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

Husband and wife should definitely both be taking turns and not just because work but for their own health and their children at home and the child at hospital.

All children are affected with one parent missing and one just popping in here and there.

I am a manager and I would absolutely support you with taking sick leave - family comes 1st every time. As a manager it is my responsibility to arrange adequate cover for sickness / holidays etc. please be there for your DC without guilt. Take care

We both were at first when our son was at his sickest, though it wasn't clear he would survive at the beginning.

Absolutely this.

I cannot fathom that people would feel responsibility for a colleague's holiday .

It's 100 percent on the management to organise cover.

To be honest, if I were your colleague, I'd just think "fucking hell, I'm glad I'm not in that situation" and wish you well... Even if my holiday was cancelled

But at your boss surely, not your colleague with the sick child.

Even if you lost 2-5k as well? Money you’d possibly saved years for.

Yes not ops personal problem but the companies. I’m sure you’d feel a way at loosing that and say no leave for months.

Fucking hope so but I fear not!

OP is there any reason why your husband can’t take sick leave?

There is no reason why holidays should be cancelled because a colleague is on sick leave. Companies should have contingency plans for these situations, of course OP should be there for their child. As a manager , I have covered sick leave on many occasions, it’s what you do to support your team

Il be honest. I’ve not read the whole thread but…. Jesus…. Be off work!!! This is your child. They are poorly and nurses or no nurses they need their mummy!
you are a number at work. No matter how much you feel irreplaceable you are exactly that. The fact they can cancel another colleagues annual leave is quite frankly ridiculous and not your issue. Focus on you and your child. We wouldn’t get parental leave for that long in my company but it would be 100% expected that we would take sick leave for something like this. Your mind isn’t in work. Be with your kid. I hope you are ok and your child is better soon

Even if you did resign, there's still a chance that your colleague might have their annual leave cancelled if they can't find a replacement for you.
If I didn't have anything planned and wouldn't lose any money/a holiday over it I'd be volunteering to cover under the circumstances, however I'd be expecting the management to well, manage the situation effectively and arrange cover for you being off sick. Anything can happen to one of the team that renders them unable to work, actually physically, and the managers have a responsibility to deal with that. This is no different, it's your child and the stress is meaning you're not coping with the work demands, you're human, not a robot, and you don't exist just to make everyone else's life easier.
Take the sick leave and let the company meet their responsibilities for staffing their business adequately, annual leave and sickness are an everyday part of a business and not the responsibility of the individual employees, that's a cop out and a way to try and guilt people into working when unwell or not take their annual leave to make their lives easier.
I'm so sorry this is happening, that's what I'd be thinking about you, and I'd be resenting the company and management for putting us all in this situation, not you. You would have my support and sympathy.

I agree..

And surely your colleague has a gob on them and can quite firmly state to the employer that they paid up front for their holiday and cannot be refunded.
The employer either provides cover for your absence or refunds the holiday payment if they want the member of staff to cancel.

Maybe someone legal on MN will know if an employer can force a staff member to lose a considerable sum of money, cancelling a holiday leave which was approved by the company.

In any case, if my child was as poorly and your little DC... I would'nt give a single damn about the company's hand wringing over paying to cover your job for a month or two at a time of such crisis after you've worked for them for a whole decade.

And in that circumstance, I wouldn't give a damn about someone's two weeks away either.

Because The holiday is a problem for the company and the colleague to sort out. Not yours. You may need time off , but those two parties are causing the situation re holiday/lack of cover . It can be resolved. It should be resolved by the two of them.

Its Not for them to pile the blame on you. Or whine about how difficult it all is for them. It is their job to sort it out between them. Employees get sick all the time. Managers are supposed to manage that.
You didn't want your child to be sick. If they do blame you - they haven't got a scrap of humanity in them.
I am surprised that your company has not reached out and been more supportive.

You are probably still in shock and need to process all this and what you need to do. Please take the time off at least at the moment. It may not be this level of stress throughout the whole period. Once your child is having regular treatment, you will get used to them being in hospital and there will be a routine and things will be calmer. Maybe after a while. you will find that you have friends or relatives who could also come and sit with your child to give you a bit of respite.
Wishing you and your little one all the very best OP.

Sorry but I think this would be wrong. This is not what sick leave is for. It’s your daughter who is sick, not you. Yes unfortunately, I would resent you.

Companies can cancel annual leave as long as they give the same notice length as your leave. Unless your contract states otherwise they don’t have to reimburse you and insurance won’t pay out.

Basically the employee about to maybe have their holiday cancelled relies on company not being shit and covering. Op says they won’t. Being not shit and paying plus really compensating which they don’t need to legally. Or the employee will quit really. As which point however company might just then make the whole job role redundant under restructure and fire the op or basically force her out by making the new role possible impossible.

Would you feel mentally well if your child was seriously ill? Would you be able to sit at your seriously ill child's bedside amongst all of the beeps, general ward noise, regular interruptions for observations etc and your seriously ill child constantly crying for mummy and be able to fully focus on working?

he is coping with the stress much better and unlike me, not falling apart. HTH.

ever had an ill colleague and asked them why the DH didn't get signed off in their place?

In any case, following the replies I have decided not to see the GP. I will collapse. at least I will be ill for real then but I won't get signed off for being stressed to the brim. This threat was eye opening but useful and it helped me to understand that getting signed off even though I am not well, would just cause too much upset/backslash at work and I want to avoid that. I am a people pleaser. hope you feel better now

OP I am so sorry that you are going through this , I am also so sorry that you have had some unsympathetic responses. I do hope that those posters are never in your situation. Please DO see your gp and explain your current circumstances. You deserve compassion and empathy. Please take all the time away from work that you need.

Is going off sick going to change the stress? It’s your child being sick that is causing the stress isn’t it? That and the need to care for them. You said up thread that it may do you good to not be on the ward all day.

If you weren’t expected to care for them all the time (if your DH did do half the hospital care, for instance) would working be a burden or a bit of a relief?

OP get signed off please!! Your family needs you. A job is a job. I know from experience that you are just a number to them. It's your company's fault for not having enough people trained to do your role. They should have contingency plans because I know it's highly unlikely but people get ill at the same time. Your colleague could get hit by a bus tomo and then what would they do?
I cannot believe you are considering trying to work through all that. You are going to be no use to work and no use to your child if your are stressed, exhausted and burnt out. Your GP would sign you off in a heartbeat. Ignore the heartless 'business owners' in the thread, all they care about is the profit they are making from the poor souls who have to work for them.

OP: so sorry about your DC. It does sound to me like you need time off to cope with the current situation, both from the point of view of looking after DC and managing your stress.

It is such a shame that there is no government recognition of the need for parents to have access to paid leave in this kind of situation. (It is a big step forward that there are now proposals for paid leave for parents whose newborns require neonatal in-patient care although I am not sure whether the employer or the government is going to pick up the bill for this. As someone whose baby spent eight weeks in SCBU, I well understand the financial implications currently for mums and partners of having a newborn in hospital for an extended length of time.

As an owner of a very small business which used to employ staff (in addition to myself), I just wanted to pick up on a statement made by a PP saying that the government reimburses companies for sick pay. This used to be the case but sick pay is now paid for by the employer with no reimbursement. For a very small company like mine, a member of staff going off on extended sick leave would be very bad news financially, and it is one of the reasons I decided a few years ago that the risk of this, plus other changes in the law leading to increased staffing costs, was too great and that I would stop employing staff and instead work at a level which I can cover myself, working with freelance colleagues if I need help for temporary projects. I didn't make staff redundant but scaled back gradually as staff left and did not fill vacant posts.

Larger companies are likely to be able to cover the costs of extended sickness absence as it will be a much lower proportion of their overall costs. I assume that many of the managers posting above in support of OP are employed in large companies where the issue is more of re-allocating work rather than cost.

I would really like to see the government addressing this issue as there must be many parents who find themselves in a similar situation to OP, and some of them will be working for very small businesses who have to pick up the tab.

OP, this post is NOT directed at you. You are in this situation now and you need to do what is right for you and your family.

It's more to highlight that this sort of situation is an issue for small businesses and to say that the government should be ready to at least provide some help towards the costs. Small businesses are a major employer collectively and if the government wants to see economic growth (including increased employment), it needs to realise that it needs to support the small business sector better than it does at present.

Oh @Jimisnotmyname this sounds like such an impossible situation for you. And it sounds like being signed off for stress would not be a lie.

I can also see why you feel guilty about your colleague potentially losing annual leave - even though this isn’t your fault.

As a compromise, why don’t you ask the GP to sign you off for a month, then DH takes A/L to stay at the hospital. You cover your colleagues A/L and then get signed off again if necessary.

At the end of the day you put your family first. I hope your DC’s health improves.

I have cared for very unwell children as my job for 2 decades. It is v normal for parents to use sick leave and for this. Is there also a hospital social worker you could speak to about any extra support or funding you can access?

It is up to your managers to worry about the impact on the rest of your team, not you. Focus on your family. Sending best wishes for you, your child and rest of your family. It is tough having a child in hospital

If your employer has allowed this situation with two people being the only ones who know how to do something and no one can possibly cover for them then that’s on them. It’s nothing to do with you.

Same for your colleague.

What if you die on the first day of her annual leave? Is she going to get on a plane and come back? Is she heck.

What if you hand your notice in on Monday? What if she does? Honestly, this is the managements problem, not yours. Your ‘problem’ is to do your best for your poorly daughter.

If you’re too ill to work go and see your GP. And ‘too ill’ means vomiting, stress, your leg fell off, any range of things.

Wow. No compassion at all? No recognition that stress related (physical) illness is a thing?