To be shocked at how much time off sick some people have?

[Enfys1982]

I work in a school and since I started in the sector it’s been a bit of eye opener to me how much sick time some people seem to take, and it always seems to be the same people. Days here and there, sometimes weeks on end then they come back for a bit go off again. As I said always the same people.

The last time I was off was last year when I had Covid, and I was only off because then you still legally had to isolate if positive. I actually felt well enough to go in. Before that I genuinely can’t remember when I was off sick. If I feel bad I just dose myself up and get on with it.

AIBU to think it displays a lack of resilience?

Hope you never get genuinely sick, OP, that's all I'm going to say.

That's interesting. Do they suggest support and advice to get the employee working back to capacity again or do they just get rid of them regardless? If the former, is it just going through the formalities before they're let go?

Cool story. None of that is how it works.

Sick days seem to become more common in my workplace when the sun comes out. So strange.

classrooms are particularly grim places to go to work feeling under the weather. There’s no chance of hiding behind a computer feeling rubbish or cancelling a meeting to make the day manageable. And certainly no working from home! Particularly in a secondary school tough classes are likely to give you a harder time if they sense you’re struggling. I never phoned in sick if I could physically drag myself in though, because setting cover for all your classes at 6am and then dealing with the mess of half done cover work when you get back is almost worse than being there feeling terrible. You also catch everything from the kids. But I often notice new teachers get ill quite a lot - I think it’s the stress plus exposure to so many germs.

Are you on full pay for six months and then half pay? I’m only cynical about those people who breeze into work after six months off on reduced hours but full pay to ease themselves back into work. It’s miraculous how the prospect of half pay has such healing powers. They’re not well enough at 5 months or even 5 months and two weeks but the moment it’s 6 months hallelujah they’re well enough. They’re the ones that I have an issue with.

I taught for over 20 years and at least 6 of them as a supply teacher. The schools needing supply teachers frequently because of people being off generally had poor management, high stress levels, toxic culture or were running teachers and support staff into the ground. Same schools often had the type of culture that forced staff to feel they had to be back in before ready and they would often go off again. I don’t believe for one minute I’ve ever come across a school in which teachers are constantly off just for the sake of it or because of a lack of resilience. I can’t believe anyone who has ever worked in a school would ever write this post.

Some people do massively take the piss. However there’s no glory in turning up to work unwell. I don’t know why it’s encouraged to just “power through”, instead of taking the time to
properly get well. It’s awful having to work when you’re genuinely ill.

I think in education at the moment, you have a lot of people who caught Covid through having no mitigations around hundreds of children and well before they were prioritised for vaccines (it was so obvious teachers needed to be vaccinated if around huge groups who didn't need to be masked, that the general public assumed they had been, though they hadn't) and are suffering the effects of long covid. They're suffering with it more than people are suffering because of their absences.

I worked for the NHS for nearly 40 years.Over that time I had a couple of periods of being signed off for 6 weeks following surgeries.These periods of sick leave were not by choice.On only 2-3 occasions did I phone in sick.I literally could not get out of bed.The last time I phoned in sick resulted in me being admitted to hospital for a few days.Some people are naturally more susceptible to bugs/viruses /whatever than others.There are also the piss takers who sneeze once and deem themselves too ill to work or who had the habit of being "ill" on a Monday morning after a weekend of clubbing and drinking.

I used to have a customer facing job. I didn't want to be sick as often as I was, but I just kept catching stuff. Some I could work through, some I couldn't. Also, you don't make the company look good if your nose wont stop running so you end up covered in snot. Heck I even went in with what turned out to be laryngitis and all I asked was not to be on the POS that day. I was told no. By mid morning I had no voice left at all and I gave up and went home because my manager wouldn't compromise. I actually felt ok, but you can't work with customers if you can't speak and some of them took it as a personal insult.
Most winters I'd catch something new every week. Without much time in between bugs to recover, I just got sicker and sicker. I blame all the arseholes who came in and spread all their germs around. I really didn't want to take as much time off as I did, but the viral onslaught led to me getting very run down and I developed sinusitis and on another occasion a chest infection.
One of my colleagues boasted about having never taken a day off sick. She was just lucky, whereas I'd just come back having had two weeks off due to swine flu. I suppose I could have gone in, but having a fever over 38 for five days straight and coughing up what looked like massive scabs from my lungs does make it hard.
Some of us just get unlucky when it comes to viruses, no amount of "resilience" seemed to stop me catching every bloody thing going.

I don't really understand why people are posting their stories of people pulling sickies when they're blatantly not ill.

That's not what the OP was on about. She was complaining about people being off work when they're not as sick as she thinks they should be, and a lack of "resilience". She thinks there's a minimum standard of illness that people somehow have to pass to be able to stay at home and recuperate.

That's completely different to someone faking an illness to get a longer holiday etc.

YABU, how do you know they don’t have a compromised immune system? Have it had cancer? Or a some form of chronic health issue? It’s not really something most people talk about openly, usually it’s only shared directly with their employer.

I think there many be a very small minority who take the micky with sick leave but you could say that about me without really knowing..

For example sometimes but not all the time my tonsillitis can be so bad it absolutely floors me and I can even lose my voice. I get it a few times in a year so I have no choice I just cannot work when its that bad. You might think oh its just tonsillitis what's the big deal just be more resilient but when its that bad I lose my voice its literally me being in bed for a couple days until the antibiotics kick in.

The problem is that the way employee rights have been chipped away can make changing jobs a risky proposition. If you've passed a probation period and the two year mark to gain rights, you have slightly more job security. Plus you need to be in a reasonably good headspace to sell yourself well enough to either apply for different jobs or market yourself as a freelance, which is rarely compatible with a health crisis.

As for the 'freelance, WFH or flexible hours' jobs or claiming PIP...so much to unpack there! The former don't grow on trees, and many a person has been tripped up by a supposedly WFH or flexible hours jobs that in reality turns into office-based and not so flexible. And PIP is a) an in-work benefit and b) insufficient to survive on, assuming most people are paying a mortgage or private rent with their salary.

Most conditions also tend to improve when give sufficient time to relax and recuperate.

Some conditions. Not most. And TBF, 'relaxing and recuperating' is more likely if supported by a decent sick pay policy than being out of work and worrying how the bills will be paid.

Being generous, overall this is a well-meaning but naive view of the realities of living and working with a chronic health condition.

I started a new job last year. No sick pay. Other women who started same time as me has spent almost half her time off sick. No idea how she's managing to afford it.
I don't have a choice, I need the money.
Don't get me wrong I don't want to go into work when ill but I like having heat, light, food and a roof over my head.

You worry about yourself op.

I see what you're saying, but for those alternatives to be possible we'd need such basic things as affordable rents and sickness benefits that gave enough money to live on (and that weren't extremely hard to obtain and run by private companies).

@TickyTok it isn’t that simple though is it? Do you know how hard it is to actually get awarded PIP? I have a family member with a chronic illness that at times is debilitating, the pip assessor scored all sections a 0.

It’s also not easy to find flexible working, especially as it’s in high demand and not everyone can cope with WFH jobs, it’s extremely difficult to manage poor health and to hold down a job that covers all the bills, the government don’t make it as easy as everyone thinks when it comes to being entitled to benefits.

Not everyone gets sick pay. I got £18 a day ( I earn more than that per hour) when I had covid - I had no choice but to be off even though I was symptomless

so yes if I’m ill I will go in anyway
everyone does at our place unless you physically can’t

And our rate of ‘mickey takers’ is very very low

People like you @Enfys1982 are precisely why I left working in education and became self-employed.

No empathy whatsoever or understanding of the fact people's circumstances differ and we're not all fucking robots or worker bees.

Same.

Honestly a few years pre covid I had so many things go wrong. One after the other.
I cant even remember them all now except for lung infection, pleurisy, a broken ankle, a broken wrist, and shingles. There was more but I forget what.

I had to have most of the year off. I was let go about 2 months after my final illness. Which pissed me off no end.

Since then I've had a two week sickness and I think 3 days.
Sometimes you just get a run of bad luck.

But in OPs world I was probably skiving all that year. Never mind I only got ssp.