What's your attitude to sick leave?

Inspired by a recent thread :)

Do you take sick leave when you need it? I hear all the time that some people don't in order to 'do the right thing' towards their boss. I don't understand that - for me, if I'm sick, and I know I won't be able to work, I will call in sick. Last week I texted my manager at 6am because I woke up with a migraine. Yesterday I didn't go in because DH was very sick, and I was too worried about him to leave him. I won't 'chuck a sickie', but if I need the time off legitimately, I will take it.

I wonder if attitude is affected by industry? I used to be a receptionist, and even though I provided medical certificates for sick days, I copped a lot of flak for taking sick days, because I was 'the face of the company'. My response was always that I am entitled to sick leave, I obtained a doctors certificate, and I would never take one wrongfully - but they are there for a reason.

So, do you take sick days?

I take sick days. I have dragged myself into work a few times when I've been sick to last a few hours and head home.

I have a high-pressure job and I know I'm not doing my job the best when I'm not 100%, so I've learnt to take the time off if I need to. I used to be really bad and take work home with me if I was sick, but now I force myself not to do that, to crawl into bed and sleep.

If I am sick I take a sick day as everyone should..I don't want to spread my germs through a whole office who may end up alot worse off than me.
If one of the kids are sick, either DH or I will take leave, I get Carer's leave so it is usually me.
I don't take days of willy nilly as you just never know what is around the corner. I have worked with people who as soon as they have enough sick leave, the take a day off reguardless.
So yep, like you legitimate sick leave only. I try and scheduule Dr's appt's on a day off or the weekend, or early in the morning and then go in after.
If the thread you got the idea of is the one I am thinking...If I was going to leave my job..I would not go and take any sick leave I had accrued just beacause I was leaving ;)

i work in a call centre and it drives me batty when people come into work sick - we work closely, often have to share desks - and you can guarantee the bugs sweep through the place.

i will firstly try and swap days if i can, if i can't, then i'll call in sick. i have to make decisions that impact peoples lives daily, and if i'm not all there, it's not doing the best by them (if i make the wrong decision, people can end up with thousands of dollars of debt VERY easily) - i weigh up what i'm feeling and go with that. migraine is a no go, flu is a no go. queasy - i'll see how i go for the day. snuffles - depends on how bad it is - and i take the antiseptic stuff with me to clean down every surface as often as i can!

I'm a supervisor and everyone one of my staff know that if they have something contagious - I don't want to see them until they're better. However, when I'm sick, I often go in to make sure everything is ok and then head home. Although I do try to keep to my own rules and if it's a virus or something, I stay away.

Sick leave is there for a reason... :)

I won't chuck a sickie (we get one RDO a month so that takes care of it hahaha) but I will take one if I'm sick enough. People don't want you to look after their kids when you're sick so i guess it's better.

Oh, I also take sick leave if Shel is sick, so I can look after Jazz (and her I guess haha). Not that I have had to at this job yet but I will.

I do feel terrible to do it though.

If you are sick you should stay home - I work with people who have compromised immunity so we should definitely stay home, however you tend to get looked down on if you do. Unfortunately staying home with your kids is seen as even worse - as if it is ****tails and croquet rather than the messy reality. My kids have had an awful gastro bug (with DD in at the RCH today) so I am off for my working week, having said that I rarely ever had sick leave before the kids!

I'm a nasty HR Manager and I will send people home when they come in sick and spreading germs :p I don't know how many times I have had to tell people that them coming in to work results in so many others getting sick and them losing time as well - not to mention they then make their kids sick and have to take even more time. I think I am finally getting through to some people. It is there for a reason - if you need to use it, then use it.

Not on topic, but omg nai, your avi!!!

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Not on topic, but omg nai, your avi!!!

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Lol, I noticed it too..very nice ;)

I'm casual, so don't get sick days. but I do usually go in when I'm sick not because of the pay factor (I can make up my hours at home through the week) but because I feel like it impacts badly on me if I'm not there :(
and it's reallly hard if the kids are sick - Pie is coming down with every sniffle atm, and there have been comments made about my time off - keeping her home so as not to spread it - then I go into FDC & there are kids there with a runny nose :wall:
Sorry, bit of an OT vent :redface:

I very rarely take sick days. I work 0.5 so I swap days sometimes. When I left my last job, I left months and momths of sick leave. That was a bummer. But the upside was, that when I was preg with DS I took a faor bit of time off coz of morning sickness, and I had a heap of leave so it was no problem.

when my dad retired he left behind something like 600 ish sick days!!!
When my mum got cancer, she had something like 5 months sick leave, so you never know when you will need it :)

I guess my thinking on sick days is that mental health counts as well as a cold.

BW

I am rarely sick, I don't remember the last time I had a day off work due to being sick, it must be at least 8 years ago. BUT I have stayed home about 4 years ago (chucked a sickie) to spend the day with dh when I just didn't want to face my boss cause he was a crazy person! and I have taken the afternoon off work at my current job after a big disagreement with my boss cause if I had of gone back I would have quit and regretted it later lol It does annoy me though that my current employer doesn't have any 'back up' in case i was to call in sick, what would he do???? As a business owner you need to have people in place to fill in at short notice, if you have that than it shouldn't matter if your staff call in sick and use their rightful sick days.

BW - So true.

Really as long as people have the appropriate certificates required, you can do whatever you want with your sick days. They are your right, and you don't have to justify why you need to take a day off!!!

I feel bad if I take a sick day and I'm not sick. I recently had an exam on a day that I would normally work and work had not yet granted me annual leave. Because it's my regular day, I couldn't just say I wasn't available that day, I actually had to take leave. One of the supervisors (who would have been my supervisor on the day anyway) told me to call in sick the day before. I felt so guilty even thinking about it! Thankfully, it didn't come to that.

ds is sick today and I almost called in sick to take care of him. Good thing I didn't, becuase we were down 2 people.

In our work place, if you're sick, you stay away. It's as much for the residents as for the staff

When I was working, I used my sick days when I was sick. My DH manages a branch here and doesn't like it when his staff come in sick because they make other staff sick and end up needing more sick days all up than if the sick person just took time off in the first place. Having said that, DH has his own office so if he is sick but needs to get some stuff done at work, he heads in and goes straight into his office and keeps himself away from the rest of his staff. He usually only goes in for a bit and then works from home for the rest of the day.

He was talking to another manager who was saying that they have recently swapped sick leave over to personal leave. Everyone is entitled to 10 days of personal leave a year on top of their annual leave as a replacement for sick leave. If they are sick they have to use their personal leave, but they can plan to take a day of personal leave if they need it for anything because it is easier for the company to managed planned days off then to deal with people calling up at the last minute. It also keeps their work place a lot more honest and people can say that they are having leave without having to bung on being sick. I think it sounds great as long as people can manage their leave well enough to still take time off when they are actually sick but most people have a few weeks of sick leave owing to them within the first couple of years of working so it sounds like a good way to let them use it to me :)

Ive worked in private and public sector. Public has your RDO once a month....you could actually 'bank' them and use them up to 3 up at once at the time. Private, you just got x no. of days for how long you had been there. People were always, always sick in private sector in ths particular company i worked for...Monday itis was a biggie...i can honestly say, in the public dept i worked, people never, ever had sickies...unless genuinly sick.

Everyone spare a thought for those who work in Defence...when they are sick, they have to drag themselves into work, for a "sick parade" where they wait to be seen first by a medic and - only if deemed necessary - then a dr, who finally gives them a "chit" to go home and be sick. (!!!!)

My own feeling about sick leave is it's there to be taken when you need it. I don't pull sickies but like BW I do think mental health is important too.

My attitude towards sick leave has changed over the years. When I first started working I had little compunction towards taking a sickie. But I think as I've grown, I've become a little more responsible about it. I think being part of a good team helps - I don't like to let them down by chucking a sickie.

I think it's really important not to go to work sick. I really hate doing it, and up until a year ago I wouldn't. I'm a nurse, so there's nothing that looks worse than having some nurse walk in and cough and sniffle all over your child! When I transferred to the job I have now, I had four years worth of sick leave saved up - I hardly ever got sick. In our award, we are entitled to "Carer's Leave" to look after children or immediate family, and that leave is deducted from your sick leave entitlement - so in other words, it's like a tacit acknowledgement that it is okay to use your sick leave to look after your family. Anyway, during DW's last pregnancy, she got so sick during the first trimester she had to have three months off work, so I drew pretty heavily on my sick leave to look after her and the two eldest girls. Well, I was in the midst of a fairly bitter dispute with my manager at the time, and lo and behold, she slapped me under a managed sick leave policy, because she had never bothered to classify all of the sick leave I had been taking as "carer's leave" and she managed to make it look like I had a problem with absenteeism. So I had to show a medical certificate every time I needed a sick day. Which was fine at the start, but now my GP has a week-long waiting list for appointments, she won't write my medical certificates in retrospect because by the time I see her, I am well again. :( So for the first time in my career, I did exactly that - I turned up to work as sick as a dog, coughed and sneezed all over my patients, and got an absolute mouthful from one of them who was an ex nurse herself for being at work sick.

For a profession that knows so much about illness, I am constantly amazed how many nurses and nurse managers expect you to be a martyr and turn up no matter what. Case in point - another girl was pregnant here at the same time as my DW, and she also hyperemesis. DW did the right thing, saw her OB, and was certified off work for three months, gave her manager notice. This other girl kept on coming to work, lasting an hour before she'd be in a bed or on a lounge somewhere - sometimes just slumped over in the corridor - vomitting her heart out. It was disgusting, and incredibly unprofesional, and the rest of the team had to pick up the slack every day she was there. And yet, they complained about my DW taking time off and asked why she couldn't just "push on" like the other girl. I mean, FFS, at least my DW was getting replaced with someone else who could actually work more than an hour at a time!

I don't get paid sick leave so I go to work.

Actually, if I'm not about to die, I go in, even with paid sick leave. I have to be sent home 90% of the time I'm sick. Kidney infections, migraines, sciatica, psychosis... I've gone into work with them all. Viral tonsillitis too, but that's cos I'd had to miss work the week before because of a hospital admission and couldn't afforrd any more time off. If I can't get out of bed, then I call in sick. Otherwise, I go in.

My stupid boss has a new rule - we have to call his mobile if we're sick, not our immediate line manager. We all know it's so he can have a go. Not impressed. If he does that to me, I walk, affordability or no. (I'm the only one employed by the company who can do my job atm so he's gonna be in trouble!)

One way or another, I always end up taking it. I'd honestly rather I didn't, but things happen. Miscarriages, bike accidents, morning sickness... they're the legit ones.

I have chucked the odd sickie in my life, but here's the kicker - only when I worked in sausage factory type jobs where I felt like I was being squeezed to get every available drop out of me and getting nothing in return. Last year I did it in the early part of the year because I'd been asked to take work home (and I don't earn the kind of money that makes this worth it) So I figured they could compensate me for it. At the same job, I would also push out legitimate sick leave by an extra day or two just go get a day off to make appts, because time off at this job was near impossible.

Meanwhile, in quality jobs where my whole person is nurtured and looked after and I function as part of a quality team... I'd never dream of it. At my current job, they often call me on a sick day, and order me to take the next day off as well! They really value having healthy and well rested staff. And it pays off.

I think more people should take it when they are sick! Nothing annoys me more than turning up and work and having a colleague coughing and spluttering all over the shop. I don't care if you have popped two codril and are 'soldiering on'. You are still contagious and I do not want it!

"Thank you for your purchases, and here, because you were lucky to come in today, have a free sample of Influenza"

I currently have over 200 hours accrued in sick leave from the first 5 years I worked at Telstra, and I haven't accrued any more since then when I've been on AWA (it's all manager's discretion). My father really taught me the value of sick leave - he had accrued over 5 months leave in his work at ATO, and when he had his pacemaker put in, and mum had a full hysto, he took it all off ... it was so less stress to know that they still had a full wage coming in during that time!!!!

I take mine when I need to - the only time this year I haven't gotten a certificate is when the midwife has said there's no point to see me cause they can't do anything, and to have bed rest. With my MI, my doc is more likely to over-prescribe time off than under - I often have to go back and get a certificate that I'm OK to work!

If you need time, you need time. When team managing I can tell how my team are travelling by the amount of sick leave. When they are happy, I'm sending them home. When they are unhappy, they're calling in with a stubbed toe. It's a good measure of work levels and team happiness.

Audax and Kazbah - you've hit the nail on the head I think! I hate taking sick time in this job, because I really do love it so much, the work and the environment, and I don't want to let them down. Whereas in my previous job, it didn't matter how much they cracked it at me for taking legitimate sick days - I felt undervalued and abused, so I wasn't going to give anything 'extra'.

Someone said their work has changed sick leave to personal leave - I love that idea! Sometimes you really do just need that day to just do nothing, or go out and grab a coffee with friends and see a movie. They should be called Sanity Days :)