• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      It’s not even that.

      In an office setting sick days literally help productivity, because metrics and workload should account for employee’s work hours.

      If someone’s on leave for a day, theyre taken out of production numbers.

      If they “tough it out” then production numbers say they should produce a normal days workload.

      You end up looking worse encouraging a work culture where people don’t take days off.

    • Nommer@sh.itjust.works
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      2 years ago

      I got a bad cold or something one time. I spent 2 weeks working from home then the boss told me to go to a doctor. Went and they found nothing so I had to come in. 1.5 weeks later I was over it but not before the rest of the office got pissed at me for getting them sick. I just told them I was forced to come in.

    • zephorah@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      It’s not so much the argument it’s workplace policies that say 6 or more days a year means you can be fired with cause. A late clock-in counts as half of one of those.

      At least that’s been standard at most places I’ve worked.

  • Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca
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    2 years ago

    I worked really hard at my first year at a big company and didn’t take any sick days. During my performance review, I scored 4/5 for attendance, even though I arrived early for every shift and did every overtime opportunity. When I asked my manager, she said it’s policy not to hand out 5’s because it sends the message that there’s no room for improvement.

    No one could tell me how I could improve my attendance.

      • Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca
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        2 years ago

        Naw, it wasn’t a bad experience overall, once I fell into the habit of mixing sick days with vacation days.

        They had some exploitable policies, doctors notes for 3+ sick days in a row but no questions asked about 1-2 days, vacation days with 2 weeks notice one day at a time with no right of refusal if there’s proper coverage.

        This meant you could book Wednesday to Friday off two weeks in a row, and call in sick Monday/Tuesday two weeks in a row, giving you 10 days off for the cost of 4 sick/ 6 vacay. Other exploitable shenanigans were possible around Stat holidays.

        The front line managers knew what the situation was, but HR never got wind unless something tripped the system,so if everyone works together on their sick days it was pretty good.

        • doingthestuff@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          I’m 50. I’ve never had 10 days off in a row. I tried to plan two weeks last year and left but had to come back early.

        • RinseDrizzle@midwest.social
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          2 years ago

          Yo, heard. Reminds me of something familiar on my end as well. Nice when there’s a lil bit of wiggle room in a system like that. Gotta have a functional team though that can appreciate that work hard play hard work-life balance thing.

          Relatively recently got a decentish gig after only working “good bad jobs.” While the corporate culture shock is still abrasive at times, nice having some actual benefits and shit – other than being able to call in “sick” to fuck off or hang with the boyes without care or consequence. Have a decent stack of mandatory personal/sick days that renew annually.

          I can already tell I’m gonna be getting mighty ill around the holiday season, something definitely brewing.

    • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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      2 years ago

      The reason is it makes the managers look good. They aren’t judhes on their productivity scores directly, but on how their scores are from last year/quarter. So they intentionally sabotage employees to make themselves look better.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      2 years ago

      Whenever I’m asked to give feedback on somebody when dealing with support, I always give full marks to the staff member, even if they couldn’t help much.

      It’s not their fault the company they work for is a load of shite.

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Covid taught me that a nurse’s education is wholly inadequate. I also think they may be becoming irrelevant with so many specialized techs.

        • toynbee@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          One of the early jobs in my career was providing help desk tech support specifically to a group of nearby hospitals. Prior to that, I thought that - as you said - many or most medical professionals had an above average general intelligence by default. This job killed that theory.

          The most prominent example I can recall is that of spending seventeen minutes on the phone trying to explain where to find a semicolon on the keyboard. Not what a semicolon is or how to use it or its function, just what it looked like and where it was on the keyboard. For seventeen minutes. At the end I think we gave up and found another approach. Obviously - again, as you said - their knowledge is specialized and I couldn’t do their job, but this and many other examples seemed pretty egregious.

          That said, I’ve had a decent number of medical emergencies in my life and, while I’ve found a few doctors and nurses to be personally offensive, they’ve always seemed to do their job very competently and I’ve always, always appreciated them being there. Hopefully that demonstrates that the above example was an outlier.

        • dustyData@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          There’s stupid people everywhere. The idea is that we can’t fool proof everything but we can promote change in attitude. There are no infallible people. I’ve met them all, engineers, doctors, politicians, millionaires, everyone has the potential for being utterly stupid at topics they aren’t even aware they are ignorant about.

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Yes. American work culture is bonkers. Most places have a limited number of sick days, if they have health PTO at all. In my experience, if they offer it it’s usually 2 weeks worth, as if people are capable of controlling how often and how long they’re sick for.

      • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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        2 years ago

        Before the Rona times, people would legit flex on how dedicated they were to their jobs that they didn’t see their families as much. That’s not a joke. The work culture in the states has been absolutely toxic for ages. I’m fucking stoked it’s changing.

      • Nommer@sh.itjust.works
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        2 years ago

        I get 10 days a year on a sliding window. So if I call in sick in June, I won’t get that day back until June. It’s bullshit.

    • Sprokes@jlai.luBanned
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      2 years ago

      I saw a documentary where a German millionnaire was bragging about going to work with 43° flu to make you believe that he worked very hard to get rich.

    • Luvs2Spuj@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      For some people perhaps. I sadly still go to an office occasionally and I’m astonished that there are people clearly unwell coughing and sneezing all over the place. Last time I went I came back with Covid and was out for nearly a week.

      • MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net
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        2 years ago

        My ex-coworker used to come in obviously sick. “Yeah I’ve got all the NyQuil symptoms.” He would then proceed to cough all over the shared workspace for 4 hours, inevitably coming to the conclusion that he needed to go home. Not coincidentally, this was also about the time that volume picked up and the real work started.

        He also got mad at me once when I didn’t congratulate him for cutting back on smoking after he spent two+ weeks in the hospital for COPD.

        Thankfully we no longer work together anymore. I quit and he died in his 50s.

  • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    I really wish companies would realize workers are more productive when they can take time to take care of their mental and physical health.

    Stressed out, overwhelmed, and exhausted people naturally make more mistakes, and mistakes cost money. You’d think they’d understand this because…well… profits?

    But no, a bunch of sociopaths Machiavellianed their way to the top of companies and seem to enjoy making their workers miserable while claiming profits are the motivation for horrible sick leave policies.

    The US is fucking awful about this shit. I really hope it changes soon.

  • Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 years ago

    Still so crazy to me how there are limited “sick days” in the US. You shouldnt need to take limited days off when you are sick. If you are sick you are sick.

  • where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
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    2 years ago

    Damn you people in the default country are insane.

    I only know the world where everyone takes paid sick days. And usually it’s more like a week.

    Maybe you should rename the community into “Work Reform USA”?

    • return2ozma@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 years ago

      If we’re lucky enough to get vacation days, many of us are encouraged to only take 2 adjacent days to the weekend off. Month long vacations like Europe? Never. 4 days off in a row, normal.

      • where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
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        2 years ago

        So, should you fight for a work reform, or should you figure out why even your more left leaning party when in power does jack shit about it, and whether it’s really a democracy problem, or a national culture problem, or if maybe your solution is to move to a different democracy where the majority is aligned more with your core beliefs.

        Or maybe I should daily start posting about working conditions in lithium mines in Africa and call for a work reform? Ah, that won’t get upvotes.

  • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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    2 years ago

    Heck, I’m a millenial and I take mental break days when I’m feeling too overwhelmed.

    • Nommer@sh.itjust.works
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      2 years ago

      I’ve had to do that. Some days I just can’t deal with driving all over the state and dealing with customers

    • bitchkat@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      And that is the law in MN. Last year they passed a sick and wellness law that requires sick time and the law stipulates how it can be used. Mental health is one of the options.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
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    2 years ago

    My former boss always said, if you’re sick, take a day more off. Would be a problem if half the company got sick.

    It’s in europe tho. Has it swapt over finally?

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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      2 years ago

      It’s in europe tho.

      Hahaha you had us U.S kids in the first half, not gonna lie. :D

      The newer trend with fancier jobs here is “unlimited paid time off”…Which sounds so amazing!

      How it actually shakes out is there’s no actual number of how much you can take, you’re just guilted and looked at suspiciously and passed over for promotions by using any amount whatsoever.

      I’m sure someone can correct me though because I’ve never had that. My last job gave me a rate of “A week’s shift’s worth of PTO per year.”…I worked 19 hours a week.

      (Also PTO isn’t “sick” days, it’s paid time off…sick and “I’m just not putiup with it today” used up the same resource.)

  • gandalf_der_12te@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 years ago

    Company has no loyalty at all to the employee. I could let go every day that I go to work. It’s not a question of if, but when I will be let go. So, as a consequence, I must ask myself the question: After quitting the game, will I regret sacrificing my health for yet another company?

  • MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net
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    2 years ago

    Older coworker here (Xennial). I’ve always used all of my sick days. One job had a week you could carry over to the next year. I held that week if I didn’t need it because next year I’d be making more money. Next job started with sick bank but stripped it away and lumped everything into one PTO bucket that they weren’t legally bound to offer carryover from. Oddly enough, they started having trouble with attendance in November and December as people just took days off whenever. Oh well.

    • bitchkat@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      A long time ago at a startup, we had a generous vacation time that had no carry over limit. Most of us didn’t take the full PTO allotment. The morons that the VC people wanted to change the policy to have carry over limits.

      I’d send an email about this time every year to ask if they were going to limit carry over. Because I need to know when in October I have stop working for the year. Most of the founders had similar PTO accrued.

      After about 3 years, they finally did it. I had to take 3 separate 4 week vacations in order to finish the year at my max carry over.

      • stoly@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        My father did similar his last year. He basically worked two days a week and took three days vacation for an entire year or so.

    • Psythik@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Older Millennial here and because I hang out at websites that Zoomers do, I’ve also started doing this. Y’all have had a major influence on the way I see life, the universe, and everything. I try to keep my sick, PTO, and UPT hours as close to 0 as I can. I call off several times a month and I’ve come into work late every single day for almost a year straight now.

      If you’re going to give me the time, I’m going to use it. Only thing I save up is vacation hours for a yearly trip to wherever.

      • Serinus@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        come into work late every single day

        That part is questionable, but if you’re just working 10a - 6p, it’s fine. If you’re making another person cover for you until 9:02, it’s absolutely not fine.

        • beeple@slrpnk.net
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          2 years ago

          8-5 with unpaid lunch is normal here. 830-45 is “late” even if you work til 530-45. Just my experience

        • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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          2 years ago

          That’s a management issue lol

          Look at this wagie discovering solidarity all of a sudden.

        • Psythik@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          The company has a backup plan for this (they offer extra shifts to cover tardiness/absences and someone always picks them up), not to mention that we’re overstaffed almost every single day; bottom line is that I’m not worried about it. It’s the company’s responsibility to have enough staff on-hand, not mine.

      • stoly@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        In your boat and managed university students. Even millennials are dinosaurs and we all just need to get out of the way.

  • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    Every single day it seems like there’s an article describing how thing is redefining the workplace.

    • Donkter@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      We’re only about 15 years into the online revolution. I say 15 years cause it was about 2010-12 that “normies” (the general population) all got online and got Facebook and Twitter accounts. Historically, these kinds of revolutions take a generation or two to pan out so we’re only in the beginning of redefining life through the lens of the general population being constantly online.

      All these “disruptions” to the workplace and to social engagement will be seen as the writing on the wall retroactively compared to whatever paradigm shift we’re going to see about it in the next 10-20 years.

  • zephorah@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    Between the younger generation and COVID redefining the acceptability of coming to work sick, the workplace does look a lot better.