that it's unfair to lose my job because of covid?

[radickle]

namechanged

I got a new job 10 months ago and I admit that my health has sadly really not been fair to me. Just want to say, I've never had an issue with sickness in the past and I feel it's really a case of being very unlucky.

Was off with covid at the very start of getting my job (the first month) 2 months later I got the sickness bug (that was bringing a lot of us down with it at work) and had to obviously go off. About a month after that I had to have an emergency dental appointment. There was also 2 more sicknesses after that involving an eye injury (first one) and then the second one was because it got infected. I had a meeting about attendance concern during that time.

I've just got covid again and called my manager and said to him that ill obviously come in but I know it's policy not to and he said I can't be in for a week and didn't say much else but then got a later phone call to tell me to expect to not be back in the role and a meeting will be made when I'm better... im confident I'm losing my job.

I'm rather heartbroken because I genuinely like my role and work hard and it was a job in the field I wanted and had looked for for ages. It's obviously a very competitive role though and obviously they will have a line up of people wanting it.

I haven't been particularly unwell with covid so far and I'd have gone to work but it's the company saying I can't, which is why it feels particularly harsh. I know my sickness record wasn't great but there would never have been this sickness if their policy allowed me to come in...

While it isn't your fault you've had so much illness I can see it from the other side. Businesses are not charities. Staff constantly being away puts pressure on others, are they not worthy of consideration? I often have to cover for someone who has a lot of illness, and believe me, it wears very thin after a while.

You don't need a union. You just need to show willing and have some give and take to your employer even if off sick. So yes, you should offer something to your employer on Monday to show that you understand the disruption your absences are causing, even if they are not your fault and are prepared to ease the burden on the company.

Otherwise your manager will justifiably think this is the thin edge of the wedge of massive piss-taking sick leave signing off extravaganza that he/she will not be able to challenge. Remember pareto's principle. 20% of the employees give 80% of the management problems. You need to get yourself out of that 20% category pronto.

@IJustHadToLookHavingReadTheBook can I ask what it is? PM if it's too outing! I have one and am wondering about PIP

Makes me laugh when people tell me to improve my immune system

I cannot do my role, for health and safety purposes and nor would my manager have had that happening either, regardless of if you think I could have worked with one eye or not. And no, when I had the cream; I was told, by the doctor, to do both eyes as it can spread.

@Rebel2 it's Lupus. Makes your immune system a bit "jumpier" but also much more likely to convert everyday illnesses into infections. So if there's a cold in the house my husband and kids get it, runny nose and feeling a bit off for a few days but the same minor cold gives me an ear/chest/sinus infection. You may well be eligible for PIP, it's well worth a go. I recommend gathering as much evidence as possible from your GP/any specialists and taking it to a specialist in benefits at your local citizens advice. They know all about navigating the forms with various illnesses.

Why is it late offering that Monday? I'm still off with covid...

This thread is like a fucking capitalist dystopia. So someone who’s been unlucky enough to have some illnesses is ‘unreliable’ as if having good health and good luck somehow makes someone a superior human being? Are you all bionic robots or what?

I do wonder if you’ve provided evidence eg of your eye appointments and treatments. But people getting sick and injured is just life. If you can’t cope with people sometimes being off then you’re shit at managing your business, it’s just part of doing business!

In other words OP, I think it’s a shame so many people have shat on you on this thread. Unfortunately your employer probably can dismiss you, but I don’t think it’s fair if they do.

Where I work, my boss would have been fine with all this because there are reasonable explanations for each absence. You don’t fucking fire people for having eye infections.

Thank you. Mine is autoimmune neutropenia

Sorry you've been through a rough patch, OP. It is obviously very unfortunate, but I think I'd have avoided at all costs making the dental appointment during work time.
Hope you get a run of good health very soon ... you are certainly due it!

Sadly OP, between the total MN perception of a 'utopian' employment rights, HR routes, managed return, etc perspective and what really happens it's possible being sick so much means you've lost your job.

Getting sick or being responsible for sick people is never good for anyone's career. Harsh but true.

Our dentist is only open during working hours!

This. This. A thousand times this.

Do you even manage a business? Easy to say this if you are of the entitled employee mindset.

If every employee took this much time off sick, it does not matter how well the business is managed, the easiest way to manage this is to manage the employee out for the good of the business and the other reliable employees who have to cover on a moment's notice.

Well, a lot of businesses do run on capitalist premises. They employ people in the expectation that they’ll turn up for work regularly and in turn generate revenue for the business. As it happens I do feel it’s harsh on the OP, but sadly there is little legal protection for her given her relatively short service, and as she herself has said the role is competitive. Early on in employment you’d expect someone to be doing their best to make a good impression and rightly or wrongly someone with a lot of short term absence perhaps doesn’t do that, and may mean that it’s harder to dismiss someone 2 years in when their absence has become much more of a problem. Of course, and rightly, the situation is different for people with disabilities, who enjoy more legal protection.

I would imagine given your comment that you’re in the public sector but the private sector just doesn’t work in the same way.

And in answer to your question in the heading OP, yes it probably is unfair, but legally with 10 months service there’s not much you can do about it

hopefully they’ll put you on absence management instead of dismissing you

Presumably though your employer and occupational health are aware of your condition in order that allowances can be made.

The reality is that there absolutely are pisstakers, and that is why people who have a genuine illness and genuine reason to be off sick are often so afraid to be because of those who take the piss on a regular basis.

Someone saying they have to apply cream every three hours, and then that they have an eye infection and can’t possibly be expected to work cannot possibly be expected to be taken seriously by an employer. And the reality is that if someone who is always off sick ends up with a serious illness their employer is less likely to take them seriously. It’s the boy who cried wolf isn’t it.

And yes, I have a serious illness as well, and while I’ve managed not to be off sick, I do have to attend hospital appointments on a regular basis, and where possible I arrange them around my days off (INR clinic for warferin so appointment made at the time) and where not I request my days off around the appointments and have even taken annual leave for some of them (visit to the transplant clinic.) Because I know that there will be times that I might be too sick to work, and then I will need my employer to be understanding, which they absolutely are, but it’s about give and take.

It wasn't so long ago that a certain person called the UK a "nation of shopkeepers", meaning we didn't all operate on a large, national basis, most work being undertaken on a smaller scale.

And whilst 70+ years later we have a lot of large scale organisations - both state and privately-run - the actual backbone that keeps the whole shebang going is the small scale businesses and their employees.

Yet the small scale subsidizes the large and their big willy-waving; with the large more liable to collapse or uprooting their business elsewhere according to global economics.

Sometimes small is good and not to be sneered at.

Yip with that level of illness and given your length of service I'll especially you will be sacked.
I'd concentrate on agreeing a good reference etc with them instead.

Recruiting people is expensive. It’s ridiculous to re-recruit just because someone needed to go to the bloody dentist.

The issue as well is whether you are paid when you are off sick. My work has a generous sick leave policy whereby you are full psy for 6 months, then drop to half and and such we are very hot on it. Places that I've worked that only pay SSP aren't so much. If they don't handle it, SOME employees end up with additional paid annual leave because of abusing it.

@VioletViolets
do you think sickness should not be managed? we all have worked with people who are off sick all the time and have to step in and cover.

my suspicion is that OP is one of those. If she genuinely has had no more than 1-2 episodes in other years then she would be phrasing her question as ‘I’ve had a really unlucky time of it, I know calling in sick impacts my manager and my colleagues but this is highly unusual and I can’t believe I could get sacked for this’.

she seems to want support for the covid being ‘written off’ because she couldn’t help it. People with genuine conditions who want to keep working come in with solutions not excuses.