Feeling ill, dragging myself to work as don't want disciplinary
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I'm full of cold, struggle to breathe and feeling awful. Yet if I phone in sick, I get a disciplinary as it would be my 3rd period of sickness in a year. My employer, like many allow their employees to have 2 periods of sickness in a rolling year - any more it's disciplinary with warnings.. My 2 sicknesses were in late Nov (tonsillitis, chest infection) and June (S&D). The latter, there was a bug going around where I lived and about 10 of us had it.
It doesn't help working in an environment where customers are not covering their mouths and noses when they cough and sneeze. Noticed this has increased over the years too. Some colleagues think colds should be excluded. I'm not one of them.
I have personal issues at home without the added stress of a disciplinary. I am a very well person, but with my asthma, colds and other winter illnesses makes them worse. I had the flu injection at the end of last month. I cannot afford to be off ill
When I have struggled to work, customers say things like 'what are you doing here?', 'You should be in bed' etc. I briefly tell them about the sickness policy.
Obviously if I had the S&D again, I have to ring in sick as its not fair and germs are easily spread. But unsure if they count that again.
What would you do?
It doesn't help working in an environment where customers are not covering their mouths and noses when they cough and sneeze. Noticed this has increased over the years too. Some colleagues think colds should be excluded. I'm not one of them.
I have personal issues at home without the added stress of a disciplinary. I am a very well person, but with my asthma, colds and other winter illnesses makes them worse. I had the flu injection at the end of last month. I cannot afford to be off ill
When I have struggled to work, customers say things like 'what are you doing here?', 'You should be in bed' etc. I briefly tell them about the sickness policy.
Obviously if I had the S&D again, I have to ring in sick as its not fair and germs are easily spread. But unsure if they count that again.
What would you do?
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Comments
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If you're sick you're sick. You can't make yourself less sick other than by resting, drinking fluids and recovering at home.
If I was one of your colleagues I wouldn't want you at work.
So go off sick and deal with the consequences......0 -
Its too late to ring in sick - less than hour before I start work0
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I fully understand the OPs reluctance to go sick again. The company policy is the cause of much of the sickness which runs through offices. I've seen the same scenario many times where somebody drags their body into work only to have more people go down with the same problem in the following days.
The stupid thing is that this policy is counter productive for the company as much as it is potentially damaging for the individual.
Very easy to say 'Go off sick' when you aren't in the firing line, or potentially going to be sacked due to 'poor attendance'.0 -
Asthma is a disability. Have you asked for reasonable adjustments to the sickness target?
And stop telling customers about the sickness policy. That could be misconstrued by your employer, and your problem with the targets could be replaced by a bigger one. You may not see it this way, but your employer probably won't appreciate you complaining to customers about sickness policies or any other terms of employment!0 -
ScarletMarble wrote: »Its too late to ring in sick - less than hour before I start work
Ah - I didn't think you meant you hadn't yet decided and needed to in the next hour! Not that I would change what I said.0 -
So you can't become unwell in the last hour before work? I know there will be a phoning in policy, but there must be exceptions to that surely. I mean some people's clocks might go off less than an hour before their start time if they have a short commute.0
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I fully understand the OPs reluctance to go sick again. The company policy is the cause of much of the sickness which runs through offices. I've seen the same scenario many times where somebody drags their body into work only to have more people go down with the same problem in the following days.
The stupid thing is that this policy is counter productive for the company as much as it is potentially damaging for the individual.
Very easy to say 'Go off sick' when you aren't in the firing line, or potentially going to be sacked due to 'poor attendance'.
I agree entirely, but this is another one of those things that we have our "colleagues" to thank for! Like employment tribunal fees. If people hadn't deliberately made spurious claims to extort money from employers, there would probably be no tribunal fees. If people didn't take the mick with sickness absence, then there wouldn't have been a need for policies. These policies resulted directly from EAT rulings where employers were told that they could not dismiss one person for too much sickness (and in some of those cases, we are talking about people taking the mick) when others have had as much sickness. In other words, employers can't look at an employee and make a decision as to what is genuine and what isn't. And since we all know that many doctors hand out sick/fit notes like candy, that self-certification is open to massive abuse, and that there are people who take the mick.... it's again a case of the majority paying for the actions of the minority, because the minority think it's all a laugh to have three months a year "extra holiday" or to claim an employer dismissed them unfairly despite the fact that they stole the weeks takings - or whatever.0 -
Sorry but a heavy head cold is not in itself a sufficiently serious illness to need time off work. If it has exacerbated your asthma to the extent that you need treatment for that - then yes, or if it has developed into a serious chest infection needing antibiotics, again yes. But we all get 2 or 3 colds a year causing headaches, mild breathlessness, sore throats, headaches and the rest and if we all took time off business would be losing another 10 or so days a year per employee!
You don't catch a cold just because someone has sneezed in your vicinity, unless the droplets actually hit your face! You catch it when you touch a surface which has been sneezed on, and then touch your eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands. So one of the best ways to reduce your risk is by keeping a small jar of hand sanitiser on your desk and to use this regularly and always before you eat anything.
I've just finished a week at work whilst suffering from a cold which I caught from a colleague. It didn't even cross my mind to take time off and if I'd felt I needed to, I'd have asked for a day AL not self certified sick.
And I agree with Sangie about you whining to customers about your company's sick policy!0 -
Sorry but a heavy head cold is not in itself a sufficiently serious illness to need time off work.
Perhaps you've never had a heavy head cold! I'm not talking a mildly sore throat, or coughing a bit. I'm talking about having a head that doesn't function because of the pain behind your eyes; a throat that's so painful that you struggle to swallow, and don't want to eat because of the pain - certainly talking is out of the question. Or where you are shivering and your skin becomes so sensitive to everything. It feels awful. I probably only need 1-2 days off max - and then I'd come in when the symptoms have subsided a bit. I'm still ill with a cold, but yes, I'm able to work - but only after the first couple of days....But we all get 2 or 3 colds a year causing headaches, mild breathlessness, sore throats, headaches and the rest and if we all took time off business would be losing another 10 or so days a year per employee!
That's a huge generalisation on how ill people get. Perhaps all the people you know get regular mild colds, but that's not the case for everyone, and you must be savvy enough to know that! I certainly don't get 2/3 colds a year, ever. However, I do tend to get one REALLY bad heavy cold every other year, though - and yes, it is bad enough to need time off work.
I appreciate that you may have witnessed what you see as a heavy cold and think it's not bad enough to be off work, but that doesn't mean everyone experiences the same thing.
KiKi' <-- See that? It's called an apostrophe. It does not mean "hey, look out, here comes an S".0 -
To be clear, I did not say that the OP is whining to anyone! And I didn't think they were. It is easy to not realise how a normal conversation can be construed by the employer, and I don't think the OP was doing anything other than that.Sorry but a heavy head cold is not in itself a sufficiently serious illness to need time off work. If it has exacerbated your asthma to the extent that you need treatment for that - then yes, or if it has developed into a serious chest infection needing antibiotics, again yes. But we all get 2 or 3 colds a year causing headaches, mild breathlessness, sore throats, headaches and the rest and if we all took time off business would be losing another 10 or so days a year per employee!
You don't catch a cold just because someone has sneezed in your vicinity, unless the droplets actually hit your face! You catch it when you touch a surface which has been sneezed on, and then touch your eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands. So one of the best ways to reduce your risk is by keeping a small jar of hand sanitiser on your desk and to use this regularly and always before you eat anything.
I've just finished a week at work whilst suffering from a cold which I caught from a colleague. It didn't even cross my mind to take time off and if I'd felt I needed to, I'd have asked for a day AL not self certified sick.
And I agree with Sangie about you whining to customers about your company's sick policy!
And sorry but I also don't agree with almost anything else you have said either. Just because you have just worked for a week with a cold doesn't mean that your cold is the same as someone else's cold, or that your working circumstances are the same. Working through sickness is not something that they give out medals for. And we don't all get 2 or 3 colds a year - some people get many more, and some people get none. I can't recall the last time I had a cold. Which also doesn't mean I haven't been sick!
Sickness affects everyone at some time. Yes , sometimes we can shake it off our work through it. Other times we cannot. It isn't a competition. It just is what it is.
There needs to be balance. I don't think there is now, and that situation has arisen because people have abused the system.
You may also not be aware of the fact that asthma greatly enhances the effects of a viral infection because asthma is caused by an over reaction of the immune system, not a weakness of it. Even the mildest infection in someone else can cause life threatening reactions in some asthmatic people. So before you tell someone that they can manage to work with a mild infection, you should make sure that you know that your uninformed opinion could put them at great risk. I don't know how bad the OPs asthma is. Neither do you. So it is a judgement they must make. But that is why it is a disability, and not just an inconvenience0
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