was I BU to say that my collegue takes too many sickies

[porcamiseria]

I am fuming, my collegue (who I am very fond of BTW) has sent yet another pathetic sickie text. Its any excuse, a headache, tummy ache, period pain, and she bails. also between Xmas and NY when she was supposed to be working she only did 2-3 hour days. Its almost 1 day every 2-3 weeks she is off.

I dont think its fair, and I bet you any money if she did not get paid for these days, she would be here.

I am in the eary stages of PG, sick and tired. I would LOVE to take a day off but I dont want to take the piss.

So today I flipped and told our boss he needs to have a quiet word. Now I have extra work, and I feel pretty shit too.

Feel a bit bad as she is a mate, BUT it riles me beyond belief and work, is work

YABU. Yes there are those who take the piss, but there will always be genuine cases. She may not know what is wrong or may not want to discuss it. Like Hulababy I had to take an awful lot of time off work and felt incredibly guilty, especially as I heard the comments and saw the snide expressions. I would often pull myself into work ill (which was stupid, I was a teacher and you need to be on top of things) because of the guilt. But I didn't discuss my health much. I'd always been sickly and just felt embarassed, there was no diagnosis. It was only later when I had my children that I was dxd. In some ways it's easier then as you have a reason. But someone may not know why but be ill an awful lot, and it's those who go round saying 'I'd never take a day off, I just get on with it' etc, never really knowing what the level of sickness is, that exacerbate the situation and can lead to a lot of ugly stuff.

I wouldnt be bothered personally. You dont pay her wages, it's up to the company.

Plus you cant say for sure and if you do, its victimisation.

IMO.

Hah @ mumblechum denigrating period pains. For years, I went through the most horrendous period pain for at least 9 days a month. Couple that with 2-3 days of severe ovulation pain, it meant that I spent half of each month feeling as though I was being repeatedly stabbed in my back, thighs and lower legs. You can imagine how much I loved my manager from an old job who told me to "get a grip and take a feminax". For what it's worth, I only missed 3 days of work in an entire year but being at work when feeling that shitty had a major impact on what I could and could not do. I would have loved to have seen her face when I finally collapsed in the work loo and had to be stretchered out by an ambulance crew - unfortunately, I was unconscious at the time after having passed out with the pain(!) I really should have just taken a couple of paracetemol and got on with the job I was paid to do

To OP, you should not have bad-mouthed your colleague to your manager. All you should have said was that you were finding your workload too heavy and I'm sure your manager would have taken the hint. I'm sure you see that now, so try not to beat yourself up about it too much. We all do things in the heat of the moment which we may later regret. At the very least, you were right to have raised it - the last thing your manager would want would be for you to go off sick due to stress etc. Your manager is now aware that something needs to be done (be that putting in extra support for both you and your colleague, reducing her working hours depending on what condition(s) she suffers from etc).

I definitely isn't the OP's business. It's nothing to do with her whether her colleague's sickness record is excessive, what any of her ailments are, whether they are serious enough to justify the time off and whether she is faking it.

What is the OP's business is her own workload. If her colleague's absence is having a negative impact on the OP's work, she is absolutely right to raise it as an issue and ask for support. That would draw it to the manager's attention.

Definitely not OP's place to tell her boss to have a quiet word.

It is the OP's business - she should bring it up in any staff appraisal and express her dismay at the management being unable to manage the sickness appropriately, specially if it impacts on her work load.

YANBU. If her absence is creating more work, there is a problem that needs to be addressed. If she genuinely can't do her job because of illness, that is a different matter that also needs to be addressed.
most people sadly do take the piss ... it's always pretty obvious too.

YANBU

Two kinds of people in the world - those who only phone in sick when they are really sick, and those who think work is an option they can pick up or drop any time they like by making up some pish excuse.

There are a few people who do take the piss.

There are a few very annoying martyrs who would have to be on their death bed before they stayed at home, who come into work and spread their germs and generally make everyone else feel permanently guilty.

Then there are the rest of us who just do our best. Sometimes we're ill and are genuinely better off staying at home for a day or two to recover than struggling in and making ourselves worse and worse.

And sometimes there are people who are under a huge amount of stress at home or at work, or perhaps are suffering badly with burnout or fatigue, and who don't give the real reason for a day off because they know colleagues like the OP and others on this thread would be less than sympathetic.

I am speaking from the point of view one who had a martyr for a manager, and who didn't dare take time off for a throat infection and consequently ended up off work for 2 months with a post-viral syndrome. That was 10 years ago and I'm still suffering for it to this day.

Can understand the frustration and, if it's been building up for a while sometimes ppl do erupt, which is what Porcamiseria said happened.

My immediate boss does not do his job, that's the job he's paid a lot more as a manager to do, plus the ordinary day-to-day stuff we all do. Has a genuine illness (depression) but in my organisation the job still has to be done and so it falls to others to not only do their own work but his. What makes us more disgruntled it that there is no open acknowledgement the problem exists and no thanks from those at the top for the extra burden it places on us - a little acknowledgement/thanks and openness would go a long way to making us feel less resentful.

I think you should mind your own business, you could end up looking stupid and insensitive like my colleague did this week.
I have had to have the odd day off lateley for very personal reasons, ive spoken to my boss about it, theres not a problem, but my arsehole colleague feels its HER business and has actually texted me asking why im not in and has also questioned me the following day about it.

In a staff meeting the other day she actually had the balls to state openly that she didnt agree with me having these days off, it wasnt fair, everybody else has to come in if theyre a bit of colour, why shouldnt i.

I bluntly stated that it was none of her business and didnt affect her in any way , nor did i wish to publicly discuss it.
Que more whining so i stated the REAL reason for abscense , not that i had to,but it goes without saying she now looks stupid, insensitive and like a nosy interfering cow.Also pointed out that seeing as my personal health issues seem to be up for discussion i feel we should also have a chat about her constant use of facebook in works time and general shit attitude.
Dont think she,ll mentiion it again.

Depends really.

If it's the person at the next desk, working independently from me, I care not at all if/why she is off. Their line manager's business to get nosey &/or medieaval on their lazy arse, if that's how it is & not genuine illness.

However, if I have to organise cover work for my colleague who throws diplomatic sickies EVERY TIME there's a set of reports due, so he can hole up & crack on with them, & who has had strategically timed man flu x3 since Xmas...

...well, if we were such good mates he'd not be dumping on me like that, would he.

I must admit I'm in the 'take 2 paracetamol & get on with it' camp. Obviously not if it's some antisocial d&v bug, but if it's just feeling a bit poorly, I may as well do that at work & then go home for an early night.

That's a fine attitude to have ravenAK - if two paracetamol make you feel better then you're not ill anyway.

It becomes a problem if you assume that someone else's headache (which could be part of a full-on debilitating migraine) can be solved by two paracetamol and therefore they should be at work as well. Nobody should make any assumptions about someone else's state of health IMO.

No matter how serious the illness if this situation should not arise. It's a failure of management. If someone is taking enough unscheduled leave (for whatever reason) to make their colleague's working lives too hard, something needs to be done about it. Either the absentee needs a talking too and, or there needs to be another member of staff taken on, or a redistribution of tasks. Leaving things as they are reliant on the good will of another member of staff is unfair and short-sighted.