Would you resent me if I was your employee or colleague ?

[Jimisnotmyname]

DC is seriously ill and inpatient in hospital. Expected to be in for several months. I have been asked by the hospital to be on side to help with various aspects of their care. In theory, I could take my notebook in and work from the ward (and do some catch up at night from home) but I am not coping. I am falling apart and not coping with anything. Would I be unreasonable to take sick leave? We get 6 months on full pay. I have been with my employer for over a decade and only was once off sick for a month (after major surgery). It would mean my colleague's holiday will have to be cancelled and I would let a lot of people down in my department and I feel hugely guilty about that. But I don't know what else to do. I know the decent thing would be to resign but I need the sick pay to cover bills. Please be honest.

yabu - suck it up and carry on working or resign.
yanbu - get signed off

Absolutely not.

Your child is your first and most important responsibility.
Fuck anyone else.
You are not coping as it stands. Your mental health is suffering. Ultimately you need to be the best parent you can be for your child in hospital and those at home. Your mental health, regardless of how you try to hide it, will impact them.

Screw the job. The holiday isn't your problem. Colleagues resentment doesn't mean more than your family needing you.

Go to your GP. Explain how this is effecting you and get signed off. Any company who takes steps to dismiss you would be utterly foolish as it would absolutely be classed as unfair dismissal. They wouldn't have a leg to stand on for terminating employment of a parent struggling with a sick child in hospital. They'd be laughed out of court.

You and your family come first. Your job pays sick leave, so take it. What happens a few months down the line, when you're so heavily burnt out from months of juggling hospital and work. Who then picks up the pieces when you're no longer able??

Get signed off. Do not worry at all about work. You and your family come first.
Just remember that no matter how valued you are as an employee you are replaceable and they will have to manage.

Do not feel guilty, they can arrange a temp if they need to.
Sending you big hugs at this stressful time x

In my team this would be completely understood. The colleague who's holiday is cancelled will be upset but should direct that at the company not you. I hope your DC gets better soon, take care of yourself too.

Prioritise yourself, if tou can take take sick leave do it. Work should arrange cover for your colleague to go on holiday. If you arw not eating sleeping etc then ask your dr to sign you off for mental health reasons. Don't make yourself ill. Maybe get signed off for a month and see how it goes then extend it.

Your husband needs to pull his weight and cover 50% of the hospital cover.

This. If your colleague went abroad on the Monday, and on Tuesday you called in sick with a tummy bug/broken ankle/appendicitis, them the work would just have to wait, until you were back from sick or your colleague back from holiday. They couldn't call her up and say 'come back from Barbados right now, OP is sick'. If she is covering your work, she will definitely need her AL break, and the employer would be unreasonable not to allow it, as if they don't she may burn out too and then they would be really stuffed.
They have to look at the long game, if they allow you a bit of time off to support with your child being unwell, and also allow your colleague their AL, they will hopefully retain 2 skilled employees. If they don't they may lose both to stress/resignation. Cost of recruiting to both posts probably outweighs the cost of hiring cover whilst colleague on leave for a week or 2.

Saying all this, your DH could take some AL to allow you to return to work whilst colleague off. I appreciate he is doing most of home chores, but you could swop roles for a week or 2, with you working part time plus home chores, and him being in the hospital.

Which might still leave OP unfit to work, we don't know. Both parents are clearly having a very tough time at the moment. One is doing hospital, the other full time work plus the entire home front. Not sure we can assume that switching to the latter would alleviate OPs symptoms.

No I wouldn't sack you but I would be working with you to find a solution that is based on a compromise with my HR team. In this scenario you are my employee not your family.

I am not an uncaring person and would try to help as far as I could with flexible working arrangements or reducing your days etc but it has to be workable within the limits of my business. As i said woudl be expecting your husband and his employer to share the cost burden.

Full pay for your caring role for your child would not be an option. I have 127 employees at present and decisions regarding 1 employee I have to think about in the context of the 126.

I could lie and say you poor thing and pretend but not sure it's helpful

Ignore that post. That’s not where you work. Your employer has got a sickness policy in place. You are using it. This is why businesses need proper HR and not business owners saying what they want to happen or think should happen. I would love to see them explain a dismissal in these circumstances at tribunal. No one is going to dispute that a seriously ill child would result in a parent experiencing stress to the point of needing sick leave.

I’ve mentioned I work in HR. This exact situation has come up at least 5 times I can think of in the last few years. Each time the parent was signed off sick. For months. And we didn’t think - oh where is OH in all this? We thought ‘Poor XYZ. Hope child is ok’.

It’s not about ‘sharing the load’. You are not well. This situation has made you unwell. This is what sick leave is for. You are unable to work because of the stress this is causing.

Take the time off. Your employer will manage.

it is gaming the companies system, because you are choosing to take sick leave as it is paid rather than emergency/compassionate leave which is not paid.

The company is stupid to have set their system up in this way - because it encourages people to take sick leave instead. In terms of employment law and employees rights there is no more requirement on a company to pay six months of sick leave at full pay than compassionate leave at full pay, they just happen to have written their contract in this way.

As a company, I would rather pay people to take parental or compassionate leave if it helps them equally. Sick leave has ramifications for planning (if its for a mental health issue) and for contact between company and employee, whether they can come into the office if they want to do that for any reason, etc.

It also means the OP has the mental load of repeatedly speaking to the doctor, making an appointment (takes over an hour on the phone at my surgery) and dealing with paperwork which is all entirely irrelevant when it basically boils down to her needing time off, rather than active medical care for herself (at this point). Also at six months, should her child still be ill, she will hit a cliff edge where all pay stops as her company offers six months sickpay. (perhaps seven months depending on when the sickpay period resets since we're in March)

If she takes something other than sick pay now however, even if its only agreed for a period, then if she is still equally stressed at the end of that agreement then that's where sick pay starts, doesn't it?

I really can't see any downside for the OP in an honest conversation with her employer (aside from a later update said she has and they were unhelpful) and many potential upsides of doing so - but you crack on and push her to discount any other options.

edit because heaven forbid I used a legally incorrect phrase

In my company this would be dealt with compassionately. It really depends on the company hoe they deal with it will differ. Join a union for advice and to cover yourself, there are unions that you can join for people whoes jobs do not have an official unions, a catch all union type thing. I worked for a company once where we had to dismiss a gug for gross misconsuct and he had a union rep that attended all meetings and supported him from one of these unions. It will give you at least peace of mind to have a rep you can speak to about these things.

They’re also very ill-informed as a business owner and at risk of breaking employment law.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/sick-leave-and-sick-pay/check-if-you-can-get-sick-pay/

Honestly if I were 1 of your colleagues I would rather you be signed off sick rather than struggling to care for your child & unable to do your job properly, so no one wins and colleagues are coping with constant changes, once you’re signed off they can work out how to function.
& As other have said is managements job to sort out colleagues A/L.

No, you would have to find a solution within the limits of the law.

Regardless, do you employ the OP? No? Then who cares about your shitty attitudes.

As an employer, I would be covering an extended sick leave with a claim against any income protection cover that is taken out, so I would want to know how long any sickness is likely to last (sickness due to stress can be driven by all sorts of things - grief, struggling with all sorts of situations). If the sickness was covered by an insurance claim, I would be bringing in a short term resource to cover sickness absence, and speeding up any internal training, so I would want to know as soon as possible what the situation is. OP - it's a really devastating situation for you and your family - I really hope you can find a way through the coming months.

This.

Im surprised by how many people rush on to say “get signed off, put your family first”. But how can you expect a small or medium sized business to cope without an employee and pay them whilst they are not working. when the business has to stop paying you you’re going to be screwed. If you need this job you need to keep working.

I think you need to fight with the hospital over providing the care. They can’t expect every child in hospital has a parent who can drop everything to become a nurse.

it sounds as though he's doing pretty much everything else so is pulling his weight.

Take the sick leave @Jimisnotmyname, it sounds as though you need it. If I was your colleague I'd be furious, but at the company for putting both of us in this situation, you being sick and worrying and me losing money and holiday. To be honest I'd probably take the holiday anyway, being made redundant last year made me realise I'd been putting my employer first for far too long.

Well it’s lucky the fit note would just say “personal stress” (as it did when my husband was signed off for a month for something similar).

The reason is none of the employers business. It’s also none of your business what her husband is doing. What if he was ill? or abusive? Again, you don’t know, none of your business.

I’d laugh in your face if you were my employer and you told me you wanted to work on a solution. I’d probably ask you how you intend to make my child better.

If a GP signs her off - which of course they will, it’s not her employers business as to why.

Someone at DHs work has been signed off for nearly a year now with depression, and 2 people at my work were signed off (different timing/manager) after justified disciplinary warning for one and poor performance review dor the other with work related stress, one for 4 weeks and one for 2 months.
In this situation there's actual evidence not just self reported stress too.

So sorry you are facing this OP you must be incredibly stressed. I hope your DD improves soon and makes a full recovery .
I don't know what advice to give as I have never worked anywhere with a sickness policy anything like that of your employer! It must be incredibly rare? What organisations have this sickness policy? - addressed to other people on the thread as a general question, you don't need to worry about answering OP.

It doesn’t matter what kind of leave it is. The employer’s problem is exactly the same because it’s caused by her not being there. I’d be beyond furious if my holiday was cancelled.

Have you applied for DLA for your daughter? She may meet criteria depending on the condition.

@AuntieDen OP’s clearly unfit to work right now. Which is understandable in the circumstances. Her child is feeling like they want to take their own life and is seriously ill in other ways.

Her employer has shown themselves to be ruthless by not proactively offering paid leave. In that case, I’d recommend joining a union and seeking advice on employment rights before starting to negotiate with the employer. It’s this sort of issue that unions are there for, which is why we should all contribute to them, to help people in their hour of need.

You’d be furious at the company for cancelling your holiday, not your colleague with the seriously unwell child though, surely?

I think you need to fight with the hospital over providing the care. They can’t expect every child in hospital has a parent who can drop everything to become a nurse.

@fruitbrewhaha I used to work in job with children in care who were in hospital. Those poor little things. I think a lot of people are blind to the abysmal state of healthcare in this country. Even for children.