"it is unacceptable for men or women to call in because a child is sick in my view."

[hunkermunker]

Xenia says "it is unacceptable for men or women to call in because a child is sick in my view."

I am interested to know what other people do in this situation.

I come in sick too Cloudhopper! But you cannot drag a sick child into your workplace can you? And if like me, you do not live near family or friends then you have no-one to help out when things go wrong. It is usually me who takes the time off because it has always been my job that has been the lowest paid, so therefore less of a priority.

Xenia - can I just ask how you feel about these threads please?

Xenia - that is very sad.

RE: taking time off for sick dog - several times over the years (before I became scrambled-eggs-for-brains-SAHM) I took time off because of problems with one of my horses or the cat. I would only do this if no one else was around to deal with a situation that couldn't wait.
I would phone my boss to explain and because I was someone who worked damned hard and never took time off sick (lucky me to be so healthy) he was always very understanding about it and actually paid me for the time.
But lie about why I was away from work...
NEVER. It's stealing imo - no different at all.

Mind you, I suppose the general point is that no employer is going to want to cover all the time for someone and worry whether that person is going to be around for a major deadline.

Whether that is because they are sick or their children, or because their dog died, is irrelevant really.

But expecting your employer to handle high levels of absence for whatever reason is not going to go down well.

I do believe in our society we have to carry people whose lives are a nightmare though.

Yes you are right cloudhopper, I will keep the mutual appreciation society going.

Some people seem to be unable to organise their personal lives so it does not intrude on their work one and just expect others to cover for them. Also people seem to have a different view of how sick they need to be to take a day off work, a lovely lady who used to report to me routinely took a pmt day off a month plus the odd day off for headaches & general illness until we had a little discussion about it

That in my view is unacceptable and should be tackled by their manager. I also believe that people have a duty to take care of their own health and I get annoyed by those in my team who smoke and have higher than normal absences due to chesty flus and so forth.

However if employees are generally doing this then they should be cut some slack and not given a hard time if they do genuinely need time off for their own or their childs illness.

Some people are more sick than others even if they do take care of their health. And some children are more sick, for example asthmatic children. As we get older we also tend to need a few trip to the doctors. I think it comes down to what kind of society we want to live in. Do we all need to be super-people who are never sick with super-healthy children? Do we all need to hire a temp from a nanny-agency when a child gets ill or perhaps a temp to visit our child in hospital? Or perhaps all parents should stay in low-paid jobs no matter what qualifications and how good they are at their jobs?
I find it really funny how you cannot discuss parents taking time off work without someone mentioning sick cats.

Agree with everything Caligula has said.

How funny that we get indignant about people's home life intruding on their work ones, but not vice versa.

rh, I don't mind what people say except I don't want to be identified. That's the only thing I prefer not to see.

On sickness I catch more germs when I have small children around. It's a lose lose situation in some ways. I wish they wouldn't breathe so much. Japanese face masks must be the way to go.

As for XYZ is off all the time because her diet is cream buns, she weighs 25 stone and never exercises and smokes like a chimney well yes those are fascinating issues. She has chosen that lifestyle just as parents choose to have children. The bottom line is some employers won't tolerate people who are often away. Others there is a culture of sickness (usually where we tax payers aer paying the salaries)

It can help if you don't pay them anything for the first 3 days off and then SSP after that. Concentrates the mind of malingers but not the genuinely ill.

ROFL Xenia...i know what you mean about them not breathing so much

Cappucino - pmsl at Tate & Tolstoy - to be fair - it is a small majority of the village teenagers who partake in drugs in the bus stop - the rest of them would probably prefer the Tate (that kind of village)

I have failed to follow the rest of the thread since earlier and the only thing I picked up skimming through was 'cream buns' - maybe coz am pg

When I first started this job, I was supposed to go to London on a big fundraisers convention. But it clashed with dd's first day at school. Not an ordinary first day at school, but her first day at school in England after a very traumatic move from France and she started this school in Year 2.

As her mother I wanted to be the one who took her to school and picked her up again. Dh was also working and his was a new job too. If I had gone it would have meant dd going to the breakfast club and then staying in the after school club for her first 2 days of school.

I did seriously think that this would have an unpleasant impact on her so I talked it over with my new bosses and eventually I put my foot down and said that family came before work so I was not going to London.

Just wondering what others would have done in that situation?

Several of my friends who run their own businesses give their employees a contract where they don't pay any sick pay. But in practice they pay people once they have proved that they are a worthwhile employee. Same scenario as Xenia suggests, really - if people think they'll only receive SSP then they come in whenever reasonably possible. But strangely, when they realise that actually they will get paid even though it's not in their contract, they don't suddenly start taking loads of time off.
Any reasonable employer should be understanding about the need for parents to care for a sick child - doesn't mean they should be expected to foot the bill.

In Xenias defence - I know (in fact you'll all know it!) a children's company based in London who don't pay sick or holidays as the staff were so unreliable. The owner said the only person she trusted was her accountant

Rhubarb - definitely the same as you

I took them all on their first day (their father would have been teaching so harder for him to have got there). I didn't take one on his first day at nursery school because I think his father was off work but I was always in a position that I could do that luckily.

People differ on these things. My sister's got some work which potentially on her and her twins' birthdays. It would never have crossed my mind not to work on my birthday or a child's birthday but she'll turn the work away and lose the money I think because not being together on that day is more important to her.

And sometimes it's a question of weighing the importance of the event with whatever else you might be doing for work (or even other hobbies) at the same time. I think that's what you do all the time. I have gone to most sports days over 22 years but missed a few if the other event was more important. I didn't go to the last parents' evening but the teacher just fixed me another time. I was doing a work thing I couldn't get out of.

I have to say this debate is very interesting.

I work 2 days a week for a v big co and my boss is a very big cheese - he employed me because I wanted to come back to work to use my brain after being off with DS for 2 years - he said its nice that I want to come to work and feels I would do a better job than someone who had to come to work for finacial reasons as I could never resent being here.

DH supports me entirely and works good hours for a bank - he is in from 7am and is home by 5.30 to pick up DD and DS on the days that I work and if he can he will go home to look after DS or DD if they are sick as we don't have family that nearby or that young to do so - his parents are in their 70s and I would feel awful if they got sick looking after my sick children. Saying that the majority of DHs work load is over by 1ish so if DS got sick in the afternoon he would go before me to pick him up.

I don't think it is an issue whether it is the man or the woman who leaves work to look after the kids when they are sick - families just do what they can to get by and ensure both of then stay in favour with their employer. But if it came to the crunch I would leave work or give up work if I had to because DHs income is so much bigger than mine andpays for all of the important things like the mortgage and bills.

We just rub along in our household and whoever is best placed picks up the slack - no debate or questionning at all really.

I read only recently that Europe were thinking of introducing paid leave for parents with sick children. I only glimpsed it, so don't know how long it would be.

Europe tried to introduce this years ago, but Britain blocked it. I remeber it quite clearly as ds was very small at the time.

I work as a teacher, very high sickness rate due to stress of job, not malingering. However management usually v helpful when dc are sick, AND colleagues have to cover your classes, but no one minds. We all support each other.

Colleague had very very sick child, and loads of time off. Management were very supportive and helpful, and so were all colleagues.

Xenia's statement was quoted out of context in the OP.

She has since clarified that it was only in relation to "special jobs with 1-2m earning potential". It is not cloudcuckoo land because I happen to work in such a City firm (though not on that career track anymore). These are jobs where a premium is built in the remuneration to compensate for the fact that the firm (or more accurately, the firm's clients) own every minute of your free time. There isn't a clear demarcation between personal time and work time. This intrusion is not acceptable to many people (as many on this thread have expressed) and so better that it is the Xenias of this world who do it, and not me.

But for Xenia to state that it is unacceptable to call in for a child or cat or spouse's ill health or whatever is a just a statement of fact. It is neutral and part of the job spec. Xenia has every right to make this observation, a perspective I am interested in.

Family or even human rights don't come into the equation. If you don't play by the unwritten rules, it is career suicide. In reality, even such firms will have some degree of flexibility. My previous bosses have taken days off when the nanny was sick etc but the difference is they NEVER took it during a crunch time at work (when they were key to a transaction which was about to complete to a tight timetable). In a way, it is easier to rearrange your life around a personal emergency when you are actually on 1-2m, rather than with the potential of earning it but not having made it yet.

The difference is that a person in this job cannot switch off and say, oh, child sick, I am at home, don't bother me. The calls will still come. I remember a transaction in which we were in the office on a Sun and made unscheduled call to a Luxembourg lawyer on his mobile. We were so grateful to be able to reach him and then halfway through the conference call, he said he had to duck out for 30 minutes because his family and guests were waiting for him to start the BBQ! And wait we did. But that is why he is paid the big bucks. And no one thought to ask why he wanted to have children if he allowed work to intrude into his personal life to this degree.

The one time I had to stay home to look after my feverish dd was actually quite easy. She just lay on my lap drifting in and out of sleep, whilst I wiped her brow and offered her water and Calpol periodically. I could easily have been online working from home, impossible if she was bouncy and well.

Twinkie1 - I work part time for 'pin money' (dreadful expression!) - we have 3 hols instead of one and last year paid a decorator instead of me having to go up a ladder for weeks on end. So we don't 'need' my money - like you it's more to preserve my sanity than anything else. But on occasion one of the children has had something on during the day that has clashed with a meeting or something else that I shouldn't be wriggling out of. So dh has taken time off to go, instead - even though we most definitely do need his salary! He's been happy to oblige - he respects the fact that I wouldn't expect to behave differently to my employer just because we could manage without the money. If people behaved like that then I think it would present a very poor image of working mums.

fortyplus - DH is quite happy to take the time off if he can - as I do if I can - but in my mind I would rather be with the kids if they were ill - thats not to say it gives working mums a bad name - my boss has 4 kids and totally understands - and at the end of the day in my mind if I was sacked for taking too many days off or anything like that it wouldn't have a huge impact on my family - if DH were on the other hand we would be potless.

We juggle it - if DH can go he does, if I can I do - it depends on what priorites we have that day but if it came to the crunch it would be me and I wouldn't mind in the least.

I can;t speak for other working mums who have to work though and their attitude - I most certaily didn't come on here to make working mums out to be second class employees without a good work ethic thats for sure

BA are having an issue atm with staff and there's talk of a strike. BA has the highest sickness rate of all the airlines.

Staff are not allowed to fly with a cold, for example,because of the danger of burst eardrums. So inevitably they have higher rates of sickness than many other industries because it's really important not to fly when you might have just a sniffle which would be manageable if all you had to do was sit in front of a computer on the ground. And because they handle food, cabin crew shouldn't fly with diarrhoea/ tummy bug type things.

They've introduced some draconian system to cut sick rates, but there's a row about it.

As blueshoes is right about those kinds of jobs as on the other thread this one came out of. If you're paying me enough per hour I am always available to you... even if I'm having sex never mind playing with the children.

Xenia - this is making me laugh as dh has often had phone calls at one of those moments!
Wonder if it's harder for men? (excuse the pun!)
Sometimes people have even asked him if he's had to run upstairs to answer the phone!

lol, Xenia, now nobody will want to work in your line!

Mums, Dads - whatever.

This is really a debate about whether we work to live or live to work. Depending upon which side of the fence you stand will dictate whether or not you feel a sick child is more important than your job. I suppose if you earn a potential 1-2m per year, you have already made that choice. I opted out of a high-flying career because the prospect of devoting my entire life to the job I did bored me. One dimensional people bore me, and that was how I viewed those who I feel are defined by their paid employment. DH is defined by his job, and I simply do not understand it - it is only one part of my life, and whilst I will always devote myself to it when I am there, I am not prepared to live my entire life by it. I guess the compensation would be that those earning a phenomenal amount of money would be able you to retire younger - if the continual pressures of work haven't finished them off before they got the chance.