AIBU: Work colleague taking the p***

[Banana2621]

So - I am normally a very sympathetic person but feeling really annoyed by a co-worker who is off sick. We can't help being ill I know that and he will be off for at least another 4 weeks. During that time we have a team lunch to celebrate Christmas. He said he was looking forward to joining us for lunch so I asked when he was due back to work and he said he will wait and see what the doctors say when he goes back in 3 weeks!
AIBU about this? Feeling really annoyed. We are all trying to pick up the slack which is hard work but we are busy. I am not expecting him to come back until he is fit but I certainly would not be able to attend a lunch while off sick! I'm really worried it will naff it up for us in future. Maybe its just me I don't know.
Thoughts please

No what you meant to say is the majority of people arent AH like you and OP.

Your response should have been: You and I are clearly AHs. There are myriad reasons doctor's sign people off and we have no right to know those. We also have no right to force our unqualified opinion about their fitness to attend a 2 hour lunch vs a working 37+ hour week.

You should if you are incapable of managing the (what you think is) the badly organised workload by complaining about management's bad distribution of the work, or failure to re-assign someone temporarily to the team. This is not your colleagues fault of course.

As my mum used to say, if you arentvwell enough for school, you aren't well enough to play out

In that case then you will know what is wrong with him? Do you consider him not to be ill?

A few hours out is different to a full week.

I absolutely agree with this for short term acute illness but not for chronic long term problems. For example, my 7 year old missed months of school when she was having chemo. When she was well enough I still let her go round to her best friends house for a couple of hours - I wouldn’t have dreamt of telling her she was too sick to go to school so too sick to do anything else, that would just have made her even more miserable and done her no good.

And what we’re talking about here is adults who are off sick with significant long term issues, not people who are off for a few days with a bug of some sort.

Well here's another manager who has both had long term sickness and staff off long term sick, and no, you don't have to spread staff thinner or ask people to cover work they don't like.

In the first place staff do the work allocated to them, like it or not. The workplace is a place to work and if you do not like the work then you leave - you don't whine about it.

But I am very clear about what I do when we cannot cover all the work for whatever reason (having faced a decade+ of cuts and freezes now) - I go to my management and I explain what work can no longer be done in order to prioritise the work that can or must continue to be done. If they don't like that then it is their responsibility to find the extra resource or to decide different priorities for the available resource. That may indeed mean that staff are deployed on work that isn't their favourite thing, but that is tough luck - the work needs doing. But I also wouldn't ask them to do more because that simply isn't possible. That became impossible a long time ago, and they fully understand that I have their backs when it comes to workload, but that comes at the cost of them understanding that decisons about what is prioritised is made by the management and may not always be to their liking.

It's fine for everyone to say - management need to sort it, but that's very difficult if you have finite resource and a recruitment freeze.

If you don't allocate resources you aren't management, you are a supervisor. As PPs have said, in that case you prioritise and feed back to the people who do make the decisions, you don't blame the sick people.

What’s he off sick with OP? I tend to agree with you, I generally think if you’re too sick to work you’re too sick to go to the work lunch. But PPs have shown examples of where it would be ok.

I remember one example though of when our boss was off sick with a cold but came to a Christmas party that evening! None of us took him seriously after that.

@Banana2621
''So - I am normally a very sympathetic person''

No, you are not...

The issue is with management not being able to make sure that your sick colleague' workload does not lead to the rest of the team being overwhelmed. Not with the person who is unwell.

As other people have pointed out, this person can still be well enough to attend a short lunch but not well enough to work. The example of cancer treatment was given.

I had a manager who was off sick because of issues with his bi-polar disorder who briefly came in to say goodbye to me at my leaving do. He did not want me to leave without having the opportunity to thank me for my contribution to the team.

You have no idea of what this person is going through and I suggest you stop being so judgemental and turn your annoyance towards your line manager and discuss workload management with them.

I’m government and did this, was off sick for 5 months, then went back as I COULDNT AFFORD THE DROP IN PAY, I HAD A FAMILY TO SUPPORT! and NO! I’m not a lazy bastard, just undergoing cancer treatment which takes longer than 5 months!! And YES, I was pretty useless, running to the loo being sick a lot and was very slow at my job but not because I was lazy!!! Wow, just wow, I hope you never suffer from a condition like that

I message him daily, have taken him food, have picked up his daughter so she could go and see him for the weekend cos his ex wouldn't help.

Presumably then you know him well and believe his illness is genuine? Presumably you also know if it's the type of illness that would allow you to cope with lunch? In that case it seems really odd to resent him going?

5 times long term sick for different things in last 4/5 years that I have been at the company. At least once more in the 7 years he has been there.

If you are his manager and he's had that level of illness then you will either be going through a process to retire him on medical grounds or have decided he's a valued team member and put in place the support you can?

Daft to be annoyed at someone who's absence levels are a known issue for years- that's management responsibility.

Ok, based on your additional messages, OP, there are two issues, and I will say that having to go on long-term illness leave for 4-5 different issues in 4-5 years definitely puts him in a very small group of people with truly rotten luck. The only people I know who have a work pattern like that have a chronic illness and have had to go off on long-term illness leave more than once to manage the same condition, or one person that got into an auto accident and then had lasting effects, so I would have considered that a chronic illness, too. I suppose that because I DO happen to know some people with incredibly rotten health luck, I just take things at face value, and would assume this man has had a tough time of it, but I do understand two things: 1. that statistically, sure, he’s outside the norm, so you’ve going to wonder occasionally if he’s taking the piss. But 2. This is mostly about how your bosses have treated you.

I think your feelings about whether he’s taking the piss or not, though, are affected by #2 above, the same thing we see time and time again on here: a corporation just forces an OP and their team to cover for someone on long-term sickness leave without any additional help. At worst, we’ve heard from OPs that are left doing a colleague’s entire job as well as their own (harder to be sympathetic when you have to do someone else’s whole job, no matter what they’re ill with) or, like this OP, a department that is short one individual so everyone must work together to do that person’s job.

Corporations are the bad guys in these scenarios, and I’m sorry they’ve done it to you, OP. I imagine Xmas luncheon would be much different if you could have a pleasant conversation about how much you like the temp worker filling in for him during his illness, versus quietly seething about how much work he’s added to your load. Blame your bosses.

Is your colleague actually signed off sick? If so there will be a medical reason for this, which is none of your business. Christmas party or not. Maybe it would be nice for them to get out and see people?

I am normally a very sympathetic person

Yes, really sounds like it.

The bigger question is, why are you letting it bother you when it's really none of your business? You obviously don't 'care' about him or his health. Your lack of empathy is shown in your post and other undesirable character traits. Why not try and see if you can do anything to support him.
Judging him by his ability to attend a lunch for an hour or two, against working full days is totally unreasonable.

We've had a colleague off with depression, we still invited him to the Christmas lunch. I think it really helped him return to work. As we were so pleased to see him. I don't see why you have to be so unkind. If a person is not fit to work, it doesn't mean they can't go for a walk/food shopping/lunch.

Other side of coin. I was off 7 months for cancer treatment.
Back at work now, able to get through most days, not able for works Christmas do, either lunch or evening meal. Recovery takes many different forms, is not linear and is very personal.

That isn't accurate in all cases either. A school day is 9-3, "playing out" might only be for half an hour.

All the points being made about you don't know are totally valid. But I wasn't surprised to read that he's had multiple long term sick leaves and, I'm guessing that rightly or wrongly, you suspect he's not really sick or sick enough. You may be wrong and just not understand the reality of his life. Or you may be right and he's a workshy twat who is lazy and does whatever he can to get out of work.

I know someone like this and while it's fair to say he does have genuine MH problems, there's no doubt that he has no interest in dealing with them or making an effort and as a result he has, over many years, alienated friends, family and work colleagues. One colleague, who stepped up when things were really really tough for him last year and who had believed all his stories etc... took less than 3 weeks to have the scales pulled from her eyes and is now largely completely uninterested in him or his so-called problems.

Personally, I couldn't do it but I guess this is where everyone differs.

OP give it a rest with all your virtue signalling and pass-agg. I feel sorry for him having a colleague like you. If I was your boss and I knew this was your attitude and what you were writing about it here, I'd have you on a disciplinary. His long term condition probably counts as a disability too, so you are on thin ice discrimination-wise. Be careful or it will be you without a job full stop.

As my mum used to say

Let's run 21st century Human Resources Management on what your Mum said then shall we? 🙄

5 times long term sick for different things

OP you, as a colleague and not his line manager, should not and I think cannot know it is for 4 or 5 different things. You are starting to fib to justify your position IMO. Or, you know stuff that you shouldn't, in which case, how are you getting that information?

@LadyMarmaladeAtkins it's just a saying. I don't think anyone is basing their HR policy on it

[I] have picked up his daughter so she could go and see him for the weekend cos his ex wouldn't help.

Of course we don't know why his ex wife wouldn't help and it's none of our business but maybe, just maybe, she gets a bit irritated by him too and the OP is justified in her reaction.

I admit that I have thought things like this before now OP. Then I had the misfortune to become long term sick myself and I realised how wrong I had been. Yes, I am sure there are some people who milk an illness for everything they can, and are basically lazy, but that isn't the majority. Most people who are unable to work for long periods would rather not be in that position and are doing all they can to get back.
And most people don't go from being bedbound to fully fit for work overnight, there is often a fairly protracted period of rehabilitation after a significant illness. You have to build up to normal life again, and whilst you're doing it, gossip and criticism unfortunately seems to be quite common. I know colleagues gossiped about me, to the point where I felt guilty if I was "caught" doing anything active, despite the fact that I was only doing the exercise that my surgeon and physio were telling me to do! You can find yourself in a Catch 22 situation quite easily too. Seen to be out and about doing things? You're obviously swinging the lead. Staying at home all the time? Well you aren't making much of an effort to get better are you?
To be honest, I probably wouldn't have gone to a work party as I wouldn't want to provoke a negative reaction and potentially spoil other people's enjoyment but there might be particular reasons why it is beneficial to this person. It's impossible to tell, even if you think you know someone fairly well. Very few of my friends know the full extent of my condition and nobody really understands the effects. I was out with some friends last night. I am sure they would tell you that I was on good form, enjoyed myself and was pretty much like my old self. Which is true. But what they don't know is that I was then awake much of the night in pain and am absolutely exhausted today so I'm still lying around in my pyjamas now. People with long term conditions often get very good at putting on a mask and getting on with things,so you don't necessarily see the full truth of their situation even if you think you understand what is going on.

I think YABU - depends on the illness of course but if this is not disclosed (as it shouldn't be as it is their 'personal' illness, then you can be of work and still go to a lunch or coffee. I had a severely broken right should and arm (had a titanium rod put in). As a typist it was impossible to work for six weeks BUT I could still eat!!!