Holiday photos on Facebook whilst off sick

[TeaAndBrie]

Really interested to hear opinions on this one.
Staff member off long term sick (fully paid as local gov) due to mental health issues, signed off by GP for 4 months so far.
staff member is friends with manager on Facebook.
staff member has been uploading photos of holiday abroad on Facebook.
i would not expect someone who is on LTS for mental health reasons to never leave the house etc
Holiday photos seem a bit much though - especially when manager and other colleagues who can see these pics are having to pick up all of the work whilst he is away.
YABU - let them have their holiday, it’s good for them!
YANBU - let them have the holiday but would be better to have have pics on SM

Yes as I work and have bipolar, eupd, depression, gad and cptsd. And Im absolutely not saying everyone with mental illness can work what im saying is to be of work with your mental health for 6 months I would expect your problems to be quite significant and debilitating or I would expect the person to work with their employer to get back in to work with reduced hours and reasonable adjustments if they where at the point that they could go on holiday.

That's your mental illness.

With mine I carried on working, carried on caring for my children and on the surface looked fine.

But I was very suicidal. Very. I had horrendous PTSD. Wild insomnia. I will spare the details of where my brain was at as I wouldn't want to trigger anyone.

It was only thanks to lots of help from a senior psychiatrist and psychologist and a great mental health nurse and lots of medication that I made it through alive.

I am not dismissing your struggles but you don't get to dismiss mine.

But that isn’t what you said.

Some people get no sick pay

Damn straight.

Local government staff member takes the p@ss. Yep, sounds about right. They'll know they can't fire them.

To be fair when I had to be signed off I didn’t know anything about the rules, I assumed I would t be paid but I had to be off so thought I’d have to take the hit.

And you went on holiday during that time. Managed to navigate an airport, pack your bags, sort out insurance and bookings, while on holiday managed to get dressed multiple times a day for the pool, nights out. Etc

I think activities like navigating travel to go on holiday are much more challenging than navigating travel to go to work.

I believe if you are able to function in a foreign country way out of your comfort zone then yes you should be able to function at work. Perhaps a different role if the job itself is the issue. No one is suggesting that work isn't stressful.

They should be using annual leave to go abroad.

Going abroad on full pay from a government job (sleeping tax payer funded) whilst off sick then posting bragging photos is taking the p*ss.

What did I say

Why? A holiday is nothing like being at work. Nothing like it.
For some people the work could be a source of their mental health problems. Or involve situations that they would not be able to cope with. Whereas lying on the beach would be great for them

In one job I did I regularly received violent threatening and unpleasant emails. The joy of dealing with the public. If I had been in mental health crisis in that job I certainly could have done it. Thankfully when I was in crisis I had a very different type of job and was able to work.
Everyone's job is different and everyone's mental health crisis is different

There's no reason why they cant go off on holiday when they are on long term sick with mental health issues but I get how irritating it is.

During lockdown I worked at a GP practice. It was really, really hard frontline work. We were at the time 6 receptionists but one had to self isolate due to medical reasons, one went off with mental health issues and one broke her ankle and had to have 3 months off sick. That left the remaining 3 of us working 12 hour days, 5 days a week. Can't be helped but was hard work.

But, whilst doing nothing wrong, all three of them were posting photos on facebook throughout the whole time. Out taking their exercise, making bloody banana bread, going out to cafes when seating outdoors opened up again. Nothing we could do about it and they were doing nothing wrong but when the 3 of us were spending 60 hours a week being shouted at by patients who all decided that covid was a conspiracy and we were to blame their lovely, relaxing photos didn't do much for staff relations when they did come back!

But how? You can’t say you don’t care and offer up no solution.

A business employs 5 people working 8 hours a day and one of those is a manager (so manages the other 4) so manages and does the workload. 40 hours of work. All the people except the manager go off ill 4x8 lot of working hours =36 hours of work - what should the manager do? How do they get 36 further hours of work done in their day??

Tell me what the solution is to your manager manages the situation is. Shut the business? 🙄 stop copping out and come and answer the questions - what does the manager do?

Maybe it's just because I have travelled a lot (and speak several languages) but I find it easy to travel in France or Germany (and most of Europe in fact) as I do in England

Disregard what i said, i thought they were off sick for a couple of weeks did not realise it was long term. It’s maybe worth having a word w manager about replacement if they’ve been off months

I’m really torn. I know someone who’s done this recently. I’ve worked with her for years and she’s a nice lady - usually a reliable worker etc. She has significant responsibilities that several people are desperately trying to cover between them (and largely being overwhelmed by the workload). She had a close family bereavement and has been off for months.

On the one hand I get it - she’s not in a good place and I am genuinely sympathetic. But on Instagram I can see she’s been on multiple mini breaks and hen do’s and much as I KNOW people only post the good bits of their life on social media and she genuinely IS struggling with her bereavement, it does wind me up when I see photos of her drinking wine in Italy etc when I know she’s signed off on full pay and know how hard everyone at work is covering for her!

If a job is truly making you mentally ill you would leave as true mental illness is hell on earth and no job is worth that.

I am very sorry for the tragic loss of your son .

'For some people the work could be a source of their mental health problems'

Yes and the solution is to get another job not be on long term sick.

Yeah, I made that point too. But I think some on here would expect you to use that leave to go to work!

This is entirely different. A doctor suggesting it and you informing work that you are doing this for your mental health with your line manager is entirely different from being signed off for 4 months and going abroad for 2 months without informing your work.

I remember feeling like this getting lovely chirpy emails from the children's school teachers about how much fun they were having in lockdown while DH and I both juggled a tripled workload while taking care of the children
(Key workers but both children have asthma so I didn't feel comfortable to send them in to school)

Id say take the holiday but really not very sensible to post on social media. That’s kinda flaunting the system .

Stop saying ‘true mental illness’ and dismissing the lived experience of others just because it doesn’t identically match yours.