My super secret formula - I grab my phone. If I waste 30 minutes on it on twitter, I’m good to suck it up at work. If i stare at it, then wake up 5 minutes later with it on the floor, I call in
@JT954 Yeah. I worked full time through chemo due to no sick days. No sick days sucks. Miss two days of work where I was working at the time and you were fired. I had to go from chemo to work two days in a row (chemo every 3rd week) to get my 40 hours in. It sucked big time. I did have some co-works help me get some naps when I could barely function. We pulled the copy machine out from the wall a bit in our bull pen (and fortunately you couldn’t see it from the door which was locked on the outside also fortunately the better copy machine was in the break room), When I felt really crappy I’d lie down behind it on the floor and if someone came in I’d hide the pillow and throw in the row of cupboards right next to it. If someone was unlocking the door, co-workers would let me know and by the time they got in and around the corner - if they even went around the corner - I was standing at the copier copying.
I’d say if you have sick days stay home so you don’t get your co-workers sick. Not to mention you’d feel better faster. During chemo I got really sick from a co-worker and then had to work with a temp of 103 and 104 for the better part of a week (in the end was sick for a couple of weeksI knew I’d be hospitalized if the oncologist knew, had no one to watch my kid and she was too young to say home alone, it was a virus so antibiotics wouldn’t do any good, didn’t want to be fired, so I didn’t go to the doctor about that and luckily in the end it turned out OK).
@joelmw Very. After years of telling people to be safe, I end up fracturing my left heel (going on 5 weeks with this injury).
And sick days? Hah. I have enough trouble figuring how to use their system to put in for vacation days. Now I just ask for unpaid time off (week max) to guarantee I have the day off. And now that doesn’t even work and I’ve never “called in/called out” from work.
@joelmw@JT954 I shattered my right heel 5 years ago. Have a titanium plate and 11 screws inside to put it back together. They will never be removed. Worse pain I’ve ever felt…breaking that bone into egg shells. Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Now I have chronic arthritis, a limp, and the above- all knowing not to jump off a 6 foot wall again.
Go back to sleep
If I’m hungry for breakfast when I wake up, eat & go to work. If I don’t feel like eating (or it’s past lunchtime), then stay home - probably in bed.
If there’s any chance I’m contagious, I stay home; moreover, my boss insists on it, because she’s smart like that and humane like that. In fact, one time recently, my doctor said I was okay to go in (I asked, because I sort of wanted to). He said, take these precautions and you (and your coworkers) will be fine; and I figured, hey, he’s the medical professional. Knowing what I had, my boss told me to keep my ass home. And, damn, was she ever pissed with the doc.
If going to work will prolong the illness (and it probably more often will than we think), I am also likely to stay home. That’s just wisdom.
There’s no virtue in either contributing to others getting sick or depriving myself necessary downtime for healing and rest. The fact that folks insist on “sucking it up” and taking some sort of sick [ha, sic] pride in the act only serves to demonstrate how fucked up our society is and, really, what assholes we are (I say “we” because I’ve done it myself; I’m not proud of it and I’m much less inclined these days). I’m not impressed.
Any boss who insists that their employees work when they’re sick is an absolute asshole.
Also, my whole division is salaried. The boss encourages us to work no more than 8 hours a day (unless truly necessary, and she trusts our judgment) and to avoid working weekends at all costs. She also gets after us to use our vacation. That’s the way bosses should be.
Workaholism is a disease and part of the complex of dysfunction that characterizes Capitalism. Rest and cycles of renewal are sacred, as testified to in many cultures.
@joelmw - My whole ‘division’ is hourly, and consists of me, the guy I relieve, the guy who relieves me, and the two weekend guys. Anybody who calls out sick has to be replaced, and since there may or may not be replacements that usually means the missing guy’s shift gets split between the other guys. Nobody is taking any sick pride in sucking it up; you just get a choice between being paid to be sick or not while not dumping on your team or not. There is no ‘boss’ to insist on anybody coming in sick; there’s just the client managers we nominally report to and our company’s regional managers who have their own problems!
@joelmw That’s pretty much where I am, too. My employer and supervisors actually don’t have any problem with me calling off if I’m sick, but due to some layoffs and departures, I’m actually currently the only person in the company who knows how to do my entire job.
Depends on whether I’m coughing or sneezing (ie. likely to make others sick) and whether or not there is a reason to actually be at work (a meeting where face-to-face matters). I have 35(ish) weeks of sick time, so that’s not an issue.
I’ve been in IT for a public college in NY State for decades, getting 20 sick days a year with a 160 day cap. I rarely use sick days so most months I lose a day or more. 160 days is 32 weeks but during that time there are some holidays, plus I continue to earn 1-2/3 sick days every month…
I also get 25 vacation days a year, plus 17 holidays, four of which I get to pick the date for.
Of course, being in IT means that I’m sort of on call 24/7, though it has become fairly rare that I have to actually put on pants to deal with problems.
Unfortunately even though I have sick time, and even though I might have a doctor’s note, and even if I might make my coworkers sick… If I’ve been sick more than a few days in a rolling year, I have to suck it up depending on what manager we have. I actually got a note put in my file one year because I was out for roughly 8 days with the most vicious stomach flu. Instead of counting it as one instance of being sick, they counted each day individually. They said it was excessive.
They wonder why people don’t call out sick more often. We had a terrible cold go around for almost two months while it slowly crept around to different employees.
I work in an open plan demi-cubicle office — management are sadists. Too many people come to work sick. I hear them cough and sneeze and infect everyone else on the [one large] room.
I hope all the Mediocre employees reading this thread get a considerate sick leave policy and, more importantly, management that actually lets them use it.
What I should do - what everyone should do to slow the spread of this crap - is call in sick. But I don’t have a reliable backup, so in I go. Which is doubly annoying, because I work for a company that’s actually quite realistic when it comes to sick time.
I’m taking a few days off next week to visit my dad, who just had fairly major surgery. I’m doing as much as I can to get ahead and make things easy for the person who’ll be covering for me, but I still know I’m going to come back to the mater and pater of all clusterfucks.
My company used to have unlimited sick leave, so everyone either stayed home when they might be contagious or were shouted at to go home by their coworkers. Last year they changed the policy and we have to use vacation time if we’re sick, so everyone comes in if they feel physically capable of it.
If I’m sick I usually call in. If I have a can’t miss meeting, I’ll work from home and join the meeting remotely. If I need a mental health day, I take it. But I also get 208 hours of PTO a year and 10 company holidays.
My hospital was just bought. New company basically has no real sick time policy. Use your vacation time first. Not that it’s a real issue for me. I’ve called out once in the six years I’ve worked here and that was when I was in the ER until 3am.
If’n it’s AT ALL POSSIBLE, stay home when you’re sick. Work from home if you want, but for the love of god stop getting the entire office ill. It makes you a bad coworker. It’s inconsiderate and unprofessional.
@Limewater Yeah, that’s true. But… if you’re the only person who can work on a project and you absolutely cannot take a day off, that project has a bus factor of 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor), aaaand that’s maybe not great.
@flynnski Yeah, it’s not ideal. I would be a lot more comfortable if we had more slack in our schedule, but those things are outside of my job description.
@Limewater For sure. It’s a good thing to bring up in performance reviews/evaluations/1:1s/etc., and also a great thing to screen out in future job interviews.
Having 3 kids in 3.5 years (youngest is 2.5 now) I still have very little sick leave. What I do have is usually used when I have to stay home when one of them is sick. I am in an office where I can pretty well quarantine myself if I need to, so if I’m functional, I come in.
Having a 3 days off, 4 days on work atmosphere allows us that one weekday to get in to see the Dr, and then the weekend to recover. We do work 10 hour shifts whether we are salary or hourly. But to come into work sick, sickly, or on the cusp of being sick, gets you that big ol stink-eye. There is no excuse to bringing your illness to the office. Take care of you first, before taking care of business. Heck some of our hourly guys get 500 hours of overtime a year, covering other shifts when someone is out. It’s the wonderful world of wastewater - work.
Elon Musk
My super secret formula - I grab my phone. If I waste 30 minutes on it on twitter, I’m good to suck it up at work. If i stare at it, then wake up 5 minutes later with it on the floor, I call in
@cspwal that’s just my formula for if I’m 30 minutes late to work or 35 minutes late to work.
I’ve got months and months of sick time saved up. Why not take a day to recover?
Wow, I remember the sick time bank - but they got rid of it around here a decade ago. They don’t even have sick time here anymore.
I already work from home, so, just, like, half-ass it even more.
@nogoodwithnames And we get to do it pants optional.
@nogoodwithnames Just be careful you don’t do more than three-quarters-ass it.
Quit whining and get yer ass to work.
Especially if your job is to take the donkey to the farm.
@shahnm I see what you did there.
/giphy donkey
@shahnm it’s Valentine’s day, can we take the donkey somewhere more romantic?
@OnionSoup What you do with your ass is your business. I’m not here to judge.
@shahnm what if I’m taking my ass to a state fair and entering it into a competition that requires judging?
/giphy blue ribbon ass
@OnionSoup That would be someone else’s problem. As I said above, I’m not here to judge.
I go in because I would be scared to lose my job.
@JT954 That sucks. I’m sorry. Work culture is messed up in this country.
@JT954 Same. If I vomit AND have a fever. I stay home. Either or means work.
@JT954 Yeah. I worked full time through chemo due to no sick days. No sick days sucks. Miss two days of work where I was working at the time and you were fired. I had to go from chemo to work two days in a row (chemo every 3rd week) to get my 40 hours in. It sucked big time. I did have some co-works help me get some naps when I could barely function. We pulled the copy machine out from the wall a bit in our bull pen (and fortunately you couldn’t see it from the door which was locked on the outside also fortunately the better copy machine was in the break room), When I felt really crappy I’d lie down behind it on the floor and if someone came in I’d hide the pillow and throw in the row of cupboards right next to it. If someone was unlocking the door, co-workers would let me know and by the time they got in and around the corner - if they even went around the corner - I was standing at the copier copying.
I’d say if you have sick days stay home so you don’t get your co-workers sick. Not to mention you’d feel better faster. During chemo I got really sick from a co-worker and then had to work with a temp of 103 and 104 for the better part of a week (in the end was sick for a couple of weeksI knew I’d be hospitalized if the oncologist knew, had no one to watch my kid and she was too young to say home alone, it was a virus so antibiotics wouldn’t do any good, didn’t want to be fired, so I didn’t go to the doctor about that and luckily in the end it turned out OK).
@joelmw Very. After years of telling people to be safe, I end up fracturing my left heel (going on 5 weeks with this injury).
And sick days? Hah. I have enough trouble figuring how to use their system to put in for vacation days. Now I just ask for unpaid time off (week max) to guarantee I have the day off. And now that doesn’t even work and I’ve never “called in/called out” from work.
@joelmw @JT954 I shattered my right heel 5 years ago. Have a titanium plate and 11 screws inside to put it back together. They will never be removed. Worse pain I’ve ever felt…breaking that bone into egg shells. Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Now I have chronic arthritis, a limp, and the above- all knowing not to jump off a 6 foot wall again.
I work from home, so …
If I’m hungry for breakfast when I wake up, eat & go to work. If I don’t feel like eating (or it’s past lunchtime), then stay home - probably in bed.
If there’s any chance I’m contagious, I stay home; moreover, my boss insists on it, because she’s smart like that and humane like that. In fact, one time recently, my doctor said I was okay to go in (I asked, because I sort of wanted to). He said, take these precautions and you (and your coworkers) will be fine; and I figured, hey, he’s the medical professional. Knowing what I had, my boss told me to keep my ass home. And, damn, was she ever pissed with the doc.
If going to work will prolong the illness (and it probably more often will than we think), I am also likely to stay home. That’s just wisdom.
There’s no virtue in either contributing to others getting sick or depriving myself necessary downtime for healing and rest. The fact that folks insist on “sucking it up” and taking some sort of sick [ha, sic] pride in the act only serves to demonstrate how fucked up our society is and, really, what assholes we are (I say “we” because I’ve done it myself; I’m not proud of it and I’m much less inclined these days). I’m not impressed.
Any boss who insists that their employees work when they’re sick is an absolute asshole.
Also, my whole division is salaried. The boss encourages us to work no more than 8 hours a day (unless truly necessary, and she trusts our judgment) and to avoid working weekends at all costs. She also gets after us to use our vacation. That’s the way bosses should be.
Workaholism is a disease and part of the complex of dysfunction that characterizes Capitalism. Rest and cycles of renewal are sacred, as testified to in many cultures.
@joelmw - My whole ‘division’ is hourly, and consists of me, the guy I relieve, the guy who relieves me, and the two weekend guys. Anybody who calls out sick has to be replaced, and since there may or may not be replacements that usually means the missing guy’s shift gets split between the other guys. Nobody is taking any sick pride in sucking it up; you just get a choice between being paid to be sick or not while not dumping on your team or not. There is no ‘boss’ to insist on anybody coming in sick; there’s just the client managers we nominally report to and our company’s regional managers who have their own problems!
@joelmw That’s pretty much where I am, too. My employer and supervisors actually don’t have any problem with me calling off if I’m sick, but due to some layoffs and departures, I’m actually currently the only person in the company who knows how to do my entire job.
@joelmw Where do you work and what do you do for a living? I want a boss like that!!!
Depends on whether I’m coughing or sneezing (ie. likely to make others sick) and whether or not there is a reason to actually be at work (a meeting where face-to-face matters). I have 35(ish) weeks of sick time, so that’s not an issue.
@baqui63 35 Weeks! Do you work for the French government?
@j37hr0 lol… might be interesting, but no.
I’ve been in IT for a public college in NY State for decades, getting 20 sick days a year with a 160 day cap. I rarely use sick days so most months I lose a day or more. 160 days is 32 weeks but during that time there are some holidays, plus I continue to earn 1-2/3 sick days every month…
I also get 25 vacation days a year, plus 17 holidays, four of which I get to pick the date for.
Of course, being in IT means that I’m sort of on call 24/7, though it has become fairly rare that I have to actually put on pants to deal with problems.
ask around and see what my employer’s competitors will bid to have me go to work.
Unfortunately even though I have sick time, and even though I might have a doctor’s note, and even if I might make my coworkers sick… If I’ve been sick more than a few days in a rolling year, I have to suck it up depending on what manager we have. I actually got a note put in my file one year because I was out for roughly 8 days with the most vicious stomach flu. Instead of counting it as one instance of being sick, they counted each day individually. They said it was excessive.
They wonder why people don’t call out sick more often. We had a terrible cold go around for almost two months while it slowly crept around to different employees.
I work in an open plan demi-cubicle office — management are sadists. Too many people come to work sick. I hear them cough and sneeze and infect everyone else on the [one large] room.
I should stay home to not make others sick… But I get so few vacation days I go to work anyway.
I get 15 days a year (Xmas counts as a day, Thanksgiving counts as a day), when you take out the obligatory holidays that leaves 10.
If you want me out the office when I have a minor illness give me more time off.
I hope all the Mediocre employees reading this thread get a considerate sick leave policy and, more importantly, management that actually lets them use it.
What I should do - what everyone should do to slow the spread of this crap - is call in sick. But I don’t have a reliable backup, so in I go. Which is doubly annoying, because I work for a company that’s actually quite realistic when it comes to sick time.
I’m taking a few days off next week to visit my dad, who just had fairly major surgery. I’m doing as much as I can to get ahead and make things easy for the person who’ll be covering for me, but I still know I’m going to come back to the mater and pater of all clusterfucks.
My company used to have unlimited sick leave, so everyone either stayed home when they might be contagious or were shouted at to go home by their coworkers. Last year they changed the policy and we have to use vacation time if we’re sick, so everyone comes in if they feel physically capable of it.
If I’m sick I usually call in. If I have a can’t miss meeting, I’ll work from home and join the meeting remotely. If I need a mental health day, I take it. But I also get 208 hours of PTO a year and 10 company holidays.
My hospital was just bought. New company basically has no real sick time policy. Use your vacation time first. Not that it’s a real issue for me. I’ve called out once in the six years I’ve worked here and that was when I was in the ER until 3am.
For the people who answered “suck it up and go to work”, please don’t. Keep your disease ridden carcass away from me. KTHXBI
If’n it’s AT ALL POSSIBLE, stay home when you’re sick. Work from home if you want, but for the love of god stop getting the entire office ill. It makes you a bad coworker. It’s inconsiderate and unprofessional.
@flynnski Sometimes it’s not optional. Delivery dates don’t slip because I get sick. I already have to work a lot of overtime just to keep up.
@Limewater Yeah, that’s true. But… if you’re the only person who can work on a project and you absolutely cannot take a day off, that project has a bus factor of 1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor), aaaand that’s maybe not great.
@flynnski Yeah, it’s not ideal. I would be a lot more comfortable if we had more slack in our schedule, but those things are outside of my job description.
@Limewater For sure. It’s a good thing to bring up in performance reviews/evaluations/1:1s/etc., and also a great thing to screen out in future job interviews.
Suck it up unless you have a fever or producing some gnarley fluids out of any of your orifices but I would hope that would be a given.
Having 3 kids in 3.5 years (youngest is 2.5 now) I still have very little sick leave. What I do have is usually used when I have to stay home when one of them is sick. I am in an office where I can pretty well quarantine myself if I need to, so if I’m functional, I come in.
I am a contractor on the customer site. I work alone,
There is such an insufficient floater pool that they are permanantly assigned to other accounts.
I currently don’t get a day off unless it involves a hospital stay. The last time that happened was when I passed 4 stones.
Having a 3 days off, 4 days on work atmosphere allows us that one weekday to get in to see the Dr, and then the weekend to recover. We do work 10 hour shifts whether we are salary or hourly. But to come into work sick, sickly, or on the cusp of being sick, gets you that big ol stink-eye. There is no excuse to bringing your illness to the office. Take care of you first, before taking care of business. Heck some of our hourly guys get 500 hours of overtime a year, covering other shifts when someone is out. It’s the wonderful world of wastewater - work.