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Stay Home When You're Sick!
theodp writes "If you've got Google CEO Larry Page's billions, you can reduce your chances of getting sick this winter by personally providing free flu shots to all San Francisco Bay Area kids at Target pharmacies. 'Vaccinating children,' explains the Shoo the Flu initiative's website, 'will not only improve children's health, it will also dramatically reduce the risk of the flu spreading to adults.' But Tim Olshansky doesn't have Page's money, so he'll have to settle for trying to get it through people's thick heads that they really have to stay home when they're sick. 'Why do people still come to the office when they're coughing up a lung?' asks the exasperated Olshansky. 'Because unfortunately, there is a still a strong perverse culture that equates staying at home when sick with weakness. This is a flawed belief and should be questioned. Given that we have the tools now to complete most tasks from home, there is no strong reason to compel people to come to the workplace.' So, does your employer encourage employees to stay home when they're sick? How?"
So, basically, stay home, but keep working? Remember when sick days were to allow you to actually rest?
By firing us if we don't show up to work!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Going home sick means using sick time. Getting sick time means getting paid not not work. Getting paid to not work means socialism. Socialism = communism.
QED.
It's not the sign of weakness that keeps people coming in, it's the threat of being fired. Some employers are really good about giving sick days (and bless them), but some bosses I have worked for took the line that "you come in, or else". Given the choice between spreading a cold around the office or losing my job, guess which option I took?
Aren't in the US sick leaves taken from your holiday ? You might then have your response right there. Because in europe they are not, and you are quite encouraged (at least in my firm) to take the day off when you are a virus mothership spreading thema round coughing.
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I'd say most people with the common chest/head cold don't want to waste their sick days for something less severe. If I'm hung over, puking up a lung and have a freight train driving through my head - then yes, it's time to use a sick day!
"Because unfortunately, there is a still a strong perverse culture that equates staying at home when sick with weakness. This is a flawed belief and should be questioned."
That's not it at all. People still go to work when they're sick because:
A: They don't want to use up sick days unless they absolutely have to because if they get sick without having any time left, they don't get paid
B: Some employers equate staying home sick with "not being a team player" (or some variant thereof) and will actively discourage any time off unless forced
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
if you have kids you have to leave enough days to stay home with sick kids. that means you get your a$$ into the office and infect everyone else if you get sick
my oldest kid was sick literally every 2-3 weeks at one point while in day care. he spent just over a year taking anti-biotics almost non stop
Who uses sick days to be sick? If I'm going to be sick and miserable, I'd rather be at work!
What the hell is it with people thinking that people actually want to go to work when they're sick?
They have to because they only have so many sick days and, being unable to control how many days per year they'll be sick, it's only smart to save the things until they're desperately needed. Otherwise you end up vomiting one day and have to cut into your vacation time by taking a vacation day. Wonderful vacation there, staying home vomiting all day long.
Also, don't forget that employers hate it when their employees aren't at work. "You're sick? Fuck you, get your ass in here and earn me some money. I'll be sure not to give you such a large share of it that you can even afford to think about not coming in to work when you're sick, you selfish bastard. Worship my job-creating awesomeness!"
People go to work when they're sick because they don't have a choice. Same reason they drive to work even after some unavoidable event kept them awake all night.
Not sure how it works in USA, but in Sweden the "default" rule (= the minimum that you as a company must do) is that on your first sick day, you get no salary. After that, you get 80% of your salary. If you come back and become sick again, the cycle repeats.
However, many companies, include mine, have taken a more generous stand. We give you 80% from day one, and if you feel sufficiently well that you can still be somewhat productive at home (e.g. answer mail or whatever), you get 100%.
My company used to have a policy of "stay home when you are sick" and didn't force you to use vacation leave when you were sick. You just called in sick and that was it. And the company did fine. Sure, a few people abused it, but that happens with any benefit.
Then they changed the policy so that sick time came out of your vacation. Now people show up to work sick all the time.
Stupid, I tell you.
I had the flu a few years back, took 2 weeks to shake it. My work only allots 5 days for sick leave per year. After that its either take vacation days to be compensated or take unpaid leave. I took a few sick days for the worst of it and then sucked it up the following week and just came in to work. I did not want to cut into my vacation time. Call me selfish but that's that way its is. And I doubt I spread it because I always wash my hands, keep away from the coffee pot and sit in a cubical. Thankfully i don't get sick very often.
You're missing C: Many employers don't give sick days anymore, and require people to use their vacation time. I haven't had separate paid sick days for over a decade, and with limited vacation time I can't afford to stay home unless I'm simply incapable of going to work...
Take two, you'll feel better in the morning.
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Well, you know what you need to do...
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This is simply a side effect of the anti-labor mentality that has been encouraged in the US since the 80s. Corporations are people and they are expected to be as crass as possible. The needs of the individual are irrelevant. It's only corporations that matter. You should feel lucky that some "job creator" allows you to be employed. You should be happy to be exploited with impugnity and without recourse.
Sick days? That's a commie anarchist idea.
This is the new Guilded Age. Get back to work.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I wonder if there is a study on the rate of definite infection by disease among those in an open-plan office space versus those in a personal office.
It might be that those promoting a "come in, or else" policy might be relatively unlikely to personally suffer any consequence of it.
From what I understand contagion and symptoms are not really linked.
In many cases you are most contagious before you even know you are sick, in others you are still very contagious after you recover completely. It depends on the specific illness.
Staying home when you feel bad is about not working when you physically cannot work and not really very good at all at stopping the spread of these illnesses.
Now personally, I like working when I am sick. I would rather work when I am sick and have time off while I am healthy. But that depends a lot on the nature and severity of the illness, as well as the job.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
everyone knows sick days are for:
1. hangovers, or continuing benders
2. doing something important or fun that can only be done during workday
3. job interview
but as for going to work and making your boss or asshole coworkers sick, so what? fuck 'em!
Yes, it's a choice. The choice is "Do I pay my bills this month or stay home and rest?" Not everyone has a salaried job.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
What is the exact reason you think that you need all of your people actually nose to muzzle on a day to day basis?? If its the real time "Face to Face" thing then for all that matters you could have everybody meet on your corporate sim on the SL grid
Short answer is, because despite the antisocial tendencies of the computer community that reads /., human interactions --meaning "real time face to face" interaction, as you put it (what used to be called "talking to people" in the old days)--are valuable, and that doesn't mean text and document exchange, nor even skype. And "corporate sim" is not actually face to face.
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Here in Norway it is required by law that every employee has the possibility to call in sick for 4x3 days per 12 months (not by calendar year). This is with 100% pay, no questions asked. If you're reall sick, and has to get sickleave, this will not count in on the 12 days as long as you get medical confirmation. Sickleave is also with 100% pay btw.
In addition every parent has the right to stay home when their kid/babysitter is sick, I believe that is upto 20 days a year. This is also with 100% pay.
A fun thing is also that if you get sick on your vacation days, you'll get replacement vacation days. This is only for the 5 weeks of required vacation, not the national holidays though.
quite frankly Businesses should consider trying to get as many folks to work from home as possible.
My business and the business of nearly $4 trillion of the US GDP is in manufacturing. You cannot manufacture most items from home. It is quite literally impossible. You need to be at your place of business to do most useful work in manufacturing. The same applies to retail, transportation, food service and health care industries among many others. You have to be there to be useful. Add in the fact that many, many workers are hourly employees and beyond a limited amount of sick/personal time they don't get paid if they aren't present.
IT is an exception when it comes to telecommuting. Most jobs require having a body in the office/plant for a very good reason. I know there are a lot of IT workers here on slashdot but recognize that your situation is somewhat unique compared to most.
I once worked for a small manufacturing company with some big clients. Flu shots for employees were mandatory, unless their doctor said otherwise, and were provided FREE by the company. It was the first time I ever saw a company with this policy. It has since become a regular policy in other companies where I have worked.
The year before I worked there, the attitude of management was very antagonistic towards employees who called in sick. Management had the stance that employees were using sick time to avoid work and were lazy, unproductive workers. One employee called in sick with the flu over several days and his manager didn't believe him. So the manager made him report to work the next day. So, the employee, still sick, reported for work.
As can be expected, a few days later, workers in the company began dropping like flies as the flu spread through the ranks. By the end of the week, every employee except three became ill and could not report to work. Including the CEO. The company's production, management, and business was completely shut down for three weeks. The three who were still on were low-level employees who had neither the authority or skill to do anything in the company to keep production going or even send out what product was ready to be packaged and shipped.
The three employees who did not become ill were the only three in the company who had gotten flu shots.
The damage didn't end there. This small company produced a key component for a seasonal product sold by a major company in the US. Without this component, the client could not produce their own product. This mini-epidemic occurred just as the small company needed to ramp up their production in order for their client to ramp up their production to meet the coming seasonal demand. (This is an event that shows the serious flaw in Just-In-Time manufacturing.) So, not only could this small company not produce the item their client needed, it seriously jeopardized their client's critical production period. Their client, in a panic, had to turn to another company to produce this part.
Not only did this company have production shutdown for all their clients for three weeks, they lost a huge account with a very important client. They had to fight to get this client to give them another chance the next year and had to accept unfavorable terms in the new contract. There was similar damage to some contracts with their smaller clients. All this resulted in extended business losses for the company, not just three weeks of production! This damage continied on in a few rounds of layoffs over the next couple of years, one of which got me cut from the company.
The new policy at the company when I started was all employees will have flu shots, provided for free by the company, and anyone who even thought they were sick was to call in and stay away until they were over whatever bug hit them. They were still trying to regain lost business and repair damage to their reputation when I came into the company. When I learned the story behind the company's "progressive" sick policy, it was estimated that the company had permanently lost a third of its clientele and they were fighting to retain another third.
Fifteen years after all this happened, this company is still around, but I estimate they are less than half the size what they were when I worked for them. A combination of the flu shutdown and the flow of manufacturing jobs being sent to China was nearly the death-blow for this company. They sold off buildings and facilities in order to stay afloat. A lot of very hard lessons are all wrapped up in this story.
All this damage because of just one manager ordering one sick employee to report to work.
Whew! This water sure is cold!
...this sounds to me, as a European. When we are sick, we simply stay at home. A social insurance we obligedly contribute to pays the salary, after the first three days ( which, at least in Austria, the country I live in, are paid for by the employer, as regulated by law and trade-union agreements ). The tone of TFA seems like coming from another planet...
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The problem in the US isn't just that vacation and sick leave are combined. The total is usually less. It is a slight of hand that management uses to reduce time off while making it look like they offer more. There is usually not enough time to get sick, handle unexpected situations, and fit in a actual vacation. That leaves two solutions
1) Give up on the idea of a real vacation and accept that an extended weekend is the best you are going to get.
2) Don't take sick days