Weekender: Friday May 29th through Sunday May 31st, 2009

[JonPorobil]

So. Here's that other story I promised.

My brother graduated from high school on May 26th. The day after Memorial Day. I asked about a month in advance for time off from work so I could travel to see it. Though I had accumulated enough vacation time, I was told that "there are no vacation slots available for this day." And I thought to myself, "the hell with any institution that tells me I can't go see my brother graduate from high school, dammit." So I called in sick.

They asked to see a doctor's note.

I showed up on Thursday, planning to say basically that I had forgotten to bring it, and hope the whole thing blows over. It seems, so far, that it has. Nobody has demanded to see said note since my return. I've been strongly entertaining the idea of quitting nonetheless, so it won't be any major tragedy for me if this stunt does end up costing me the job, though I was counting on having my next gig already lined up before splitting from my current one.

Question of the Day Weekend: Have you ever been caught in an embarrassing lie? Tell us about it.

[Spud]

Our friend Paul works for the United States Postal Service, AKA the Post Office. He is a letter carrier. A few weeks back, he was feeling a bit under the weather due to having had a pretty good time the night before. He called in sick, only to find that there was a new policy in place, under which he had to produce a doctor's note. He said to himself (and to us, by the way of email), "if I'm going to go to all the trouble to get a doctor's note, I might as well be sick the rest of the week", and so he was. Good work, USPS, that certainly saved you a pile of money.

[JonPorobil]

Our friend Paul works for the United States Postal Service, AKA the Post Office. He is a letter carrier. A few weeks back, he was feeling a bit under the weather due to having had a pretty good time the night before. He called in sick, only to find that there was a new policy in place, under which he had to produce a doctor's note. He said to himself (and to us, by the way of email), "if I'm going to go to all the trouble to get a doctor's note, I might as well be sick the rest of the week", and so he was. Good work, USPS, that certainly saved you a pile of money.

Yep. Plus, at my job, because I called in sick instead of using my vacation days, I now have more vacation time for later. Unless they actually start getting serious about getting that doctor's note, I think I'm going to come out ahead from this fiasco.

[fluffy]

I really like my employer's sick policy: we are treated like responsible adults, and we only need to provide a doctor's note after three days of consecutive illness.

We also don't have a cap on sick days, so people don't hoard them for "when they really need them" (i.e. to extend vacation time). If someone abuses them to the point that their work suffers they get fired.

It's probably related to how for salaried employees, it's actually treated like a SALARY, and not like hourly pay without overtime. We're employed to provide work, not to fill a seat for a certain number of hours.

[Caravan Ray]

I really like my employer's sick policy: we are treated like responsible adults, and we only need to provide a doctor's note after three days of consecutive illness.

That is standard for every job I have ever had. If I was Generic - I would be telling Mr Employer to jam it up his arse. Is that sort of thing common? A doctor's certificate for every sickie?!?!?

Generic, just tell the boss you had developed flu-like symptoms - and being a responsible member of society, you chose not to place your fellow workers and the rest of society at risk by potentially spreading a dangerous disease and you stayed at home. "Flu-like symptoms" generally only end up as gastro anyway, so you can be good as new in about 24 hours and ready for work again. Remember to talk frequently and in specific detail about the copious diarrhea and vomiting you experienced in that period - ie, frequency, volume, texture, odour etc., and the questioning will soon abate. Sure, you will be trivialising what is a serious public health issue - but if your employers are dicks, well.....

[fluffy]

I really like my employer's sick policy: we are treated like responsible adults, and we only need to provide a doctor's note after three days of consecutive illness.

That is standard for every job I have ever had. If I was Generic - I would be telling Mr Employer to jam it up his arse. Is that sort of thing common? A doctor's certificate for every sickie?!?!?

Well, I haven't heard of a "doctor's note on a single sick day" thing before, but most employers here do have a limit to the number of sick/personal days you can take. The end result is that if someone is sick enough to be contagious but not too sick to work, they'll come into work and get everyone else sick.

Of course, in practice, some people do tend to come in when they're a bit sick anyway, because they're afraid of missing tight deadlines, but no sick day policy could really deal with that.

[roymond]

If you treat sick days as something they owe you for you to abuse, or you treat them as a generous form of health care that helps you pay your medical fees is up to you. If your situation makes it hard for you to appreciate them then perhaps you need to find another job. Many salaried positions simply give you so many personal days to use as you choose (or need). But employers also need to make sure they have the resources to get done the work they need done, so scheduling is a real issue.

[JonPorobil]

Yes, I do happen to be looking for other work. The sick day policy thing being one of the reasons, but I really had enough reasons before all that nonsense. It just boggles my mind, because I'm not even salaried, and the time off wasn't paid! Why make such a huge deal out of it if they don't even have to pay me for the time I didn't show up?

[Billy's Little Trip]

QOTD: once I told this girl I had a HUGE penis so that she would have sex with me.

......I didn't think she'd actually take me up on my offer.

[fluffy]

Yes, I do happen to be looking for other work. The sick day policy thing being one of the reasons, but I really had enough reasons before all that nonsense. It just boggles my mind, because I'm not even salaried, and the time off wasn't paid! Why make such a huge deal out of it if they don't even have to pay me for the time I didn't show up?

Well, like Roymond said, they have a certain level of work and they need to be sure they have enough workers scheduled to meet that need. You can't just show up to work when you feel like you need to make some money. That's one of the differences between an employee and a street-corner busker.

[Ross]

Here.

So a few years ago I was going ot do some rock climbing with my Father-in-law. I'm not a regular rock climber, so we went to he local climbing shop to rent some climbing shoes - it was about 5:30 in the evening and we were going ot climb the next day.

apparently, their rental policy is to rent per day, meaning he should have charged me$20 (or whatever it was) for the remainder of that day plus $20 for the next day. tIt was so late in the day tat he wrote up the ticket as if I had rented the shoes at 8 am the following day and said - "I'm not really supposed to do this, so please don't mention it when you return the shoes."

So the next afternoon I go back to return the shoes, figuring it would be a simple drop off, but of course the owner is the guy at the counter and checks the receipt - he says (with a very suspicious look on his face) "You picked these up when?" "This morning - first thing," I say wanting to be faithful to the employee that had given me the break. "That's odd, I was the only one here most of the day, and I don't recall you." ....argggh caught between loyalty and lie! Add to that that I am now lying about it in front of my father-in-law - pretty embarrassing. He likened it to Dobson's Choice.

Made even worse by the fact that I did not ask teh first guy to do me any favors - My pop-in-law and I were merely debating whether to pay the extra twenty or have to make the drive to the climbing shop the next morning - and the guy just made the offer.

Also - I get 10 "sick" per year that can also be taken as "personal necessity." In addition I can take three days for "Family illnes each year that do not draw from that pool. Unused days are pooled, so if you are rarely sick, you can have days saved up in case you get REALLY sick. This also discourages people from taking frivolous sick days.

[fluffy]

Sounds like the dude was too stupid to check the next day's work schedule to see if it was a good idea. Did you eventually come clean to the owner?

[fluffy]

My brother graduated from high school on May 26th. The day after Memorial Day. I asked about a month in advance for time off from work so I could travel to see it. Though I had accumulated enough vacation time, I was told that "there are no vacation slots available for this day."

It also occurs to me that maybe everyone else was taking the day off to see their brothers graduate. Or, more realistically, they had the forethought to extend their three-day weekend.

Anyway, now you know that if you know in advance that you'll want to take a particular day off and that you'll have enough vacation time accumulated by then, you should schedule it, but keep in mind that everyone else has that luxury as well. Sometimes things just suck.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Remember to talk frequently and in specific detail about the copious diarrhea and vomiting you experienced in that period - ie, frequency, volume, texture, odour etc., and the questioning will soon abate. Sure, you will be trivialising what is a serious public health issue - but if your employers are dicks, well.....

The phrase "it got so I didn't know which end to point at the toilet" combined with "ran out of toilet paper" lets them fill in the blanks quite nicely, too.

Especially when it's true, heh.

[JonPorobil]

It also occurs to me that maybe everyone else was taking the day off to see their brothers graduate. Or, more realistically, they had the forethought to extend their three-day weekend.

Anyway, now you know that if you know in advance that you'll want to take a particular day off and that you'll have enough vacation time accumulated by then, you should schedule it, but keep in mind that everyone else has that luxury as well. Sometimes things just suck.

Personally, I feel that a month's advance notice should have been plenty, but you clearly sympathize more with my employer in this instance. All I can say is that if it had come down to a choice between skipping my brother's graduation or losing the job, I'd have chosen to lose my job.

So the next afternoon I go back to return the shoes, figuring it would be a simple drop off, but of course the owner is the guy at the counter and checks the receipt - he says (with a very suspicious look on his face) "You picked these up when?" "This morning - first thing," I say wanting to be faithful to the employee that had given me the break. "That's odd, I was the only one here most of the day, and I don't recall you." ....argggh caught between loyalty and lie! Add to that that I am now lying about it in front of my father-in-law - pretty embarrassing. He likened it to Dobson's Choice.

SO WHAT HAPPENED????

[fluffy]

It also occurs to me that maybe everyone else was taking the day off to see their brothers graduate. Or, more realistically, they had the forethought to extend their three-day weekend.

Anyway, now you know that if you know in advance that you'll want to take a particular day off and that you'll have enough vacation time accumulated by then, you should schedule it, but keep in mind that everyone else has that luxury as well. Sometimes things just suck.

Personally, I feel that a month's advance notice should have been plenty, but you clearly sympathize more with my employer in this instance. All I can say is that if it had come down to a choice between skipping my brother's graduation or losing the job, I'd have chosen to lose my job.

I'm not empathizing with your employer, I'm just saying that sometimes things suck. You were giving a month's notice, but everyone else also gave a month's notice for a day off on that day as well, because they also knew about the limited vacation slot issue. You're not the only person with a life outside of work.

You have to make your own priorities, and it sounds like you're very unhappy there for many reasons so it's probably no love lost if you ended up quitting over the graduation issue anyway.