Sick Days

[happily everafter]

Because

during the months of November to June

when us Northerners have our bikes packed up and collecting dust

this is not a motorcycle forum

it is a judge others harshly to make yourself feel better forum

there will be no fun had during the off season

lol APPARENTLY 

[scduc]

One thing that I have noticed, is that too many people do "not" take a sick day when they really should. Most viruses just end up floating aroung the workplace for months getting far too many people sick. If you have the sniffles, go to work, but if you have a bad cold or the flu, STAY HOME.

[cokey]

So everyones a straight arrow.  No running of tolls with bent plates, aftermarket exhaust which are all illegal, wont exceed the speed limit by 1mph which you can get a ticket for..  I guess the sick day taking depends on your job environment and which company or type of work you do.. in ours where its mandatory Saturdays,  you can't take one vacation day, you must use a whole week.. you can't combine days with holidays.. the thousands of employees here use sick days as they please..  f the man and his billion$ profits..

[KnightofNi]

i get 2 weeks of sick time and earn 3 weeks of vacation per year. i rarely take sick days because i don't get sick often. i used to have a very black anbd white view of this and sick time was for being sick.

until 5 years ago your unused sick time was lost. then they started putting unused sick time into a "bank" in case you got sick or injured and had to go out on disability. then they did away with the sick time bank and you can't carry the time over. that stopped a lot of people from playing hooky. however, we are allowed 1 "personal day" per month that can come from sick or vacation time and doesn't have to be scheduled. i have used that and called in with anal glaucoma. i used to tell my boss when i was playing hooky. the way things are now, we are made to feel guilty about taking vacation. 3 of the 5 managers have gone so far as to ask why you are requesting to use the vacation time you have earned. when i got hurt last year and was on pain killers for 2 weeks i was asked why i couldn't work from home. this has drastically changed my attitude towards calling out. i only feel bad for my co-workers who have to cover for me.

we are also moving to a paid time off system where we don't have designated sick or vacation time and can only carry over a week of time to the new year. many of those who have been there for 15+ years and havne't taken vaca time have maxed out on what they can carry over. the max is 400hrs and they have to use 320 hrs of that stored time while still accruing up to 5 weeks per year or they lose it. i have a few co-workers who are out at least 1 week every month for the next year, and will be out at least 1 week per month for the next 2 years. this has also driven up the number of people who get deathly ill and are fine the next day.

so yeah, now i say that if they are going to make the beast with two backs us over every chance they get use all the time you are given.
and no, i cna't "just quit" though i have explored that option. when i find a new job i will happily leave my current one.

[DoubleEagle]

In 27 years at my own Business I took 4 weeks of Vacation.

Sad , but true.

Dolph

[bevel]

The policy at my office is "take the time you need and want". So long as you are hitting your numbers, and keeping customers happy, they don't really care where you work from or how many hours you are working.

Most folks, myself included, wind up working from home whenever we're "sick, but not sick enough to not work", and cancel our meetings if we're "really sick".

As for vacation, to keep the bookkeeping costs down, we do not have a vacation policy. No accruals, no forms to fill out to use time, no rollover or banking. Again, "take the time you need and want". It results in managers usually aggressively pushing their team members to take time off and enjoy themselves.

[zooom]

  the original question was what do you do with YOUR sick days? 

I use them to sit at home and drink "Ginger Soother" and watch lurid crap TV shows while shnuggling in several blankets and trying to sweat out whatever it is that is keeping me from doing anything else...

The people who really piss me off are the ones who still come to work who are hacking & coughing their lungs up, spreading their disease through the workplace.

make the beast with two backsen have a sick day, another reason to have a sick day is to not spread your lurgie to other people at work. 

let me offer an answer to your situation from a 1st person POV for a moment. What if, you wake up and you don't feel 100%, BUT, you do feel well enough to go to work. You don't want to burn a sick day because it is early in the year and you haven't accrued really all that much yet or you have a whole year to go and think you may want to save that time for when you REALLY feel like shit. So you take the chance to go in and be productive and bang out that project you know needs to be done or something you left unfinished. You don't want to end up shorting yourself in a situation similar to what Mother cited here -> http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=48666.msg888359#msg888359 because of the logistics.

as an employer here's my view:

sick days are for when you are too sick to work.  I will pay you a certain number of days per year for that circumstance.  They are not mental health days, they are not riding days, they are not "use them up because I offer them and otherwise you don't get them" days.  They are 'I can't physically be there but I don't lose money" days.

If you want a day off when you're ok it's a vacation day.

It's a perk only in that you get paid even if you can't work.

It got so bad with one person that was a 'use them up or lose them' type that I started requiring doctor proof.    When she couldn't show it the day became a vacation day.  She's no longer here.

If you're a great employee I will always give you more vacation than you actually accrue.  If you're going to be the type that says "I get 5 sick days so I'm going to use them all whether I'm sick or not" then I'm going to be exactly the same type of boss you deserve/expect.


(before people start jumping all over that harsh thinking, my office structure allows me to be quite generous with good employees.  I give attorneys significant paid time for maternity/paternity leave, and was able to give full paid time off for about three months to an attorney going through cancer treatment.   It's the 'use up everything I can get away with' mentality that I find distastefull)

so...when can I start working for you?....

[Triple J]

I guess the sick day taking depends on your job environment and which company or type of work you do.. in ours where its mandatory Saturdays,  you can't take one vacation day, you must use a whole week.. you can't combine days with holidays.. the thousands of employees here use sick days as they please..  f the man and his billion$ profits..

Rat said it best for your situation.

[redxblack]

I earn 4 hours sick time for every paycheck (2 wk intervals, 20 checks per year). I'm a high school teacher. We can carry over all unused time at 100%. We also get three personal days per year, one of which becomes a sick day if unused, and can be banked over. We are held to a strict standard of what constitutes sick and what doesn't. Most people do not abuse the sick leave because they treat us well with the personal days and incentivize us to be there via the carry-over. At the end of our careers, we can cash out our sick time at 25% the value accrued. That can be a pretty big bonus check. I love this system and think it works very well. Teachers get exposed to lots of germs (you'd be shocked at some of the gross things we get to endure - kids licking desks and leaving tissues on the floor) so this sick package is something we really appreciate. Sadly, our current governor is trying to do away with it, even though it saves money.

Ironically, I am home today and not sick. Since I have a sane and generous package of days, when our kid gets sick and has to go to the doctor, I take him. My wife has 80 hours a year (after 7 years of service) of "paid time off," meaning vacation or sick time. None carries over and it is all use it or lose it.

[bevel]

At the end of our careers, we can cash out our sick time at 25% the value accrued. That can be a pretty big bonus check.

I'll be honest, this is the one thing I know I'll miss about my company's "no vacation policy" policy. At my last two jobs, I walked away with 3+ weeks of PTO as a nice final paycheck. Of course, I'm also crazy and have always left a job on Friday and started the new one on the following Monday.

If there's no banking, no accrual, and no records, they really don't owe employees anything when they leave 

[il d00d]

Two things:  kudos to those that don't abuse the sick day policies.  The opposite of kudos to companies issuing increasingly stingy PTO policies.  While I take pride in the fact that I work hard, and generally play by the rules given to me, the fact is, we here in the US don't take as much time off as we should.

I worked overseas for a little while - what I learned was that working hard is the national religion of the US.   By way of comparison, I hired people at the entry level who enjoyed three weeks of PTO immediately.  There were a bunch of national holidays.   Generally speaking, people took sick time in weeks and not days.  Women got *three years* of maternity leave at partial pay.  This was renewable if you got pregnant again during the three years.  When people left work, they turned off their work phones and spent time with their families.   Some of this is good, and some bad.

So, great, we don't abuse sick time.  But we don't take enough time off, for physical or mental health.  I would go as far as to say this is a health issue and an ideological problem.  Should we really be proud that we are coming to work sick?

Also, I was going to call in judgmental to work today.  Instead I posted up here...

[Bladecutter]

I used to work for two companies that had really good benefits, but sick days were just considered vacation days.
I never really had any issues with that, as I never called out sick, anyway.
If I was moderately sick, I had the option of working from home, and supporting my complex clients ad serving situations.

Unlike the bulk of my team, I almost never worked from home, anyway.
Just about everyone would work from home at least once every other week.
I just preferred working from the office, even having to drive through bad weather conditions.

Then I had to go see the doctor because of my hip issues, and was told I needed to get a full hip replacement.
I had 29 days of vacation accrued, and scheduled my hip surgery to be a month away from my last day of work for the company (corporate take over switched to temporary employee status). So basically, I set it up so that my last month with the company would be on vacation time.

My bosses worked it out with the HR team to have me put on temporary disability, paid by the company's disability insurance policy, and that my 29 hours would be an additional check added to my severance compensation. So I still got my 29 days, got paid for those last days I "worked" for the company, and got my full severance package. I had great bosses.

My current job is in a call center environment.
We have NO benefits.
No sick days.
After you work 1500 hours in the calendar year, you receive a check for the equivalent of a week's pay that is taxed at the bonus rate.
I have crappy bosses.

Heck, I just had Jury Duty this past Monday.
I was there 2 hours, and released, so I got to work at 11 am instead of 8 am.
Not too bad, I can just not take a lunch break, and I'm 2 hours short, and I should get paid for that for doing Jury Duty.

Nope.
Because I went to work, and made over $50, they aren't going to pay me for those 2 hours at the beginning of the day.

I have yet to ever get paid for going to Jury Duty, but at least here in Colorado, you only get held for 1 day if you are chosen, unless you get picked for a District Court case that goes for multiple days. In NYC, when you get picked, you're screwed for the entire week. Not being paid for an entire week in NYC really, really hurts.

But at least I have a job, right?
Right?
*sob*

BC.

[Triple J]

, the fact is, we here in the US don't take as much time off as we should.

So true!

[happily everafter]

Also, I was going to call in judgmental to work today.  Instead I posted up here...

tee hee 

[DrDesmo]

I'll be honest, this is the one thing I know I'll miss about my company's "no vacation policy" policy. At my last two jobs, I walked away with 3+ weeks of PTO as a nice final paycheck. Of course, I'm also crazy and have always left a job on Friday and started the new one on the following Monday.

If there's no banking, no accrual, and no records, they really don't owe employees anything when they leave 

Not necessarily true - did you start prior to this policy going into effect?  That time is definitely still owed to you if so FYI.

Cheers,
Adam