, due to demanding clients and sheer volume of work. It was stressful at times as a secretary, but the key difference was that I could go home afterwards and just chill out. That wasn't the case for the solicitors there.

No and unfortunately in my time I've seen some of the best solicitors I've ever worked alongside leave the profession because of this very thing. They can handle stress and time constraints just fine but when you're putting your name to something but constantly being overworked to the point you're getting complaints left, right and centre and still never being able to go home and spend time with your children, or even just sleep at night, it's hard and it can take a toll on even the most 'robust' people I've met.

I've seen it literally break people, their marriages too. It is not the type of work environment that should be encouraged.

Her health condition could be depression. Depression Best medicine is sun, excerise.

Or could be something else. Honestly not your business..

She could be depressed
She could be a skiver
It’s 50:50

Anyway lessons learned don’t post shit on Facebook quite frankly

I shouldn’t but I do giggle when the tabloids catch disability claimants who can’t move can’t leave house are photo’s doing the conga , limbo dancing and skydiving in Tenerife
I’m a bad person

GinDaddyRedux

Agree

I think this post has got a lot of traction because it's an emotive issue that anyone in a workplace faces regularly.

Entitlement around sick leave has increased and while there is more awareness of mental health issues, there has been a correspondingly vast increase in employees taking time off for depression, stress and anxiety. This is matched with very poor mechanisms to provide temporary cover in organisations, whether intentional or not, leaving remaining staff to always pick up the slack, often in a way that is unreasonable and unfair.

All this is combined with people often having little common sense about social media use.

It's sign of the times stuff.

Excellent post Waferbiscuit

while there is more awareness of mental health issues, there has been a correspondingly vast increase in employees taking time off for depression, stress and anxiety.
Possibly because people now feel less stigmatised and more confident about being able to be honest about their mental health.
Not to mention that increased awareness of mental health issues means we all now have more understanding and vocabulary for feelings, symptoms etc that we may have previously put up with and dismissed as just feeling tired, low, 'a bit stressed out' etc.

Hear hear Wafer, I found in my large FTSE company that there same old same old people were off for all sorts of reasons. They knew if it was for a few days 'someone' would cover for them. They didnt give a stuff.

I am thinking of one particular lady who played the family card again and again and again leaving her colleagues including me picking up the slack.

It really does spoil it for the genuinely ill. With 100,000 people in the organisation it was rife!

@IntermittentParps

That's very true, I think. From what my DH has told me, his dad was forced out of teaching in the mid 1989s because the headteacher at his school had bullied him for a long time. He had a breakdown and had to quit teaching as a result. I think if it happened now, he would have been able to take time off work because of stress and felt more able to complain about the bullying.

It's not just about people being more able to pull sickies, though doubtless there are some that do. It's about people being more able to speak up about the stress they're under, before they have to quit their job altogether and have a complete breakdown.

Genuine question
And I ask this as someone who’s on
Medication for anxiety

IF I got a week or so off to recover , I don’t think the major stress of travelling to an airport , flying during COVID 19 would really help
I’d rather stay home
Rest
De clutter
Get external support sorted

I’m not questioning the MH , it’s the fixing MH by flying overseas during a pandemic that seems a bit sketchy to me

I would wager more families are better off when someone who is often sick can do some work, rather than the previous situation where they wouldn't be able to hold down a job so their partner would have to be a sole breadwinner, or they would have to try to work full-time and then crash and have to quit with exhaustion. A bit of understanding and sick pay will keep many more people working more of the time.

Last year my boss had a late miscarriage (possibly a tfmr - I didn't ask)and was away for a month and then weekly appointments. My assistant and I had to take on extra work, but boss's boss tried to get other teams to take on tasks and did some themselves. Now I'm doing reduced hours as I recover from Covid, previously assistant had to bow out of work visits when he had a broken foot - what goes around comes around.

It is a condition of my employment that no member of the public should be able to find social media posts - they should all be Friends Only. I'm surprised that's not the case for most workers - in which case it's only the colleagues you add you need to worry about...

do you know how many cases we see where the patient has posted smiley pictures all over the place to end up being found soon after having committed suicide.you dont know what the hell social media picture EVER MEAN.

@Thisisworsethananticpated

Genuine question And I ask this as someone who’s on Medication for anxiety

IF I got a week or so off to recover , I don’t think the major stress of travelling to an airport , flying during COVID 19 would really help
I’d rather stay home
Rest
De clutter
Get external support sorted

I’m not questioning the MH , it’s the fixing MH by flying overseas during a pandemic that seems a bit sketchy to me

Surely though you can see that that's just what would work for you?

For some people travelling and flying isn't stressful, but staying at home might be - for example if someone had depression and anxiety that was being compounded by noisy neighbours or if their home was part of their stress

A lot of people don't find going away remotely stressful so it could help them. Thats the key thing when other people judge someone's choice of stress busting - it doesn't always work for them

My favourite way of relaxing is taking my kids (6 of them or as many at home) out to the beach or park on my own. That for a lot of people would be a mega stressful day. We're all different.

I was posting happy, smiling pictures of me after having had my hair done or doing fun things with my DDs when in reality I was having distressing flashbacks of my childhood SA. The Facebook photos were fake, it was the picture of my life that I wanted my friends and family to believe.

When I was off with severe depression the the point of being suicidal my doctor actively encouraged me to go out for coffee, gonon
Holiday, meet friends. I was being bullied at work and you sound as judgmental as those dicks so going to the beach and relaxing was very different from going to work to be chipped away at. No wonder she’s ill if she works with nosey dickheads like you. I didn’t post on SM though.

Thing is, even if it is mental health related, most of us would apply a bit of discretion to the situation, and not put photos up on FB. It's inappropriate and unprofessional. And not something I would wish to show to my colleagues picking up the slack at work!
Surely to God - in the real world - people do share this logic.

Yes - but we think that then move on. We don’t put a complaint in at work.

@eatsleepread I agree but there does seem to be a bit of a "pics or it didn't happen" mentality among some. It's a similar mindset I think to people who go to a gig and then watch it through their phone screen while they video it to show everyone what a great time they had

There seems to be a huge assumption that the colleague is off for mental health reasons. If it were physical do PP think photos on social media would be OK?

Tricky. A friend was off with depression and told to go out, ride her horse etc, it would be good for her.

A colleague of my dh is on/off sick with a very difficult to pin down physical ‘illness’, posting endlessly on Facebook about his days out. It frustrates his team, he turns up to work for a day, does light duties then is off again for weeks. A very difficult situation, particularly as leaving the team short is actually dangerous.