Sicky and posting on social media

[foodiefil]

I’m quite annoyed about something and wondering if there’s anything i can do.

colleague called in sick today. A few of us were asked to swap shifts which is how I know.

colleague then posted on Instagram several times - in a pub, eating drinking, in another pub, in the car on a trip out.

i raised this with a colleague who is more senior than me and they couldn’t say much but said it had been arranged with our boss, it was a sick day due to mental health.

i have a diagnosed mental health condition and I’ve needed time off in the past - no issues there.

but due to job stresses many of us are experiencing mental health issues (redundancy) and I’m wondering if we should all be able to take a day like this, a one that is paid, goes down as sickness but where we can go out and do what we like?

this isn’t company policy it’s a decision that’s been made at manager’s discretion to allow this employee to take today off but I don’t understand why we can’t all have a day like today, is this not treating people differently?

same roles same pay roughly etc.

Your "genuine question" was actually "I’m quite annoyed about something and wondering if there’s anything i can do." so what you actually wanted to do was to get her into trouble, just as you did when you reported her to a senior person.

@Quveas yeah I probably am all of those things and will have to deal with those feelings. This came at the end of a very stressful week for me and some others at work as I’ve mentioned further up the thread.

i wouldn’t post on social media the things that were posted if I was taking a day sick. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do them. My question was really about if management were favouring someone/giving preferential treatment.

im usually a nice person, or so I thought, but some of these comments are making me think I have some nasty character traits to work through to help me be a better person. Thanks to everyone who has commented

@Quveas senior person also has her on social media I wasn’t pointing anything out she hadn’t already seen

Not in Europe - maybe in some US companies you get "so many days per year" which you "should use" because you get so little annual leave, but in most first world countries there's a limit on how long blacks of sick leave can be before needing medical confirmation/ going into statutory sick pay or whatever, but not a set number of days a year available to be taken as sick leave.

i raised this with a colleague who is more senior than me and they couldn’t say much but said it had been arranged with our boss, it was a sick day due to mental health.

Really, really poor form of someone to disclose this to you tbh. No need for them to specify it was due to mental health and I'm sure that likely breaches any internal confidentiality clauses in your company's code of conduct.

She has a complaint because she was instructed to gave up her day off to do her colleague's shift because her colleague was off sick despite having mental health issues herself, and did so, only to have her colleague's day in the pub displayed to her.

Sorry monster I clarified this further down. I was not told it was because of MH I came to this conclusion because if you are physically sick and need to be off work then surely you can’t go to the pub/socialise etc. absolutely my conclusion I was not told this.

asked to cover shift due to illness + colleague I was covering posted being in the pub = me thinking must be stress/MH not physical sickness

Gosh OP, you really are coming across as extremely judgmental. You have absolutely no idea why your colleague was off that day, and it's none of your business.

Yet you've decided it was because of her mental health, and complained that 'everyone' should have days off for mental health, but at the same time telling us that you have indeed had time off for mental health.

Like ither posters have said, it could have been anything. An anniversary of a traumatic event, a miscarraige, and so one.

The important thing is to know that your colleague okayed it with her manager and her manager approved it.

That your colleague did something with the day that was unexpected and posted about on social media is the only thing that's got you in a tizz about this.

And as for asking you to cover a shift, you're totally within your rights to say no. If you feel pressured by your employer to work extra, that's down to your employer not your colleague.

Second guessing is also not doing anything for your own mental health! Maybe you feel aggrieved because you haven't prioritised it as much as you'd like to, so when you see someone prioritising their own health more than you feel you do, it sets off comparisons and jealousy.

Maybe look after yourself more. 🙂

Honestly I'm with you.

I think people putting the boot in have no concept of workplaces where a colleague being absent has a massive impact on other colleagues.

We have to give up our days off, reschedule our children's medical appointments, work seven days in a row, swap Monday and Tuesday shifts for working all weekend, work when we're at the end of our resources and tired to the bone and should have been off, do a shift meant to be covered by two qualified professionals alone, stay late meaning our children miss extra-curriculars/ sports training or whatever.... when colleagues are off.

Of course everyone gets sick (mental health issues as well as physical) but it'd be inhuman not to resent a colleague posting about a day in the pub when they've called in sick with a significant knock on effect on colleagues.

I assume people saying that you have no complaint and are selfish to in any way feel put out, are people who shuffle a pile of papers which is theirs alone, for a living, and who's presence or absence from work impacts nobody.

@BishopRock yes I think you’re right. Obviously I don’t like to hear that I sound extremely judgemental but it’s helpful in that I can now recognise these feelings and shoo them away.

i would unfollow / block this person but I don’t want that to come across as passive aggressive and cause more problems

Thank you. This is how I feel.

i do accept the comments from other posters that I’m judgemental/jealous and will work through those feelings but I appreciate you’re understanding. I do think it’s human to feel pissed off at this! It takes a very big person to experience this and to immediately go to “this is none of my business” because it did affect me. I wasn’t just a bystander I was directly impacted

If they need a day off for mental health, they need it and you aren't able to dictate what they do with it. Maybe they were in bed and their partner said, come on, up, we are going to do something nice together. Or maybe they're blagging. Either way it's nothing to do with you, take your own sick day if you want.

which may have been under medical instruction. I have had multiple operations, and chemo, and am under instruction to try and go out every single day. I am constantly worrying about this sort of response from colleagues, or students, so I keep my employers up to date constantly with what I have been told to do, and what I have been doing, so that if anyone tries "telling tales" then they already know and expect me to have been seen up and about

You get so many days a year, you should use them.

I would like to know which companies "give" you so many paid sick days off. It doesn't happen anywhere I have worked.

Totally, not all sickness renders people bedridden. Adding to what you have shared, I have spent many an afternoon at the cinema in between x-ray appointments, scans and awaiting test results, treatment, instead of coming home and going out again. When 2-3 appointments are scheduled on the same day it makes life easier. I can imagine the eruption of gossip and doubt that would cause. Folks need to understand that how a person looks and how a person feels are to separate conclusions.

*two

How unpleasant.

I know I’m being pernickity here but if it were me I would have assumed she was posting about a different day. You just do you, and I mean that- you need a day off for mh then take one. All this checking people out just has people talking about people behind their backs and being paranoid and creates a bad workplace environment

All this checking people out just has people talking about people behind their backs and being paranoid and creates a bad workplace environment

You put it better then I tried to do earlier on.

Unless you’ve asked for a day off in the same circumstances (which you don’t actually know), then how can you conclude you’re being treated differently?

@Topee i don’t think I have reached that conclusion - there’s only one way to find out. I’m sure I would be given it but we don’t have the staff for everyone to do this without it causing major problems.

Yep - this is very much something people only understand if they work in a setting where shifts just cannot be left unstaffed because people will die or there will be other serious consequences on an immediate, human level.

Of course there are people genuinely unwell and we can take the strain for them willingly. There are also piss takers. There are also colleagues who, while not completely piss takers, are prone to taking two weeks off for every cold (this is much, much more prevalent since the pandemic - I'm sure some people have had a complete change of mindset and internalised the early pandemic idea that you absolutely must not and cannot work if you have a slight sniffle or a dry throat when you wake up...)

Added together it's too much - there's no room for more people to start taking random sick days and those of us who are left carrying the burden of so many colleagues taking so much sick leave can't do so indefinitely. There's nobody to carry the burden if those of us who usually cover, work alone when there should be two qualified staff, stay late etc. stop doing so.

Absolutely agree @MrsMullerBecameABaby so many workplaces are functioning on the minimum of staff as it is due to employers not wanting to hire people prioritising maximum profit or because they are struggling to recruit. When someone off work for whatever reason it means the staff who are already stretched are stretched further which in turn causes resentment or even burnout and people leave causing more stress and so on. The issue here is employers need to have adequate staff levels to cover all eventualities if they are to allow employees to have days off for sickness, MH or whatever else may arise.

Tbh my employer is pretty good but simply can't recruit enough qualified staff to provide a buffer of reserves to jump in. If everyone who should be working is, everything usually goes well - but when a wave of sick leave hits things get hairy and every shift is absolutely physically and mentally exhausting.

All this checking people out just has people talking about people behind their backs and being paranoid and creates a bad workplace environment

This, absolutely this.

I've worked in offices, retail, hospitality, social care, some of which were dependent on a certain complement of staff working a shift. Demonising colleagues for being ill in whatever way is not the solution to a problem where places of work aren't sufficiently staffed. Yes, someone not being there generally means consequences for the staff that are there, but it's the management and owners who are at fault, not the person who's absent.