AIBU to think too many people being off work is causing the country to fall apart?

[Tanyasfootspa]

Posting here out of sheer frustration really. Is it just me or does it feel like everything is grinding to a halt because half the workforce is off sick.

I’ve had three appointments cancelled this week alone — GP, dentist, and my son’s speech therapy. All due to staff absences. Tried to phone the council about a bins issue (don’t even get me started) and was on hold for 47 minutes before being cut off.

Meanwhile, I go to work, rain or shine. Loads of my colleagues are off with colds, stress, or just “taking a mental health day.” I’m not doubting genuine illness, but surely there’s a tipping point where too many people being off means things just don’t function?

Schools are short-staffed, NHS is beyond crisis, trains are delayed, post is late. It’s not just inconvenience — this feels like serious breakdown of basic services.

AIBU to think the UK is being held together by a rapidly shrinking group of people who are actually showing up?

Something’s clearly not working. It feels like there’s no backup anymore. No resilience. Just everything falling to pieces when someone sneezes or feels stressed.

Anyone else noticing this or am I being unfair?

I think its two hours

You can't go to the Dr's and get fixed up anymore they wash their hands of you quickly in the last two years my son has been referred for sleep issues and has been rejected by the paediatrician paediatrics has told them where to refer to and the Dr hasn't bothered..twice I've also wanted it investigated why he has diarrhea every few weeks for no reason they did a blood test said it was normal except his iron levels and shrugged it off meanwhile guess who can't attend school for 48 hours again due to diarrhea and guess who can't work due to looking after him 🤔

So yeah NHS being underfunded

My employer has reduced head count by a third in past 15 years. Stress levels are constant and massive.
for example. There’s literally nobody to answer the phone, and we’re told ‘it’s all of our jobs’ to drop everything that we’re doing for customer service on the phone.

Except we are all stretched to the limit doing the main job so by the time a customer call gets through to being picked up then they’re furious and the same staff who are good enough to pick up these calls (and add to their own workload) get a load of aggro, adding to their stress.

Mind utopia sorry to hear you had Cancer.me too,it's a hard road isn't it.i hope all goes well for you.my sister works for the NHS
And lots of redundancies are coming up.i think it's a general change in work practices. 30 people I a queue is crazy!

Judging by how many cars are on the roads during the day in my city,it doesn’t appear anybody works

The uk has a chronic problem with under investment.

So we end up with low productivity because we haven't done what countries like germany have, and invested in:

• training/education
• technological improvement
• manufacturing/production facilities

Employers in the UK are constantly trying to beat extra work out of knackered over stretched staff without giving them the training or improved tech/facilities they need to be more productive.

If they want more from less people, they must invest to achieve it. They can't just try to force the same group of people to output more through "working harder".

people living in damp homes , excessive pollution, UP foods, underfunding of NHS, long covid - just some of the reasons I can think of why health is declining. Added to that list long hours in short staffed workplaces and people crack.

It’s not sickness; it’s low pay. Lack of investment in the public sector is at fault for many of the reasons you describe!

I hope you didn’t vote conservative over the last 15 years. If you did, this is what you chose! If you didn’t then you have my full sympathies and I hope the UK will realise that the public sector needs huge investment for the country to function well. The idea that it’s just lost money and that business comes first is rubbish as you can see by the situations op mentions in this exact post!

It's a huge problem. Every workplace operates on way less staff than before, so forcing overtime etc on those staff who then simply burn out as their stress levels are so high. Plus illnesses seem more prevalent this year- we are usually a super healthy family but we have all had tummy bugs, covid and full on flu this year so far which has led to a lot of time off work and school. A lot of the jobs mentioned are high stress jobs such as any health care or teaching role, train and bus drivers as well. If mental health support was better without years of waiting lists, and places would hire a couple more people (assuming they could, it's often cost cutting in certain workplaces) we wouldn't be a nation whose people are on their knees. Also (unpopular opinion alert) if the government hurried up processing asylum seekers and immigrants they could join the workforce too, as that's what they actually want as opposed to what the Daily Mail would have you think.

Back in the 50s and 60s people wondered how society would be when robots took over most of the work. We are heading there with mechanised mega farming and imminent driverless cars for example.
It was thought we’d be a happy and healthy society of people who had endless leisure time.
We didn’t account for corporate greed. There are fewer people needed so profits can all rise and the money and assets and resources pool amongst fewer people. The people who do work have to work harder than ever and the massive pool of non workers live on almost the same as the lower paid - not enough for either group to have a comfortable life.

The Thames Water bonus thing is interesting. They ‘need’ to pay bonuses of £1m to people earning £2m to retain them but they don’t ‘need’ to retain ordinary workers or pay them more.
How to run society in the Information Age needs a huge amount of thought. Not this short term thinking of bringing in people from abroad to prop up our disaffected and dependent population. We need higher pay, investment in training, wealth taxes. Proper planning!

There's fewer staff trying to do the jobs of many more with more pressures, so people are much more stressed. They are run down so get ill.

When I think back to my parents where my mum worked part time for a bit but had loads of time to do stuff with the kids, house, paperwork etc so their evening and weekends were spent relaxing and doing the garden not trying to work full time, kids in childcare and constantly chasing their tales like many couple now. So many people need two wages just to pay the mortgage and they are still skint and won't see each other much. My parents both retired in their 50s!

Genuinely an honest question and not stirring. But has anyone noticed a difference since a lot more management are WFH? Because I have in terms of mad decisions about redundancies etc between the more senior people WFH and those having to open services everyday, there seems to be an idea that somehow people will make it work whereas staff on the ground can obviously see if you don’t have X number of staff we will have to close.

It honestly feels like they’re much more disconnected from reality and the individuals involved, I personally think it’s a lot easier to dehumanise people and assume that this and this will pick up the slack when you’re not consistently working with people face to face. This is not a dig at those WFH btw, one of my best ever managers managed me remotely and she was great! I think it’s an unintended consequence.

I used to work through illnesses at my own detriment. Was I appreciated for doing it? No.

If I am not well I am not going to work. My health matters more than my job or inconvenience to others.

And people in private nursing homes and clinics etc that have to deal with sick patients? Or those whose workmates bring germs in on private companies. Or those shop workers who deal with the sniffing coughing public day on and day out who are not off sick all the time. How's that the same as those Sat on a computer

Then everyone comes in sick so people are more sick more often.

Too many maybe but if there was no sick pay offices and commuting trains and buses would be a nightmare

I was a temp in the 90s and I routinely took assignments that were sick cover and holiday cover. People were expected to just do their own jobs and finish at 5. Some exec assistants were expected to stay later if needed, and were paid handsomely for it and were also rewarded in terms of plenty of slack when the boss was away - it was accepted, not a fiddle. Now just doing one’s own job and 35 hours a week feels like a crazy dream. It’s not sustainable. No one has cover for holiday or sick leave so everyone is doing say 1.2 of a job because everyone has to cover. Then, the job itself is core 37.5 hours - dthat extra half hour got added sometime in the late 90s. All your team has been rationalized away around you and your pay hasn’t shifted. People who stack shelves or pack Amazon parcels are being pressured like they’re paid millions and they’re not paid enough to keep a family. It’s too fucking hard for most people

DS (17) recently started a chef apprenticeship. 12 hour shifts ( 15 min break) If he did that for the next 30, If alone 50 years, he’d be burnt out!! He’s returning to his old ( non apprentice) trainee chef role, where he gets a hours break.

I don’t blame people tbh anymore. We’ve had years of seeing our tax money being spunked up the wall on housing illegal immigrants, benefit scroungers, Covid payouts etc. All these contributing factors over the years can turn even the hardest working person into thinking “fuck it, why do I bother”

The social contract has been destroyed. People sick of getting the piss taken out of them by governments

These people are an absolute PITA.

They come in and are completely unproductive and usually in a bad mood which makes everyone else miserable too. Then they spread their germs around and get sanctimonious when other people don't copy their example and come in sick.

I WFH and I do my job better and deeply care about the humans behind my work.

The only difficulty I have is with some managers who have not got to grips with WFH for themselves or others. I have several queries in my inbox on the same issue and due to lack of communication I cannot state with any confidence what our current policy is. I've sent three emails to the relevant manager asking for clarity and had no response to any of them. She doesn't answer the phone either.

The problem isn't that I'm WFH or that she's WFH, the problem is that certain managers used to operate on the basis that they only really communicated when a staff member collared them in person and put them on the spot with a direct question, and this can no longer be done.

I've got similar difficulties with other colleagues and the issue is lack of communication which can be done by email and phone easily, they just choose not to.

You are bang on with this - it is the people who avoid stuff and couldn’t in an office environment. Honestly a few of these people have created absolute chaos when they’re more senior in my work, especially as they’re now making assumptions about how things work and don't bother to find out. I do wonder if people like this manage to get more power with WFH, but as I said I absolutely don’t think it’s WFH ‘fault’.

Im not surprised, 30 years of being a nurse in the NHS would break a lot of people. Our working conditions are terrible in my team and it never gets better no matter how much bullshit management spout. I am in two minds about it all as With such a generous sickness policy many staff full advantage and in my team where barely a week goes by without one off sick. I have a colleague who was off for 18 months with stress and has been back a year, she's not worked two months on the trot yet and has just gone off again.

@Enigma53 you too lovely - it’s very easy for many to feel strongly about these things till health goes down the toilet -

Many people have developed the mindset that loyalty and effort get you nothing in the workplace anymore. Employers, particularly in public services, treat all of their employees like total shit, including the good ones, and people have had enough of it. They no longer feel the need to work themselves to the bone and martyr themselves for people that give no fucks about their health and wellbeing and who will replace them in a heartbeat.

I used to be so motivated, passionate, made so much effort, regularly went above and beyond and all it got me was an expectation that I’d just do more and more. Never any thanks, recognition or being valued. So slowly that flame of motivation has been snuffed out and now I no longer care. It has become just a job to pay my bills to me and I no longer feel any sense of loyalty nor any inclination to do any more than necessary to get my pay each month. I have been off sick for a month and I will be requesting more from my doctor. I’m caring for my dying parent now which has added to the work related stress/depression I developed. And frankly I don’t give two shits about being off sick. Previously, I’d probably have offered to do a bit from home in between caring for my parent but not anymore.