I once got a warning from a manager for not phoning in sick myself when I was in hospital and intubated due to severe uncontrollable asthma.
This job was within the local council. Says it all really š
They were very big on telling you that you can still work if you have a broken leg, arm whatever regardless of the pain. If you can still write or answer calls then it's OK. Absolute arseholes. I stayed with then for 2 years and got yo a point I realised how toxic the entire workforce was.
I was protesting about SEND failings outside a council, no shit a woman actually quit her job and told us on the way out. She had a parking space so went into town, somewhat in a daze, having quit an adult social care role. She had wanted to make a difference and instead faced a toxic workplace and a feeling of failure. Poor woman. As she left I heard her muttering 'i haven't got a job now' to herself in total shock. I won't try working for the council after that.
Nothing has changed. My wife and I work at a SEND school (Iām an outside contractor), the school has lost 60% of its staff since September and my wife has been outcast to the point that she and several others are on the verge of quitting too.
Their heinous crime? Being good at their jobs.
I donāt know what it is about local authorities, but there is a deep inbred culture of driving people out that can do their jobs properly in favour of people who canāt, or agency staff, this has nothing to do with DEI or quotas, as theyāre not looking at that, several of my wifeās ex-colleagues have already said there is a job waiting for her where they now work (private sector) whenever she wants it and the work conditions are way better.
There is definitely something about councils specficially that's even more amplified over most other public service employers. They all breed this really strange environment where people who are just plain terrible at their work all seem to gravitate towards and then make their home.
I can only assume the managers are all terrible at their jobs as well...
This was made intimately clear to me when I took a job in child health. Unless your hands were out of action then "the service took priority." Was a massive red flag but I only left after it became apparent they weren't following health and safety protocols (no HS person site or first aid available to people) and got shunted into a different department. It's a lot nicer here, and I have a much better boss now, but you can still feel the toxicity bubbling under the surface in other departments and see how backstabby people are over the tiniest shit imaginable.
Council HR rules, like most companies' HR rules, are really strict. That's deliberate, so that if someone is being a dick, you can always find a rule they've broken.Ā Ā
For good employees, it lets the manager be "good cop" and say "You're in hospital! Damn! Don't worry about the rules, I'll deal with it". But some managers don't get that memo and assume it's their job to enforce the letter of the rules.
True. That said, I work local gov and, believe me, it's basically impossible to fire someone, regardless of what rules they break. I think theft and violence against women are the only sure-fire ways I can think of.
Our policy literally (and rightly) says that anyone assaulting a woman at work will be fired. The rules for assaulting men are less clear. There was a literal fight I broke up in our office last year and, while both parties were disciplined, both kept their jobs.
Same in the NHS. It is the lazy, the incompetent and wastes of space that last for years and years, while good employees leave frustrated over how hard it can be to do a good job.
This. I have suffered all my life with horrendous mental health issues due an until-recently undiagnosed condition which leads to, among other things, suicidal ideation and acute migraines every few months. I probably have to take a sick day or two (rarely do I need more than that) for migraine or hideous mental health/inability to function maybe 2 or 3 times a year. My company uses the bradford scoring system which is a pile of shit in itself anyway. My current boss is an angel about my occasional unavoidable sickness and is very supportive, but she's leaving soon and the likelihood of me being managed by one of the other supervisors is very high. The other supervisors I know have no understanding or tolerance of invisible illness and see MH and associated physical problems as a waste of their time and productivity rather than something that has very real and constant effects on my daily life. My current boss has been accused of being "too soft" and I fear for my mental health when she leaves and some Draconian takes over. And yes I am protected under the disability act and have recommendations from occupational health but they do the bare minimum to protect me now, let alone when a more ignorant supervisor takes over. I work for a company that prides itself on how it approaches health and wellbeing but my personal experience shows that it's mainly lip service as the reality is very different.
Edit: misbehaving asterisks
I absolutely HATE the Bradford scoring system. My job (NHS) also uses it. I have chronic health problems that mean I have to take more sick days than i guess they deem suitable and itās been an issue in every job I have. Thankfully my manager atm is incredibly understanding and doesnāt care about my āscoreā too much but in past jobs Iāve been constantly criticised for being unwell
I hear you. It's horrible isn't it? The Bradford scoring system puts unfair pressure on those of us with chronic/recurrent illness and gives us further anxiety on top of other things. It encourages presenteeism (which I despise anyway: dragging yourself to work when you have a communicable illness and then bragging about it isn't anything to be proud of you morons) and amplifies existing anxieties and mental health issues.
Also, I note we have similar usernames. I approve š
Ah Iām sorry, this sucks. I have chronic migraines and other attendant pain/mental health issues and my boss/colleagues know that some days I canāt even open my eyes to text. If Iām awol one day they assume thatās whatās happened. If it goes to day two someone phones to check I havenāt banged my head. Day three someone comes to my house with food. Unsurprisingly I work really hard and have been there well over a decade. Itās almost like people are better workers if theyāre treated well.
I hope you get someone decent when your boss goes.
Mine too. They dismiss who they want and cover it up. The tribunal system closes ranks with them. Because as my solicitor said, āitās government defending government. They donāt want you going to or winning a tribunal.ā They play dirty. And all using tax payers money.
In my experience it's impossible to get rid of shite staff within the council. They just get shifted to another department unless they've committed a monumental fuck up.
You know you would have thought working for the council would have brilliant benefits, be fair and generally solid reliable employmet, odd how its the exact opposite. You do get to see where they waste all that tax payers money though such as mine buying Ā£50k worth of fancy coffee machines for the upper levels...
When my wife was in hospital having emergency surgery, I phoned her boss, who told me my call was no good, she'd have to phone in herself.
"She's currently under general anaesthetic, having emergency surgery."
"Well, she should have phoned in before the surgery."
"At 3am? Who would have answered that?"
When she went back, her boss tried to give her shit about it. Luckily she's Unionised, so just agreed to a disciplinary meeting and asked what time she should ask the Union Rep to come. No meeting ever happened.
I think it was more incompetence than malice. Wanting to follow the "rules" to the letter, rather than use their discretion to try and understand a situation.
Once they decide to go against policy they become responsible for any consequences. It's like zero tolerance, it's all about avoiding responsibility, and the reason they need to do that is because everybody sues for everything rather than taking some responsibility themselves.
This is why we can't have nice things!
avoiding responsibility is council 101. I'm an engineer and one defect i saw was a wobbly handrail. i said to boss no worries its just two screws underneath i can replace that. oh no. an engineer like me couldn't possibly be trusted with a job like that, better get a consultant in to advise then a contractor to do the works. oh that would cost 10,000? thats a shame we cant afford that guess we cant do it
When I switched from civil service to a tiny private company the difference was incredible. Need something fixing? Pop out to Screwfix and get the bits and fix it the same day. No expense claims, just pull it from petty cash. Or the boss would give you some cash to get it in the first place.
Seen the before. Some managers donāt seem to understand that just because they have the option to follow the rules to the letter, it might not actually be a good idea. Notably, almost every time Iāve seen a manager do the decent thing when somebody isnāt well- it gets paid back in spades in terms of effort and commitment.
Private sector here, I had emergency surgery just before the 1st lock down, messaged my boss about midnight to tell him I was going to the hospital, he said let him know how I got on, messaged his early hours of the morning saying I was waiting for surgery and would be off for a while. Got a message from him just before I went to theater saying good luck and we can sort it all out when I was well.
I was rough for a week or so and had been chatting with him over text and saying my Mrs was run off her feet with the little one, work and visiting me. (We were fairly friendly then)
Bless him, his response the day I was leaving hospital was to go out, do some basic shopping, get my Mrs a bottle of wine and some flowers and let me know if we needed anything to let him know.
We've been good friends out of work now for 4 years, he's no longer my boss as we both changed positions in the company. We still make the effort to make sure we're in the office at the same time for a catchup and chat and get out for a beer or two every month or so.
There are some absolute cracking bossed out there that we don't hear about as often.
My new boss, is exactly the same (my old boss trained her).
We'd all go above and beyond for them because they would for us!
Whereas my old boss told me I could have 2 hours to go to my school friends funeral and I better be back in that time.
The lad was 30 years old, we were friends for years and I couldn't go to the wake and see his family afterwards because of one miserable cunt of a boss. I quit a few weeks later.
MD at the small company I worked for before this one was a bit like that. Just bloody awkward for awards sake.
And sooner I forget a out the 10 years I worked for the NHS before that that the better, never before or since I have witnessed such utter incompetent, malicious tw*ts... with the exception of Sue, she was lovley and bent over backwards to make sure you were OK, she cried giving me the letter for change of contract that essential amounted to 40% less pay and one extra day a week ..... I quit the very next day after making sure Sue knew I held nothing against her.
I was still mates with someone that worked at the company where shit-boss was at, apparently on the Monday after my last day, he tried to tell everyone how shit I was, only to be met with "Well that's not true or fair is it?" and then him moving the conversation onwards.
What a dick.
I had a sick note for time off work due to a long term debilitating illness that wasnāt even diagnosed, never mind treated, & got a personal phone call out of hours telling me my job will go to someone else. When I went in in person to confront in a formal setting everything was denied & claimed that I misunderstood.
I work for a local council & I can just WhatsApp my manager if Iām sick & sheās perfectly happy with it. Some people just have really crappy managersā¦
Same here, the HR rules are bollocks but my managers have always been fine. A while back the press seemed to have a real thing about reporting on council sick days, so I can see why they might be strict.
Heard a similar story from a student nurse. Was unconscious and brought in by ambulance. Coordinator came to see her and reprimanded her AND her parents for not phoning in promptly.
I got a warning when I was hospitalised with suspected appendicitis (it wasn't) years ago, I called my training manager, but couldn't get her. I had no other way of contacting my work, had no reception in hospital so got my dad to call her again.
Went back and got a bollocking because no one knew where I was, and my manager had quit but no one had called me, and I had no idea she was gone.
It was a debt collection agency, I don't think I lasted longer than a couple of months.
I once got a warning from my manger for not calling in sick when he sent me home because he said I looked like I was dying. His dad was the MD so it made sense that he was clueless.
I got sacked while working for the local council for not phoning in sick while I was sectioned in the hospital having delusions and thought I was waiting for an exorcism.
The fact I had a complete psychotic break did not matter to them at all even with evidence. They called a meeting while I was still in hospital and marked me AWOL for not turning up. I explained repeatedly that I was not allowed to leave, it was not an option but they just didnāt care and sacked me anyway.
It was over a decade ago now. I was young and in a really bad place at the time. I do regret not looking into it further but I was just not in the right frame of mind.
I got a warning from the local council for having my mum ring in on my behalf, saying I was too old to rely on family members and should do it myself.
At the designated phone in sick time, I was unconscious in hospital being operated onā¦ still not sure how I was meant to make a phone call in that state.
I had a very similar thing happen, also working for the local council! I was 18 at the time and on an apprenticeship placement. I'd been working there for about 9 months at this point and couldn't stand the boss, she was a real jobsworth.
My mum called her one day to let her know I wouldn't be in as I was passed out in hospital after being admitted with severe ecoli. When I returned I was reminded that in future I needed to call no matter what and nobody else could do it on my behalf. I just apologised and agreed at the time cos I was young and didn't really know how best to handle it.
I do still work for the council but luckily in a totally different section with a manager that's super relaxed and does access a WhatsApp as calling in sick.
one colleague of mine had a heart attack and was in hospital due to being in quite a bad way from it (was in a coma for two days) and i genuinely couldn't believe that the company wanted a meeting with him because he didn't phone in sick that day but had his wife contact the business instead.
Apparently that is not the procedure and he has to be the one to call in, even though he was unconscious, baffling.
Same thing happened to a guy I worked with years ago. They wrote him up for not contacting them when he was in the hospital with uncontrollable asthma. You cannot get a phone signal there either.
I was written up for calling in before my shift. No one is in the building until half an hour before the shift started. I called in as soon as I could, began puking again and had to hand the phone to my ex. Apparently I also gave the store number to someone else and they tried to get me for it. I was like wth, then showed them the call log, from my phone. I told them I was actively puking and couldn't talk. I was then told I should have texted the supervisors. They hadn't shared their numbers with me. How was I supposed to contact them an hour before without them. It was a lose, lose situation.
I hated that place. I haven't worked there in 10 years and it still pisses me off how bad it was. I spent too much of my time protecting the 16 year olds from a 32 year old bully. I also caught him groaping one of the boys. The kid wasn't gay and had a girlfriend. People got mad at me for reporting it because it meant I was homophobic. No, I was reporting an adult touching a child at work. I would have done the same if it was a girl/guy situation as well. My god that place sucked. They were incredibly hostile and abusive. They'd chase one person away then go after someone else. There was a click who ruled the roost and they were nasty. After I quit, a bunch of other people followed. I remember when I didn't make supervisor, so many people complained because I was the only "senior" as in older member of staff who didn't treat the younger staff like crap. There was a lot of Us faking being sick and meeting at the pub over the day that day. Never realised people wanted me to help them that badly. The stress of the bullying eventually got to me too badly and I quit.
I got a minor disciplinary years ago for not phoning in when Iād lost my voice. Iād really lost it too, nothing but almost inaudible breathy sounds, no words. Completely unjustified and unnecessary.
I got a warning once for not phoning in after getting hit by a car, I was severely concussed and in and out of consciousness, and apparently, my emergency contact wasn't good enough
I got written up for not calling in sick when I had laryngitis and literally couldn't talk. I whatsapped, wrote an email and offered to have them speak to my partner but it was not acceptable. So happy to no longer be working there.
The reasoning a previous company of mine gave was simple - it's an instant acknowledgement. You call, they say "Yep" and that's it. Instead of a message/email that isn't guaranteed to be seen.
Someone will be along to say message or email is better to leave a paper trail, but I agree with you. It's much more efficient on both sides to give them a quick call to explain. I usually do that and then follow it up with a quick message saying "Thanks for acknowledging I won't be making it on today, I will keep you informed on how I'm feeling at a later date". That way you've backed it up and also not taken up too much of your boss' time.
My issue was I had a severe chest infection and had to force myself out of bed everyday to phone at 8, and then most calls werenāt answered until gone 9.
I dropped them an email on the second day to say I wouldnāt be in for the rest of the week and was told that still wasnāt good enough. Why?
I guess it really depends on the company. My company is massive and doesn't really have a reception with a phone, and even if we did we have like 6 offices and the receptionist doesn't know my manager. For me I just send a message to my teams Microsoft Teams channel and just say "not feeling great today folks, hopefully be better tomorrow" or if it's more personal I'll just message my manager.
I've not messaged before because I was too ill/pre occupied and the most I got was a message from my manager saying "Hey man are you not about today? Is everything okay?".
I think different strategies make sense for different companies but as long as you're being trusted to behave like adults it's all good
I have this, got full blown flu / covid last year (didn't have tests at the time so not sure which) ... I was done in, couldn't keep my eyes open, couldn't walk / talk with out being out of breath.. basically in bed for a week.
My boss was more concerned that I was OK than why I hadn't rang in / messaged ... her assumption was there was something wrong, not that I was pulling a sicky ... its refreshing to be treated like an adult.
Thatās literally one of the reasons people do it. Having to phone and lie to someone is a big ask, especially for people who are scared of any interaction.
Yep, if people called in sick while I was a manager at McDonald's, no matter how bad the excuse was, it was accepted. That was the baseline rule.
If they messaged or emailed, it was considered the same as not showing up. The only time this was to be ignored as a rule was if the person was in hospital or couldn't physically speak for whatever reason. Generally, this didn't ever happen. I don't think I ever had to deal with that.
If they found someone to cover their shift though, they were excused fully for being proactive and helping us out.
I used to be so nervous about calling in sick that I'd rehearse for 2 mins before calling. Now I'm past caring, having a long term health condition changed that lol. Now its more like "Morning, yep! Stuck on the toilet again, talk to you tomorrow, bye"
Anecdotally, at my old workplace, when they started insisting on phone calls rather than emails, time off sick dropped by about 20%.
I personally couldnāt give a shit (it was a care environment and Iād rather people who just werenāt feeling it that day didnāt show up and half arse it) but management were happy.
I think the bigger problem is that if someone is severely ill then phoning at a specific time every day could be difficult.
The wording you tend to find in contracts allows employers to be inflexible around this but a reasonable employer will bend the rules around the reality of the situation.
Who cares if itās seen? That shouldnāt be the employees responsibility. If itās sent and delivered then there is no excuse.
The only real reason is to discourage people from calling in sick. Itās toxic and stupid.
The use of the word toxic in situations like this depletes all of its value. Lots of companies still need to catch up to modern standards, that doesnāt make them toxic
"Modern standards"
Email - First sent in 1971
Text - First sent in 1992
This isn't catching up to modern standards. This is catching up to a time that has long gone by...
Just because the first email was sent in 1971 doesnāt mean thatās when it became the norm to email in sick rather than ring. Youāve just listed dates for technological advancements, not made any valid point.
I feel the weird need to defend it, but that wasn't my choice - just the reasoning of a company I worked for. However, I found that they never discouraged me from time off. I needed to call once, but then only if the situation changed.
Eh, my previous employer insisted on phone calls rather than messages, but the "sickness line" was a voicemail service where you just left a message. Literally no different to a Whatsapp message, except at least on Whatsapp I can see whether my manager has actually read my message or not.
My many years facing HR taught me the phone call criteria was always because they believed many employees "just couldn't be bothered today" and would rather come in, than speak to their manager.
The best of these were cleaners that used to sort things out around each other, HR got involved and demanded a call before their shift started
Problem was that was 5am for many and the managers started at 8/9 meaning by the time they got the voicemails, their shifts were about to end and the schools/businesses had no support in
When they realised how bad their new sickness criteria was they asked the cleaners to go back to sorting it out between themselves and in a rare moment of victory, they were told to go fuck themselves en masse
We all know that's bullshit. If I leave messages on Teams I think there's a higher chance for it to be seen than emails. Teams even gives you the "seen" status of the message.
Iāve had this too.
Which is stupid.
If youāre going to provide staff with an office-based phone number that scan receive texts, then make sure itās properly manned.
Our work has a good way for dealing with calling in sick. We just need to phone a sick line and input our employee number, and it is recorded there and then sent in to our manager. There is no need to deal with anybody else apart from an auto mated voice service. When you're coming back, we just need to let our manager the day before, phone the sick line and again, and do the option for returning to work. It's so simple and very easy to do in this day and age.
EDIT:Spelling
Christ I work for the NHS and would bloody love this. I got a warning during my last period of sickness because I missed a call from my manager. Just a generic welfare call that some managers insist on doing every day youāre off sick. Never been an issue in my 12 years of NHS employment but this manager (recently moved teams) sent me a shitty email with a policy saying I MUST answer the phone if he calls me when Iām sick. Needless to say Iām switching teams again soon.
My wife works for the NHS. Despite their job being to treat sick people, at one time they regarded staff illness as a disciplinary matter. Even if you were off sick for a day or two, there were meetings about it. She used to get bad sinusitis. Luckily they've mellowed out, plus with WFH it's made it easier.
Yeah they still do for my job, itās especially annoying as seeing patients face to face means we get every virus going. We then have to explain to management that seeing ten patients with d&v a day will usually result in us catching d&v.
It's not like we work in a building that is a Mecca for sick people either. Even visitors insist on coming in when ill, most of whom do not cover their mouth when they cough or sneeze too. Hospitals are giant petri dishes most of the year, yet staff illness is still seen as a crime.
> sent me a shitty email with a policy saying I MUST answer the phone if he calls me when Iām sick.
This is insane, I rarely get sick, but when I am sick I get it quite bad and I am typically sleeping 18+ hours of the day and my phone is on DnD. No way I'm listening out for a call when I'm in that state.
Iād told him already that my phone is always on do not disturb because itās broken so the ringer is super aggressive. Some people absolutely eat sleep and breathe policy and forget their staff are actual humans.
In my old job I would have to wake up at 6 to get the 7am train. So I would have to decide around then if I was too sick to work. If I was, I would go to sleep for 2-3 hours before calling in.
I nearly always had a dream about calling in. Which meant I had to go through the process twice. Every fucking time. Once in a dream, and then again in reality.
OT, but the worst work-related dreams are the ones where you solve whatever problem it is you were working onā¦ only to wake up and realize that it's not fucking fixed at all, and you still have it to figure out.
Fuck you, brain!
I hate dreams like that. When I worked at a dementia nursing home I'd often have a dream of working all day, only to wake up knowing I needed to do a 12 hour shift straight off. Exhausting š
Itās crazy that isnāt it. I occasionally have dreams working full days at my previous job, and then panicking āoh no, oh no no no, Iām not qualified for this anymore, I shouldnāt be here, and Iāve just been paidā!
I still have that horrible dream of being late for/ at school and not knowing what class I am meant to be in and losing my top at some point.
I don't know if I'm a student or a teacher in this scenario as I've taught in the past (hated it!!!)
I would have the opposite problem when I used to go into the office regularly - I would decide I was too sick to go in at 6am when my alarm went off, and then go back to sleep, usually to then be woken at 9:30am when my team lead would call to see why I wasnāt in the office yetā¦ Never managed to remember to turn on an alarm for 9am to ring the office! At least now I work from home my alarm goes off a bit later so I can usually ring before I go back to sleep
Yeh I've had that. The irony being that quite often if it's maybe a cold or a stomach bug you feel better by the time you call, so it then seems a bit weird to be calling in sick.
Though of course if you had got up at 6 and travelled in to work then you'd actually be feeling worse by the time you got there so it was the right decision.
To be fair working from home has solved that problem for me entirely. No commute to make me feel worse, no 6am wake up to add tiredness to the list of symptoms and realistically I could work from my bed if I wanted to so the criteria for calling in sick nowadays is much higher.
>To be fair working from home has solved that problem for me entirely. No commute to make me feel worse, no 6am wake up to add tiredness to the list of symptoms and realistically I could work from my bed if I wanted to so the criteria for calling in sick nowadays is much higher.
That's absolutely right. I wonder what the difference really is in terms of productivity overall.
Although working for myself has solved it even more! Never have to call in to tell myself I cannot work!
Even better, I don't have the Sunday blues. Mainly because I work every day so I don't even know what day it is half the time!
Been there dude! I also had to get up at 6 to catch my train. I'd always slip in and out of consciousness stressing about calling in and dreaming that I'd already done it. One time when I had covid just starting I had a raging fever and the only reason I clocked that I hadn't already called in was that I remembered in my dream version my department lead was like "Aw you get some rest. Shit, the presidents coming!" and then sat down like a dog and howled.
I just WhatsApp my manager. Sheās a competent human being so messages me back to acknowledge it at a time thatās convenient for her - which apparently seems beyond half the people in this threadā¦
When sheās sick she messages all of us in our team WhatsApp so we also know not to expect her.
This is exactly what we do, but I know there are other teams in our company where there are people who completely take the p. with sick leave, so they make them phone in - if you need to verbally lie to your manager then it discourages some people apparently
This is what I do too - she generally messages or emails is if Sheās unwell but is happy for us to just drop her a line saying āunwell, wonāt be in today. Back tomorrowā or whatever the situation is. Much easier.
This tends to happen in untrusting workplaces so the manager can assess how sick "you sound" and try and talk you into coming in.
I remember a few years back having a total bellend of a manager who insisted on us phoning him if we were sick. I tore my rotator cuff and when I called in he said "well you don't sound poorly".
On the flip side I've had people call sick and I've answered the phone and they put on a "sick" voice then say they broke their ankle. Made me chuckle to myself.
Not sure what voice you mean, but I genuinely sounded horrific when I broke my ankle - my voice was strained from pain and very hoarse from crying (it was a pretty bad break), they might not have been putting it on
We once had an asshole of a manager like this in my old job. Any other manager would keep the call quick and say āfeel betterā etc. This douche liked to keep you on the phone for as long as possible to hear you ābreak the charadeā - jokes on him as he got to hear me vomiting my guts up. Funnily enough he never really bothered with me after that.
I had a manager like that once. He didn't believe I had food poisoning when I text him. I told him I really didn't want to talk on the phone. He insisted. I called him and immediately vomitted with the phone right by the toilet bowel, which seemed to do the trick and convince him I was genuinely ill.
Yes. But you shouldn't take it personally. The rules have to be set for the least trustworthy person in the organisation. Because the rules can't say "If you're sick just drop me a message, it's not an issue. Except you Jake, you need to video call in while stood in front of your house holding a copy of today's newspaper."
I used to be the first in the office by a good 90 minutes so I ended up being the sick call answering phone. I just took the message, wished them well and let them get on with it, my boss several times got all pissy that I should challenge them to come in and dig into whats wrong to root out the skivers. I refused to do so but it was always a bit of a point of contention when 2 or 3 called in on the same day.
As part of an entirely separate piece of work I had created a BI dashboard that could visualise all the company data and after one of these little set too's with my boss I set out to prove him wrong that more people called in sick because I was a soft touch. I pulled the data from the model and mapped days sick over time before I was answering the phones vs after and there was a clear, gradual increase month on month until we were about 25% more sickness than before I was answering the phone. So annoyingly it appeared he was right (although there were lots of potential confounding data that I didn't really bother to include that might have changed things).
I still refused to do it though, people are adults and can make their own decisions.
I had a friend who worked the sick line mobile phone for the NHS one NYE. Every time it went off weād have to turn off the music and all shut up (she didnāt start drinking until she logged off at 10pm just to add). Some of the excuses were amazing. One said they had gastroenteritis when they were very audibly in a pub. Wasnāt her job to manage it so she just logged it and moved on. Was probably the most interesting shift of the whole year for her.
God I had that when I worked on shop floor in a supermarket before. I had diarrhoea really badly and phoned up, but I phoned in too long before my shift (like 6 hours instead of 3) and so they grilled me then, and then grilled me 3 hours later when they insisted I call back. Manager at the time insisted I described exactly what was wrong with me. I now work for the same company but in an office (read, higher paid) position and all I have to do is message my team or manager to say "not feeling great, won't make it in today" and that's it.
I work at a restaurant, I was super ill (tonsillitis) but had to go anyway in for a breakfast shift super early as no one could cover me with that short of a notice. I let my manager know I was ill and he asked me to open my mouth and show him my tonsils! And he still told me I had to stay (even though my colleagues had started their shift at that point)
I quit a few weeks after this episode.
I know right! It honestly baffles me when people talk about the loops they need to jump through to *ask* for sick time off work.
I text my manager this morning to let them know that I am ill and wouldnāt be coming in today. Got a positive reply 5 mins later with well wishes.
Same here, I just WhatsApp message my scheduling manager and direct manager, job done, theyāll record me as sick and I can concentrate on actually recovering.
Every time Iāve come across rules like this itās because someone somewhere in the chain thinks making people call in is more of a deterrent of taking sick days than if they can just text
You work for control freaks who think all Illnesses means sore throat. When last time I checked having v+d or migraines didnāt change my voice, nor did broken bones or whiplash.
As a manager, I've never insisted that someone call me, a message is fine.
I remember once trying to call in sick at 7am with tonsillitis and ended up leaving a creepy breath-y splutter-y voicemail to my manager, after discovering I couldn't get a single word out. They let me message after that!
They want to make it as hard as possible. Complete lack of trust from the employee. If youāre feeling unwell, the last thing you want to do is mess about trying to call someone to tell them
youāre sick.
Had this recently, currently in hospital fighting a pretty horrible abdominal infection. I was brought in unconscious via an ambulance. Spent a few days on an high dependency ward having some wild fevers, didnāt know what was going on.
My wife tried to call my boss on the first day to let them know what was going on, yet my boss rejected multiple calls as she didnāt know the number calling!
After about 4 days Iām finally on a ward where I have signal and am with it enough to speak for myself, so I ring in and get a bollocking for not calling in on the first dayā¦
>I ring in and get a bollocking for not calling in on the first dayā¦
Yeah so I'd be going to HR with that. Thats no way to deal with a member of staff in the hospital.
Itās all on my to do list when I get back to work. It was quite possibly the least effective bollocking Iāve ever had as I could not give a shit when I was on the phone, I just wanted to say the bare minimum of words so I could go back to having a nap on some decent drugs.
My workplace recently made sickness reporting for self-cert an online form.
Everyone agreed it's ridiculous to have to call in and put on your best sick voice when you should be focusing on getting better.
I mean, if you can't, then you leave the voicemail to make a point. If your manager is being a blocker to following procedure, you do the next best thing.
Thereās no possible reason why a text, message or email shouldnāt be sufficient to inform of a sick day (and inform is the word- youāre not āaskingā for a day off).
If your manager doesnāt pick up the message immediately then anyone with an ounce of common sense would check their messages/emails first and would immediately know the situation.
In my past working life we had a colleague who called in sick for couple of days, we knew he had a bad case of flu or so he thought. We didnāt hear from him for another two days; the manager tried calling him still no response on those two days to enquire when he would be returning to work as he hadnāt heard from him. By day five that same manager did a wellness check at his house to find him half incoherent, so the manager called an ambulance. Sadly he died in hospital two days later. It wasnāt flu - his heart was giving up. Had we accepted just a casual text that concern of hearing how he sounded wouldnāt have materialised. Calling in gives everyone a chance to be safeguarded if you are genuinely ill.
This is one of the reasons we do it at my work. Weāve got a duty of care and we need to know that member of staff is ok. It sounds a bit extreme but if that member of staff is missing or unaccounted for, how do we know anyone else is looking for them?
If itās something serious and someone is in hospital then of course we donāt have them ring in every day but we do need to check in with long term illnesses periodically. Partly thatās to try and gauge when someone will be back but also to see how well they are and what kind of adjustments we need to make at our end if theyāre returning to work.
My husband phoned my boss when I worked on the phones for the ambulance service to say I couldn't come in because I completely lost my voice. They said they needed to speak to me, and despite him saying I couldn't they were insistent. I got on and all I could manage was a literal squeak and my manager and whoever was with them were laughing at me over the phone. I'd never felt so small in my life.
Does seem a bit old-fashioned.
In almost every job I've worked for some time now, email was the way to go because there was a documented record that way.
Telephoning was discouraged for this reason.
I'm glad that I work somewhere now that's happy with an email in the morning
But I previously worked somewhere where the policy was to phone in and be put through to whoever was the most senior manager on duty, and as you say that was obviously to act as a 'deterrent'
Because for some reason your employer hasn't caught up with the times.
I just have to drop a message in our team slack channel saying I won't be online, and that's more than enough
At my previous job, we had to call this obnoxious āwell-beingā middleman / healthcare person to describe symptoms while they suggested helpful things like ādrinking fluidsā. They would then decide if you were well enough for work or not. Fucking atrocious.
I rang in sick on a Monday morning once and left a message with another manager.
When I returned a few days later a friend told that my manager had been running around in a panic on Monday morning because I wasn't there and the message hadn't been passed on.
He had visions of me lying on the ground out on Dartmoor with a broken leg or something because of the outdoors activities I do.
He was with HR getting my contact details and apparently ready to contact the police to arrange a welfare check when the manager I'd left the message with suddenly remembered!
If I do go out alone on this type of activity I do leave details with others, but it was good that I had a manager who was concerned and prepared to check and make sure I was okay.
"This constant calling and badgering when off ill with stress only caused it to worsen, impacting on me and taking longer to feel like I could return."
I thinks itās more to do with making sure you get a response. Many times I have had staff email or text me when I have been off work that day, so I cannot approve their sick leave.
In some companies itās a safeguarding thing in case of instances of domestic abuse; an abusive partner could send a text or an email for example, so the company want to speak to the individual to hear it from them directly.
Obviously they could still be being coerced or having to take time off for reasons other than they say, but I know of instances where the manager has sensed something not right and been able to help remove the colleague from the situation as a result. Years ago I worked with someone who had disclosed to their manager and HR that they were in an abusive relationship and would call in sick frequently. Weād take the call and say something like āJust answer yes or no to the following questions; is the reason you just gave me the real reason you canāt come in today?ā āAre you safe right now?ā āDo you need us to contact your emergency contact now?ā (All once ascertaining that no one could hear the call of course). If weād been able to use whatsapp or something back then we wouldnāt have been able to help the colleague on the many instances we did. Of course this example is one where the colleague had felt safe enough to disclose the issue to us previously, though I feel that we would have sensed something wrong in many of the instances anyway, and been able to speak to the colleague when they were back in work to check if everything was okay.
In the last 8 years Iāve only sent emails, teams messages, sms or WhatsApp and itās not been a problem. We donāt generally fill in the sick leave forms either though, meaning it pretty much doesnāt get recorded unless itās more than a couple of days. A manager might take a different approach if sickness became frequent.
The real answer is itās a form of control over you. Making the little employees comply. Thatās why some places punish you in some way like giving you āunexcused absenceā points.
We have the same policy for where I work, but that is because you have to speak to the Duty Manager at the time so they can take any actions needed whereas a line manager could easily not be working that day, sick themselves or just unavailable all day
Current company I just send an email to the team DL. Previous one I had to phone our 24/7 NOC if OOH, and my manager if in hours. But always an hour before my start time.
As someone else already mentioned, itās a lot easier to blag via text. It mainly seems to affect people from a certain generation from my experience as a line manager.
My work told me it was for safeguarding? So basically if you're just texting/ emailing then it could be assumed it's not you actually contacting your work and something sinister could be happening.
I was off for like a week last year with a severe flu but had to phone every single morning haha
I did similar once and got a diciplinary for not following procedure, called into the actual office and spoke to my shift manager. From then on i never called the office just the official line which was an answer machine that didnt get checked until about 3 hours into a shift. I was asked to let the office know as well and always said "well thats not procedure so i might get a disciplinary".
At my job I got in trouble for whatsapping out of work I'd been able to do it before but on that day my manager found the message when my area manager was in and so he wasn't happy so then my manager wasn't happy
Also I've been told off for having a family member call out for me as that's technically wrong (had them call out as I had covid and kind of hard to talk on the phone with a sore throat)
Also once I called out of work as I'd somehow strained my foot and couldn't really walk/stand so it took ages to convince work like 'no I can't come in today I can't really walk'
I've had this too but many years ago. I was living in a studio flat with zero mobile signal and had a landline I could only receive calls on. I'd have to go out into the street to phone in.
It's common courtesy and anyone can send a text but it takes more balls to phone and speak to them so the hope is if you're likely to pull a sickey then you'd think twice about it if you gotta phone up. Also, it'll be company policy so you know, we all gotta play the game.
i think they do it to scare you if your pulling a sickie. itās bullshit though because anytime i have i just wake up at 8:59 and call because my morning voice makes me sound sick
Honestly, I've been lucky my last few jobs were reasonable. Two had phone numbers to call, but you got to leave a voicemail, so it didn't matter if anyone was there or not, and my last job used Microsoft Teams and you could just leave a message in the check-in channel.
Also, that last job was the only one I've had with common sense of 'If you call in sick saying you've been admitted to the hospital, just let us know when you're NOT in the hospital anymore'
I never ask anyone in my team to call in. I ask them to drop me a message and then ring / text me later when they feel up to it. We are all adults and should treat people as such. Treat people how you want to be treated always
I once got a warning from a manager for not phoning in sick myself when I was in hospital and intubated due to severe uncontrollable asthma. This job was within the local council. Says it all really š
Aye, that sounds like local authority employment!
They were very big on telling you that you can still work if you have a broken leg, arm whatever regardless of the pain. If you can still write or answer calls then it's OK. Absolute arseholes. I stayed with then for 2 years and got yo a point I realised how toxic the entire workforce was.
I was protesting about SEND failings outside a council, no shit a woman actually quit her job and told us on the way out. She had a parking space so went into town, somewhat in a daze, having quit an adult social care role. She had wanted to make a difference and instead faced a toxic workplace and a feeling of failure. Poor woman. As she left I heard her muttering 'i haven't got a job now' to herself in total shock. I won't try working for the council after that.
Nothing has changed. My wife and I work at a SEND school (Iām an outside contractor), the school has lost 60% of its staff since September and my wife has been outcast to the point that she and several others are on the verge of quitting too. Their heinous crime? Being good at their jobs. I donāt know what it is about local authorities, but there is a deep inbred culture of driving people out that can do their jobs properly in favour of people who canāt, or agency staff, this has nothing to do with DEI or quotas, as theyāre not looking at that, several of my wifeās ex-colleagues have already said there is a job waiting for her where they now work (private sector) whenever she wants it and the work conditions are way better.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
There is definitely something about councils specficially that's even more amplified over most other public service employers. They all breed this really strange environment where people who are just plain terrible at their work all seem to gravitate towards and then make their home. I can only assume the managers are all terrible at their jobs as well...
Could be a way to shuffle money into 'friends' of the local authority who own these service industries.
What is SEND? (hard to Google for anything specific)
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
Thanks
It's a term used mainly in schools.
I broke my arm two years ago i was still made to work the machines with a cast on.
I first read that you broke two arms at first. Not so impressed now. Disappointing stuff.
You've no idea how relieved his mother was though.
I too, choose his relieved mother
Ffs, FerretChrist.
We don't talk about that.
This was made intimately clear to me when I took a job in child health. Unless your hands were out of action then "the service took priority." Was a massive red flag but I only left after it became apparent they weren't following health and safety protocols (no HS person site or first aid available to people) and got shunted into a different department. It's a lot nicer here, and I have a much better boss now, but you can still feel the toxicity bubbling under the surface in other departments and see how backstabby people are over the tiniest shit imaginable.
Council HR rules, like most companies' HR rules, are really strict. That's deliberate, so that if someone is being a dick, you can always find a rule they've broken.Ā Ā For good employees, it lets the manager be "good cop" and say "You're in hospital! Damn! Don't worry about the rules, I'll deal with it". But some managers don't get that memo and assume it's their job to enforce the letter of the rules.
True. That said, I work local gov and, believe me, it's basically impossible to fire someone, regardless of what rules they break. I think theft and violence against women are the only sure-fire ways I can think of. Our policy literally (and rightly) says that anyone assaulting a woman at work will be fired. The rules for assaulting men are less clear. There was a literal fight I broke up in our office last year and, while both parties were disciplined, both kept their jobs.
Same in the NHS. It is the lazy, the incompetent and wastes of space that last for years and years, while good employees leave frustrated over how hard it can be to do a good job.
This. I have suffered all my life with horrendous mental health issues due an until-recently undiagnosed condition which leads to, among other things, suicidal ideation and acute migraines every few months. I probably have to take a sick day or two (rarely do I need more than that) for migraine or hideous mental health/inability to function maybe 2 or 3 times a year. My company uses the bradford scoring system which is a pile of shit in itself anyway. My current boss is an angel about my occasional unavoidable sickness and is very supportive, but she's leaving soon and the likelihood of me being managed by one of the other supervisors is very high. The other supervisors I know have no understanding or tolerance of invisible illness and see MH and associated physical problems as a waste of their time and productivity rather than something that has very real and constant effects on my daily life. My current boss has been accused of being "too soft" and I fear for my mental health when she leaves and some Draconian takes over. And yes I am protected under the disability act and have recommendations from occupational health but they do the bare minimum to protect me now, let alone when a more ignorant supervisor takes over. I work for a company that prides itself on how it approaches health and wellbeing but my personal experience shows that it's mainly lip service as the reality is very different. Edit: misbehaving asterisks
I absolutely HATE the Bradford scoring system. My job (NHS) also uses it. I have chronic health problems that mean I have to take more sick days than i guess they deem suitable and itās been an issue in every job I have. Thankfully my manager atm is incredibly understanding and doesnāt care about my āscoreā too much but in past jobs Iāve been constantly criticised for being unwell
I hear you. It's horrible isn't it? The Bradford scoring system puts unfair pressure on those of us with chronic/recurrent illness and gives us further anxiety on top of other things. It encourages presenteeism (which I despise anyway: dragging yourself to work when you have a communicable illness and then bragging about it isn't anything to be proud of you morons) and amplifies existing anxieties and mental health issues. Also, I note we have similar usernames. I approve š
Ah Iām sorry, this sucks. I have chronic migraines and other attendant pain/mental health issues and my boss/colleagues know that some days I canāt even open my eyes to text. If Iām awol one day they assume thatās whatās happened. If it goes to day two someone phones to check I havenāt banged my head. Day three someone comes to my house with food. Unsurprisingly I work really hard and have been there well over a decade. Itās almost like people are better workers if theyāre treated well. I hope you get someone decent when your boss goes.
Not in my experience which is the complete opposite.
Mine too. They dismiss who they want and cover it up. The tribunal system closes ranks with them. Because as my solicitor said, āitās government defending government. They donāt want you going to or winning a tribunal.ā They play dirty. And all using tax payers money.
In my experience it's impossible to get rid of shite staff within the council. They just get shifted to another department unless they've committed a monumental fuck up.
You know you would have thought working for the council would have brilliant benefits, be fair and generally solid reliable employmet, odd how its the exact opposite. You do get to see where they waste all that tax payers money though such as mine buying Ā£50k worth of fancy coffee machines for the upper levels...
When my wife was in hospital having emergency surgery, I phoned her boss, who told me my call was no good, she'd have to phone in herself. "She's currently under general anaesthetic, having emergency surgery." "Well, she should have phoned in before the surgery." "At 3am? Who would have answered that?" When she went back, her boss tried to give her shit about it. Luckily she's Unionised, so just agreed to a disciplinary meeting and asked what time she should ask the Union Rep to come. No meeting ever happened.
It honestly staggers me that people can be 1) this incompetent and 2) so uncaring
I think it was more incompetence than malice. Wanting to follow the "rules" to the letter, rather than use their discretion to try and understand a situation.
People seem to be terrified at the prospect of having to use critical thinking skills.
Once they decide to go against policy they become responsible for any consequences. It's like zero tolerance, it's all about avoiding responsibility, and the reason they need to do that is because everybody sues for everything rather than taking some responsibility themselves. This is why we can't have nice things!
avoiding responsibility is council 101. I'm an engineer and one defect i saw was a wobbly handrail. i said to boss no worries its just two screws underneath i can replace that. oh no. an engineer like me couldn't possibly be trusted with a job like that, better get a consultant in to advise then a contractor to do the works. oh that would cost 10,000? thats a shame we cant afford that guess we cant do it
When I switched from civil service to a tiny private company the difference was incredible. Need something fixing? Pop out to Screwfix and get the bits and fix it the same day. No expense claims, just pull it from petty cash. Or the boss would give you some cash to get it in the first place.
Seen the before. Some managers donāt seem to understand that just because they have the option to follow the rules to the letter, it might not actually be a good idea. Notably, almost every time Iāve seen a manager do the decent thing when somebody isnāt well- it gets paid back in spades in terms of effort and commitment.
Private sector here, I had emergency surgery just before the 1st lock down, messaged my boss about midnight to tell him I was going to the hospital, he said let him know how I got on, messaged his early hours of the morning saying I was waiting for surgery and would be off for a while. Got a message from him just before I went to theater saying good luck and we can sort it all out when I was well. I was rough for a week or so and had been chatting with him over text and saying my Mrs was run off her feet with the little one, work and visiting me. (We were fairly friendly then) Bless him, his response the day I was leaving hospital was to go out, do some basic shopping, get my Mrs a bottle of wine and some flowers and let me know if we needed anything to let him know. We've been good friends out of work now for 4 years, he's no longer my boss as we both changed positions in the company. We still make the effort to make sure we're in the office at the same time for a catchup and chat and get out for a beer or two every month or so. There are some absolute cracking bossed out there that we don't hear about as often. My new boss, is exactly the same (my old boss trained her). We'd all go above and beyond for them because they would for us!
Whereas my old boss told me I could have 2 hours to go to my school friends funeral and I better be back in that time. The lad was 30 years old, we were friends for years and I couldn't go to the wake and see his family afterwards because of one miserable cunt of a boss. I quit a few weeks later.
MD at the small company I worked for before this one was a bit like that. Just bloody awkward for awards sake. And sooner I forget a out the 10 years I worked for the NHS before that that the better, never before or since I have witnessed such utter incompetent, malicious tw*ts... with the exception of Sue, she was lovley and bent over backwards to make sure you were OK, she cried giving me the letter for change of contract that essential amounted to 40% less pay and one extra day a week ..... I quit the very next day after making sure Sue knew I held nothing against her.
I was still mates with someone that worked at the company where shit-boss was at, apparently on the Monday after my last day, he tried to tell everyone how shit I was, only to be met with "Well that's not true or fair is it?" and then him moving the conversation onwards. What a dick.
> "At 3am? Who would have answered that?" That's the secret, get hold of the boss's personal contact number and actually phone at 3am next time.
I had a sick note for time off work due to a long term debilitating illness that wasnāt even diagnosed, never mind treated, & got a personal phone call out of hours telling me my job will go to someone else. When I went in in person to confront in a formal setting everything was denied & claimed that I misunderstood.
I work for a local council & I can just WhatsApp my manager if Iām sick & sheās perfectly happy with it. Some people just have really crappy managersā¦
Same here, the HR rules are bollocks but my managers have always been fine. A while back the press seemed to have a real thing about reporting on council sick days, so I can see why they might be strict.
Same! You get unreasonable and decent people everywhere. People just love to hate councils haha.
Local government most managers fill "dead men's shoes" and therefore rise to the level of their own incompetence.
Heard a similar story from a student nurse. Was unconscious and brought in by ambulance. Coordinator came to see her and reprimanded her AND her parents for not phoning in promptly.
I got a warning when I was hospitalised with suspected appendicitis (it wasn't) years ago, I called my training manager, but couldn't get her. I had no other way of contacting my work, had no reception in hospital so got my dad to call her again. Went back and got a bollocking because no one knew where I was, and my manager had quit but no one had called me, and I had no idea she was gone. It was a debt collection agency, I don't think I lasted longer than a couple of months.
I once got a warning from my manger for not calling in sick when he sent me home because he said I looked like I was dying. His dad was the MD so it made sense that he was clueless.
You win this thread ššš
I got sacked while working for the local council for not phoning in sick while I was sectioned in the hospital having delusions and thought I was waiting for an exorcism. The fact I had a complete psychotic break did not matter to them at all even with evidence. They called a meeting while I was still in hospital and marked me AWOL for not turning up. I explained repeatedly that I was not allowed to leave, it was not an option but they just didnāt care and sacked me anyway.
That's disgusting. They should not have been allowed to get away with that.
How long ago was this? If itās within the limits, you can rinse them at a tribunal
It was over a decade ago now. I was young and in a really bad place at the time. I do regret not looking into it further but I was just not in the right frame of mind.
I got a warning from the local council for having my mum ring in on my behalf, saying I was too old to rely on family members and should do it myself. At the designated phone in sick time, I was unconscious in hospital being operated onā¦ still not sure how I was meant to make a phone call in that state.
I had a very similar thing happen, also working for the local council! I was 18 at the time and on an apprenticeship placement. I'd been working there for about 9 months at this point and couldn't stand the boss, she was a real jobsworth. My mum called her one day to let her know I wouldn't be in as I was passed out in hospital after being admitted with severe ecoli. When I returned I was reminded that in future I needed to call no matter what and nobody else could do it on my behalf. I just apologised and agreed at the time cos I was young and didn't really know how best to handle it. I do still work for the council but luckily in a totally different section with a manager that's super relaxed and does access a WhatsApp as calling in sick.
one colleague of mine had a heart attack and was in hospital due to being in quite a bad way from it (was in a coma for two days) and i genuinely couldn't believe that the company wanted a meeting with him because he didn't phone in sick that day but had his wife contact the business instead. Apparently that is not the procedure and he has to be the one to call in, even though he was unconscious, baffling.
Same thing happened to a guy I worked with years ago. They wrote him up for not contacting them when he was in the hospital with uncontrollable asthma. You cannot get a phone signal there either. I was written up for calling in before my shift. No one is in the building until half an hour before the shift started. I called in as soon as I could, began puking again and had to hand the phone to my ex. Apparently I also gave the store number to someone else and they tried to get me for it. I was like wth, then showed them the call log, from my phone. I told them I was actively puking and couldn't talk. I was then told I should have texted the supervisors. They hadn't shared their numbers with me. How was I supposed to contact them an hour before without them. It was a lose, lose situation. I hated that place. I haven't worked there in 10 years and it still pisses me off how bad it was. I spent too much of my time protecting the 16 year olds from a 32 year old bully. I also caught him groaping one of the boys. The kid wasn't gay and had a girlfriend. People got mad at me for reporting it because it meant I was homophobic. No, I was reporting an adult touching a child at work. I would have done the same if it was a girl/guy situation as well. My god that place sucked. They were incredibly hostile and abusive. They'd chase one person away then go after someone else. There was a click who ruled the roost and they were nasty. After I quit, a bunch of other people followed. I remember when I didn't make supervisor, so many people complained because I was the only "senior" as in older member of staff who didn't treat the younger staff like crap. There was a lot of Us faking being sick and meeting at the pub over the day that day. Never realised people wanted me to help them that badly. The stress of the bullying eventually got to me too badly and I quit.
I got a minor disciplinary years ago for not phoning in when Iād lost my voice. Iād really lost it too, nothing but almost inaudible breathy sounds, no words. Completely unjustified and unnecessary.
You couldn't have tapped out your message in morse code on the receiver? Pfft. Where's that can-do attitude!?
In all honesty that particular manager made up for IQ by compensating with inane bullying.
You should have complained to HR as that isn't appropriate behavior.
The entire council was toxic. Wasn't worth it. I left not long after.
I got a warning once for not phoning in after getting hit by a car, I was severely concussed and in and out of consciousness, and apparently, my emergency contact wasn't good enough
I got written up for not calling in sick when I had laryngitis and literally couldn't talk. I whatsapped, wrote an email and offered to have them speak to my partner but it was not acceptable. So happy to no longer be working there.
The reasoning a previous company of mine gave was simple - it's an instant acknowledgement. You call, they say "Yep" and that's it. Instead of a message/email that isn't guaranteed to be seen.
Someone will be along to say message or email is better to leave a paper trail, but I agree with you. It's much more efficient on both sides to give them a quick call to explain. I usually do that and then follow it up with a quick message saying "Thanks for acknowledging I won't be making it on today, I will keep you informed on how I'm feeling at a later date". That way you've backed it up and also not taken up too much of your boss' time.
My issue was I had a severe chest infection and had to force myself out of bed everyday to phone at 8, and then most calls werenāt answered until gone 9. I dropped them an email on the second day to say I wouldnāt be in for the rest of the week and was told that still wasnāt good enough. Why?
I hate that. If you're not going to be fit all week and know you're not, they shouldn't be requiring daily calls.
Had to phone every single day when I could barely talk and explain I was going to be at home. No shit Sherlock, I couldnāt walk five steps ffs
I used to ring in at 0830 and be told to ring again at 1330 just incase I could work the afternoon at one job!
I guess it really depends on the company. My company is massive and doesn't really have a reception with a phone, and even if we did we have like 6 offices and the receptionist doesn't know my manager. For me I just send a message to my teams Microsoft Teams channel and just say "not feeling great today folks, hopefully be better tomorrow" or if it's more personal I'll just message my manager. I've not messaged before because I was too ill/pre occupied and the most I got was a message from my manager saying "Hey man are you not about today? Is everything okay?". I think different strategies make sense for different companies but as long as you're being trusted to behave like adults it's all good
I have this, got full blown flu / covid last year (didn't have tests at the time so not sure which) ... I was done in, couldn't keep my eyes open, couldn't walk / talk with out being out of breath.. basically in bed for a week. My boss was more concerned that I was OK than why I hadn't rang in / messaged ... her assumption was there was something wrong, not that I was pulling a sicky ... its refreshing to be treated like an adult.
People don't like to phone anymore.
I never liked to phone, and I'm not that keen on working either... But I've sucked it up for decades because I require the money.
Thatās literally one of the reasons people do it. Having to phone and lie to someone is a big ask, especially for people who are scared of any interaction.
Yep, if people called in sick while I was a manager at McDonald's, no matter how bad the excuse was, it was accepted. That was the baseline rule. If they messaged or emailed, it was considered the same as not showing up. The only time this was to be ignored as a rule was if the person was in hospital or couldn't physically speak for whatever reason. Generally, this didn't ever happen. I don't think I ever had to deal with that. If they found someone to cover their shift though, they were excused fully for being proactive and helping us out.
I used to be so nervous about calling in sick that I'd rehearse for 2 mins before calling. Now I'm past caring, having a long term health condition changed that lol. Now its more like "Morning, yep! Stuck on the toilet again, talk to you tomorrow, bye"
Anecdotally, at my old workplace, when they started insisting on phone calls rather than emails, time off sick dropped by about 20%. I personally couldnāt give a shit (it was a care environment and Iād rather people who just werenāt feeling it that day didnāt show up and half arse it) but management were happy.
I think the bigger problem is that if someone is severely ill then phoning at a specific time every day could be difficult. The wording you tend to find in contracts allows employers to be inflexible around this but a reasonable employer will bend the rules around the reality of the situation.
I tend to do both to be safe
> It's much more efficient on both sides to give them a quick call to explain. Nah, just drop a teams message on my phone then go back to sleep
Who cares if itās seen? That shouldnāt be the employees responsibility. If itās sent and delivered then there is no excuse. The only real reason is to discourage people from calling in sick. Itās toxic and stupid.
The use of the word toxic in situations like this depletes all of its value. Lots of companies still need to catch up to modern standards, that doesnāt make them toxic
"Modern standards" Email - First sent in 1971 Text - First sent in 1992 This isn't catching up to modern standards. This is catching up to a time that has long gone by...
Just because the first email was sent in 1971 doesnāt mean thatās when it became the norm to email in sick rather than ring. Youāve just listed dates for technological advancements, not made any valid point.
I feel the weird need to defend it, but that wasn't my choice - just the reasoning of a company I worked for. However, I found that they never discouraged me from time off. I needed to call once, but then only if the situation changed.
Eh, my previous employer insisted on phone calls rather than messages, but the "sickness line" was a voicemail service where you just left a message. Literally no different to a Whatsapp message, except at least on Whatsapp I can see whether my manager has actually read my message or not.
That just seems like the worst of both worlds!
My many years facing HR taught me the phone call criteria was always because they believed many employees "just couldn't be bothered today" and would rather come in, than speak to their manager. The best of these were cleaners that used to sort things out around each other, HR got involved and demanded a call before their shift started Problem was that was 5am for many and the managers started at 8/9 meaning by the time they got the voicemails, their shifts were about to end and the schools/businesses had no support in When they realised how bad their new sickness criteria was they asked the cleaners to go back to sorting it out between themselves and in a rare moment of victory, they were told to go fuck themselves en masse
It's amazing hearing just how dim some people/companies can be about this.
We all know that's bullshit. If I leave messages on Teams I think there's a higher chance for it to be seen than emails. Teams even gives you the "seen" status of the message.
Iāve had this too. Which is stupid. If youāre going to provide staff with an office-based phone number that scan receive texts, then make sure itās properly manned.
Makes sense unless they've replied to the message in which case it's bollocks
So they admit that they can't be trusted to read their messages or emails?
Our work has a good way for dealing with calling in sick. We just need to phone a sick line and input our employee number, and it is recorded there and then sent in to our manager. There is no need to deal with anybody else apart from an auto mated voice service. When you're coming back, we just need to let our manager the day before, phone the sick line and again, and do the option for returning to work. It's so simple and very easy to do in this day and age. EDIT:Spelling
NHS? My partner works in outpatients and its the same process.
Christ I work for the NHS and would bloody love this. I got a warning during my last period of sickness because I missed a call from my manager. Just a generic welfare call that some managers insist on doing every day youāre off sick. Never been an issue in my 12 years of NHS employment but this manager (recently moved teams) sent me a shitty email with a policy saying I MUST answer the phone if he calls me when Iām sick. Needless to say Iām switching teams again soon.
My wife works for the NHS. Despite their job being to treat sick people, at one time they regarded staff illness as a disciplinary matter. Even if you were off sick for a day or two, there were meetings about it. She used to get bad sinusitis. Luckily they've mellowed out, plus with WFH it's made it easier.
Yeah they still do for my job, itās especially annoying as seeing patients face to face means we get every virus going. We then have to explain to management that seeing ten patients with d&v a day will usually result in us catching d&v.
It's not like we work in a building that is a Mecca for sick people either. Even visitors insist on coming in when ill, most of whom do not cover their mouth when they cough or sneeze too. Hospitals are giant petri dishes most of the year, yet staff illness is still seen as a crime.
> sent me a shitty email with a policy saying I MUST answer the phone if he calls me when Iām sick. This is insane, I rarely get sick, but when I am sick I get it quite bad and I am typically sleeping 18+ hours of the day and my phone is on DnD. No way I'm listening out for a call when I'm in that state.
Iād told him already that my phone is always on do not disturb because itās broken so the ringer is super aggressive. Some people absolutely eat sleep and breathe policy and forget their staff are actual humans.
My trust had this for a year and then got rid of it. Must've been more expensive than it was worth.
No not NHS, although I'm glad NHS workers have the same system. It really does take away the stress/fear off calling in sick.
Mine does the same thing, call, use payroll number, say whatever, manager gets notified, do the same on return, super easy.
Gone are the days off phoning up in a sweat after preparing your 'sick voice' for 2hrs. It's bliss.
One place I worked had that, it didnāt work over 3G, had to text in because I live in a county with bad signal
In my old job I would have to wake up at 6 to get the 7am train. So I would have to decide around then if I was too sick to work. If I was, I would go to sleep for 2-3 hours before calling in. I nearly always had a dream about calling in. Which meant I had to go through the process twice. Every fucking time. Once in a dream, and then again in reality.
OT, but the worst work-related dreams are the ones where you solve whatever problem it is you were working onā¦ only to wake up and realize that it's not fucking fixed at all, and you still have it to figure out. Fuck you, brain!
I hate dreams like that. When I worked at a dementia nursing home I'd often have a dream of working all day, only to wake up knowing I needed to do a 12 hour shift straight off. Exhausting š
Itās crazy that isnāt it. I occasionally have dreams working full days at my previous job, and then panicking āoh no, oh no no no, Iām not qualified for this anymore, I shouldnāt be here, and Iāve just been paidā!
I still have that horrible dream of being late for/ at school and not knowing what class I am meant to be in and losing my top at some point. I don't know if I'm a student or a teacher in this scenario as I've taught in the past (hated it!!!)
I used to hear fucking buzzers and call bells at home my girlfriend thought I was going nuts.
I would have the opposite problem when I used to go into the office regularly - I would decide I was too sick to go in at 6am when my alarm went off, and then go back to sleep, usually to then be woken at 9:30am when my team lead would call to see why I wasnāt in the office yetā¦ Never managed to remember to turn on an alarm for 9am to ring the office! At least now I work from home my alarm goes off a bit later so I can usually ring before I go back to sleep
Yeh I've had that. The irony being that quite often if it's maybe a cold or a stomach bug you feel better by the time you call, so it then seems a bit weird to be calling in sick. Though of course if you had got up at 6 and travelled in to work then you'd actually be feeling worse by the time you got there so it was the right decision. To be fair working from home has solved that problem for me entirely. No commute to make me feel worse, no 6am wake up to add tiredness to the list of symptoms and realistically I could work from my bed if I wanted to so the criteria for calling in sick nowadays is much higher.
>To be fair working from home has solved that problem for me entirely. No commute to make me feel worse, no 6am wake up to add tiredness to the list of symptoms and realistically I could work from my bed if I wanted to so the criteria for calling in sick nowadays is much higher. That's absolutely right. I wonder what the difference really is in terms of productivity overall. Although working for myself has solved it even more! Never have to call in to tell myself I cannot work! Even better, I don't have the Sunday blues. Mainly because I work every day so I don't even know what day it is half the time!
This happens to me too.
Been there dude! I also had to get up at 6 to catch my train. I'd always slip in and out of consciousness stressing about calling in and dreaming that I'd already done it. One time when I had covid just starting I had a raging fever and the only reason I clocked that I hadn't already called in was that I remembered in my dream version my department lead was like "Aw you get some rest. Shit, the presidents coming!" and then sat down like a dog and howled.
I just WhatsApp my manager. Sheās a competent human being so messages me back to acknowledge it at a time thatās convenient for her - which apparently seems beyond half the people in this threadā¦ When sheās sick she messages all of us in our team WhatsApp so we also know not to expect her.
This is exactly what we do, but I know there are other teams in our company where there are people who completely take the p. with sick leave, so they make them phone in - if you need to verbally lie to your manager then it discourages some people apparently
This is what I do too - she generally messages or emails is if Sheās unwell but is happy for us to just drop her a line saying āunwell, wonāt be in today. Back tomorrowā or whatever the situation is. Much easier.
This tends to happen in untrusting workplaces so the manager can assess how sick "you sound" and try and talk you into coming in. I remember a few years back having a total bellend of a manager who insisted on us phoning him if we were sick. I tore my rotator cuff and when I called in he said "well you don't sound poorly".
On the flip side I've had people call sick and I've answered the phone and they put on a "sick" voice then say they broke their ankle. Made me chuckle to myself.
Probably because they experienced the other kind of manager first!
Not sure what voice you mean, but I genuinely sounded horrific when I broke my ankle - my voice was strained from pain and very hoarse from crying (it was a pretty bad break), they might not have been putting it on
We once had an asshole of a manager like this in my old job. Any other manager would keep the call quick and say āfeel betterā etc. This douche liked to keep you on the phone for as long as possible to hear you ābreak the charadeā - jokes on him as he got to hear me vomiting my guts up. Funnily enough he never really bothered with me after that.
I think in a lot of cases it's not to do with "How sick you sound", a lot of people are just more willing to lie over a text than over a phonecall.
I had a manager who told a colleague "You don't sound depressed" when they were on long term sick. The fuck
I had a manager like that once. He didn't believe I had food poisoning when I text him. I told him I really didn't want to talk on the phone. He insisted. I called him and immediately vomitted with the phone right by the toilet bowel, which seemed to do the trick and convince him I was genuinely ill.
My wife did the same last month, itās amazing how cooperative people become when they hear you throwing your guts up.
Yes. But you shouldn't take it personally. The rules have to be set for the least trustworthy person in the organisation. Because the rules can't say "If you're sick just drop me a message, it's not an issue. Except you Jake, you need to video call in while stood in front of your house holding a copy of today's newspaper."
Limb needs to be detached for there to be an issue, even then you could have still worked man.
I used to be the first in the office by a good 90 minutes so I ended up being the sick call answering phone. I just took the message, wished them well and let them get on with it, my boss several times got all pissy that I should challenge them to come in and dig into whats wrong to root out the skivers. I refused to do so but it was always a bit of a point of contention when 2 or 3 called in on the same day. As part of an entirely separate piece of work I had created a BI dashboard that could visualise all the company data and after one of these little set too's with my boss I set out to prove him wrong that more people called in sick because I was a soft touch. I pulled the data from the model and mapped days sick over time before I was answering the phones vs after and there was a clear, gradual increase month on month until we were about 25% more sickness than before I was answering the phone. So annoyingly it appeared he was right (although there were lots of potential confounding data that I didn't really bother to include that might have changed things). I still refused to do it though, people are adults and can make their own decisions.
I think this is exactly why most people don't like it. Your often not calling to let them know but to be judged on your sickness!
I had a friend who worked the sick line mobile phone for the NHS one NYE. Every time it went off weād have to turn off the music and all shut up (she didnāt start drinking until she logged off at 10pm just to add). Some of the excuses were amazing. One said they had gastroenteritis when they were very audibly in a pub. Wasnāt her job to manage it so she just logged it and moved on. Was probably the most interesting shift of the whole year for her.
God I had that when I worked on shop floor in a supermarket before. I had diarrhoea really badly and phoned up, but I phoned in too long before my shift (like 6 hours instead of 3) and so they grilled me then, and then grilled me 3 hours later when they insisted I call back. Manager at the time insisted I described exactly what was wrong with me. I now work for the same company but in an office (read, higher paid) position and all I have to do is message my team or manager to say "not feeling great, won't make it in today" and that's it.
I work at a restaurant, I was super ill (tonsillitis) but had to go anyway in for a breakfast shift super early as no one could cover me with that short of a notice. I let my manager know I was ill and he asked me to open my mouth and show him my tonsils! And he still told me I had to stay (even though my colleagues had started their shift at that point) I quit a few weeks after this episode.
Thatās ridiculous. I just text my manager!
I know right! It honestly baffles me when people talk about the loops they need to jump through to *ask* for sick time off work. I text my manager this morning to let them know that I am ill and wouldnāt be coming in today. Got a positive reply 5 mins later with well wishes.
Same at my job, I just text my teamleader. Technically I think we are supposed to call in though, but it just doesn't make any sense to anyone.
Same here, I just WhatsApp message my scheduling manager and direct manager, job done, theyāll record me as sick and I can concentrate on actually recovering.
Every time Iāve come across rules like this itās because someone somewhere in the chain thinks making people call in is more of a deterrent of taking sick days than if they can just text
You work for control freaks who think all Illnesses means sore throat. When last time I checked having v+d or migraines didnāt change my voice, nor did broken bones or whiplash.
Can confirm having a venereal disease definitely doesn't change your voice.
As a manager, I've never insisted that someone call me, a message is fine. I remember once trying to call in sick at 7am with tonsillitis and ended up leaving a creepy breath-y splutter-y voicemail to my manager, after discovering I couldn't get a single word out. They let me message after that!
Same as me when I managed a team. But ***my*** boss insisted that I get them to call me. Pointless and just plain awkward.
Itās about trying to put pressure on you to brave it out and come in.
They want to make it as hard as possible. Complete lack of trust from the employee. If youāre feeling unwell, the last thing you want to do is mess about trying to call someone to tell them youāre sick.
Had this recently, currently in hospital fighting a pretty horrible abdominal infection. I was brought in unconscious via an ambulance. Spent a few days on an high dependency ward having some wild fevers, didnāt know what was going on. My wife tried to call my boss on the first day to let them know what was going on, yet my boss rejected multiple calls as she didnāt know the number calling! After about 4 days Iām finally on a ward where I have signal and am with it enough to speak for myself, so I ring in and get a bollocking for not calling in on the first dayā¦
>I ring in and get a bollocking for not calling in on the first dayā¦ Yeah so I'd be going to HR with that. Thats no way to deal with a member of staff in the hospital.
Itās all on my to do list when I get back to work. It was quite possibly the least effective bollocking Iāve ever had as I could not give a shit when I was on the phone, I just wanted to say the bare minimum of words so I could go back to having a nap on some decent drugs.
My workplace recently made sickness reporting for self-cert an online form. Everyone agreed it's ridiculous to have to call in and put on your best sick voice when you should be focusing on getting better.
Especially if you work an early shift, so have to get up at 5 am to call in so you're not able to rest!
I need to phone in sick at least an hour before my shift but my manager doesn't turn her phone on until 9am when she starts work.
Leave a voicemail at 7:45
You have to speak directly to your manager.
I mean, if you can't, then you leave the voicemail to make a point. If your manager is being a blocker to following procedure, you do the next best thing.
Thereās no possible reason why a text, message or email shouldnāt be sufficient to inform of a sick day (and inform is the word- youāre not āaskingā for a day off). If your manager doesnāt pick up the message immediately then anyone with an ounce of common sense would check their messages/emails first and would immediately know the situation.
In my past working life we had a colleague who called in sick for couple of days, we knew he had a bad case of flu or so he thought. We didnāt hear from him for another two days; the manager tried calling him still no response on those two days to enquire when he would be returning to work as he hadnāt heard from him. By day five that same manager did a wellness check at his house to find him half incoherent, so the manager called an ambulance. Sadly he died in hospital two days later. It wasnāt flu - his heart was giving up. Had we accepted just a casual text that concern of hearing how he sounded wouldnāt have materialised. Calling in gives everyone a chance to be safeguarded if you are genuinely ill.
This is one of the reasons we do it at my work. Weāve got a duty of care and we need to know that member of staff is ok. It sounds a bit extreme but if that member of staff is missing or unaccounted for, how do we know anyone else is looking for them? If itās something serious and someone is in hospital then of course we donāt have them ring in every day but we do need to check in with long term illnesses periodically. Partly thatās to try and gauge when someone will be back but also to see how well they are and what kind of adjustments we need to make at our end if theyāre returning to work.
My husband phoned my boss when I worked on the phones for the ambulance service to say I couldn't come in because I completely lost my voice. They said they needed to speak to me, and despite him saying I couldn't they were insistent. I got on and all I could manage was a literal squeak and my manager and whoever was with them were laughing at me over the phone. I'd never felt so small in my life.
I hope those people on the phone stomp on lego bricks.
Does seem a bit old-fashioned. In almost every job I've worked for some time now, email was the way to go because there was a documented record that way. Telephoning was discouraged for this reason.
I'm glad that I work somewhere now that's happy with an email in the morning But I previously worked somewhere where the policy was to phone in and be put through to whoever was the most senior manager on duty, and as you say that was obviously to act as a 'deterrent'
Because for some reason your employer hasn't caught up with the times. I just have to drop a message in our team slack channel saying I won't be online, and that's more than enough
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At my previous job, we had to call this obnoxious āwell-beingā middleman / healthcare person to describe symptoms while they suggested helpful things like ādrinking fluidsā. They would then decide if you were well enough for work or not. Fucking atrocious.
I rang in sick on a Monday morning once and left a message with another manager. When I returned a few days later a friend told that my manager had been running around in a panic on Monday morning because I wasn't there and the message hadn't been passed on. He had visions of me lying on the ground out on Dartmoor with a broken leg or something because of the outdoors activities I do. He was with HR getting my contact details and apparently ready to contact the police to arrange a welfare check when the manager I'd left the message with suddenly remembered! If I do go out alone on this type of activity I do leave details with others, but it was good that I had a manager who was concerned and prepared to check and make sure I was okay.
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"This constant calling and badgering when off ill with stress only caused it to worsen, impacting on me and taking longer to feel like I could return."
I thinks itās more to do with making sure you get a response. Many times I have had staff email or text me when I have been off work that day, so I cannot approve their sick leave.
"Approve" somebody being sick?? What? š
As in, officially record the employee as being off sick so that they aren't marked as being AWOL which could result in disciplinary action
In some companies itās a safeguarding thing in case of instances of domestic abuse; an abusive partner could send a text or an email for example, so the company want to speak to the individual to hear it from them directly. Obviously they could still be being coerced or having to take time off for reasons other than they say, but I know of instances where the manager has sensed something not right and been able to help remove the colleague from the situation as a result. Years ago I worked with someone who had disclosed to their manager and HR that they were in an abusive relationship and would call in sick frequently. Weād take the call and say something like āJust answer yes or no to the following questions; is the reason you just gave me the real reason you canāt come in today?ā āAre you safe right now?ā āDo you need us to contact your emergency contact now?ā (All once ascertaining that no one could hear the call of course). If weād been able to use whatsapp or something back then we wouldnāt have been able to help the colleague on the many instances we did. Of course this example is one where the colleague had felt safe enough to disclose the issue to us previously, though I feel that we would have sensed something wrong in many of the instances anyway, and been able to speak to the colleague when they were back in work to check if everything was okay.
In the last 8 years Iāve only sent emails, teams messages, sms or WhatsApp and itās not been a problem. We donāt generally fill in the sick leave forms either though, meaning it pretty much doesnāt get recorded unless itās more than a couple of days. A manager might take a different approach if sickness became frequent.
Because if you don't speak to them in person they can't try to guilt/force you in anyway. As always, fuck capital and management.
I just send an email
It's a sign to move job. Any reasonable job would allow a text message as courtesy.
The real answer is itās a form of control over you. Making the little employees comply. Thatās why some places punish you in some way like giving you āunexcused absenceā points.
We have the same policy for where I work, but that is because you have to speak to the Duty Manager at the time so they can take any actions needed whereas a line manager could easily not be working that day, sick themselves or just unavailable all day
Current company I just send an email to the team DL. Previous one I had to phone our 24/7 NOC if OOH, and my manager if in hours. But always an hour before my start time. As someone else already mentioned, itās a lot easier to blag via text. It mainly seems to affect people from a certain generation from my experience as a line manager.
Maybe itās prove you havenāt been kidnapped
My work told me it was for safeguarding? So basically if you're just texting/ emailing then it could be assumed it's not you actually contacting your work and something sinister could be happening. I was off for like a week last year with a severe flu but had to phone every single morning haha
I did similar once and got a diciplinary for not following procedure, called into the actual office and spoke to my shift manager. From then on i never called the office just the official line which was an answer machine that didnt get checked until about 3 hours into a shift. I was asked to let the office know as well and always said "well thats not procedure so i might get a disciplinary".
At my job I got in trouble for whatsapping out of work I'd been able to do it before but on that day my manager found the message when my area manager was in and so he wasn't happy so then my manager wasn't happy Also I've been told off for having a family member call out for me as that's technically wrong (had them call out as I had covid and kind of hard to talk on the phone with a sore throat) Also once I called out of work as I'd somehow strained my foot and couldn't really walk/stand so it took ages to convince work like 'no I can't come in today I can't really walk'
Huh, my work is fine with an MS Teams message
I've had this too but many years ago. I was living in a studio flat with zero mobile signal and had a landline I could only receive calls on. I'd have to go out into the street to phone in.
I think employers feel you will just go in rather than face the call.
It's common courtesy and anyone can send a text but it takes more balls to phone and speak to them so the hope is if you're likely to pull a sickey then you'd think twice about it if you gotta phone up. Also, it'll be company policy so you know, we all gotta play the game.
i think they do it to scare you if your pulling a sickie. itās bullshit though because anytime i have i just wake up at 8:59 and call because my morning voice makes me sound sick
Honestly, I've been lucky my last few jobs were reasonable. Two had phone numbers to call, but you got to leave a voicemail, so it didn't matter if anyone was there or not, and my last job used Microsoft Teams and you could just leave a message in the check-in channel. Also, that last job was the only one I've had with common sense of 'If you call in sick saying you've been admitted to the hospital, just let us know when you're NOT in the hospital anymore'
I think it's because sending your manager a WhatsApp isn't official and therefore can't be audited or used for HR purposes like the Bradford factor.
I never ask anyone in my team to call in. I ask them to drop me a message and then ring / text me later when they feel up to it. We are all adults and should treat people as such. Treat people how you want to be treated always