To take a sick day for mental health tomorrow?

[PrueHal]

Recently my mental health has been rough. Two months ago I took a week off work to get some relaxation in but 2 days in I caught covid and was pretty bad with it. So the holiday didn't feel like a holiday.

Work has been cracking the whip, think several late nights and early mornings. This is eating into my own business I've started which is gaining traction and also taking over my weekends.

On top of this the house is a tip and I'm so busy working I can't get on top of it. I thought I'd have to cancel plans with my partner on Sat because I felt so tearful and wrung out.

This weekend I broke out in hives on my left side which has happened twice in recent weeks for the first time ever. My partner is convinced this a stress response.

All this said I don't like lying! AIBU?

Why don't you take time off from your business instead?

It's not possible to take off from my new business which is just taking off.

I've recently been offered an opportunity which will allow me to realize my dream for the business. I need to pursue this now, or lose out.

But clearly I need to find a way to outsource something else. Maybe a cleaner for the household stuff? And maybe also speak to others who have been through a similar situation

Live to work or work to live..?

Ask work if you can go part-time.

It's not possible to take off from my new business which is just taking off.

Ok, this sounds more like a choice than a necessity.

If you absolutely need to take time off work for your mental health then it should come from your side line, not come at a cost to your main employer when you have chosen to take on extra stress by trying to build a business at the same time.

Just call work and tell them you have a vomiting bug, I don't call in sick very often at all but if I need to (for any reason) I do it.
I'm fairly sure if I live long enough to enjoy retirement I won't look back at life and wish I had taken fewer sick days!! Neither will you OP.

Hi OP taking a day off for your mental health is totally valid but what I would say is that all of the same challenges will still be waiting for you when you get back. It sounds as though you need to set up a meeting to discuss your workload with your manager for this job to remain sustainable moving forward

if you are too unwell to work you need to call in sick.

sounds like you have too much on.
long term you need to make a decision about your second job and if it's sustainable for you handling both.

Phone in sick. The meeting doesn’t trump your health

So you have weekends off from your paid employment to enable you to unwind and de-stress, but you have started a business which occupies those weekends? And you now want Monday off work as a sickie (on full pay perchance?) to do things which you could or should have done during the weekend?

Mental health? No, it's hunbelievable. You should be on a disciplinary.

As above, you want extra paid ‘sick’ leave, because you can’t organise your life properly. Then ‘Oh whoops, I’ve just remembered a big meeting’. But hey, other people will be there to pick up the slack?
Hmmmm

Are your hives painful? Are you sure they are not shingles? That usually comes up on one side of the body

Op i really don't know why you asked this question on mumsnet. It's one day sick leave, it's really not the end of the world, and I don't think it's helpful to you to be having to read responses implying You're doing something shitty (and the 'I've never had a sick day in 8 years' brigade. Take the day off and then start a fresh tomorrow, but going forward you really need to make a plan to try manage things a bit better to avoid burnout.

If I call in sick I never tell them what is wrong with me. Just when I am likely to be back, if I know. My medical issues are private. Even doctors just write “ x is suffering from a medical condition and will be unfit for work from date to date” when they do a sick note

In my experience fit notes almost always have a brief note of the entire of the sickness absence of them. I agree you don't legally have to provide a medical reason for self certifying sickness absence but most people do if only to explain how long they're likely to be away. It very much depends on your relationship with your manager I suspect.

I agree with all of this. You're stressed knackered, it's hard, but that isn't a MH issue. It's life.

If I was your employer I'd take a bit of a dim view of you being too exhausted to work because you've started a side hustle. Your paid employment should be your priority.

That said, if you think a single day off is going to help you reset then I'd to it.

You should have advised that you were sick when you took a week of AL. They could have marked you as sick when you had covid and then you could take your AL when better so you benefited from the time off.

Why be fair to an employer who isn't being fair to their staff? Firing someone and expecting others to shoulder that person's workload by doing early starts and late finishes isn't fair.

OP, Take the day off. I'd have the hives checked out, apart from anything else. Spend an hour or two sorting out the house,but take it gently, and then have a proper day in bed or on the sofa.

Did you read this bit:

“Work has been cracking the whip, think several late nights and early mornings. This is eating into my own business I've started”

If you feel like work buys your time therefore you should prioritise them that’s fair enough (I tend to agree actually) but if that’s the way you look at it then they buy something around 35-40 hours a week. If they subsequently demand you actually work 45 or 50 or 60 or whatever additional amount why should working for them on your own time take precedence over the rest of your life? The OP presumably would have time to run the second business IF her employer wasn’t pushing her to work additional hours (which I strongly suspect are not paid if she would be taking paid sick leave today as good paid sick leave generally goes hand in hand with an expectation you’ll work as needed). In the end there is a balance to be found and if what’s pushed your life out of balance is the demand to do unpaid (or even paid) overtime at work where the option to say no isn’t available then it’s not unreasonable to take a sick day when having that lack of balance is making you ill.

It’s likely true the OP could manage everything extra at work if she didn’t have outside interests. In her case it’s running a business but in others it might be volunteering , taking part in a fitness activity/hobby or caring for extended family or all manner of other things. Why should it be the case that when work want more everything else is secondary and has to be dropped to accommodate that? Your employer doesn’t own you just some of your time.

I’m a little biased I think as I have previously been in a job where a colleague ostensibly took 9 months off on long term sick as was so unwell but subsequently turned out to have have started a successful business of their own during that period which they are still doing now. Obviously during that 9 months their workload was divided between others and caused us much work overload and stress.
you have too much on your plate clearly, just be careful you don’t cause issues for others because you are trying to balance too much in your own life.

I don't see how any line manager can do an effective return to work interview if they've no knowledge of why their employee was absent from work.

To the OP - does your manager know you had covid and were sick during your annual leave? You should reclassify that as sick leave and be able to reclaim that time.

sounds like too much going on rather than a MH crisis. Why don't you take time off from your business instead?

Looks like you need to make some long-term changes too.

This.
Is starting your own business meaning your actual paid employment is suffering?
This isn't necessarily mental health, it's taking on too much.
You're essentially asking your new employer to fund your new business, if you think about it.

Shingles was also my thought when she said its down one side. This would also be a valid reason for time off.

It would.
OP still needs to sort priorities going forward though.

I imagine this wouldn’t fly in many jobs. My job requires you to give the actual reason you are off sick, on return to work you have to have a meeting with management who have to fill out paperwork for HR which has to be signed by you, it has to stipulate what the illness was and how / why it prevented you from attending work.