Foo - Sick--Came into work anyway

I feel like crap right now, and if I didn't have something fairly important I need to get done today, I would have stayed home. Once I get 'r done, I'm going to ask to take off early. I know they will say it's okay, but there's this culture around here where they make you feel guilty for asking for time off.

But why else would they give you sick days if you're not supposed to use them??? They would never tell me I couldn't, but the unspoken guideline is to avoid them as much as possible. And people take this perverse sort of pride in not taking all their personal days and vacation days. Like that makes them more dedicated. Maybe it does, but I view that as part of my compensation, and I want to take those days.

I'm not looking forward to asking to leave early. I know it's going to be awkward. I'll probably get questions about my symptoms, as if that were any of their business... :notamused:

I feel like crap right now, and if I didn't have something fairly important I need to get done today, I would have stayed home. Once I get 'r done, I'm going to ask to take off early. I know they will say it's okay, but there's this culture around here where they make you feel guilty for asking for time off.

But why else would they give you sick days if you're not supposed to use them??? They would never tell me I couldn't, but the unspoken guideline is to avoid them as much as possible. And people take this perverse sort of pride in not taking all their personal days and vacation days. Like that makes them more dedicated. Maybe it does, but I view that as part of my compensation, and I want to take those days.

I'm not looking forward to asking to leave early. I know it's going to be awkward. I'll probably get questions about my symptoms, as if that were any of their business... :notamused:

Just share your virus nicely with everybody at work:)

I think it is stupid to have unspoken guideline like that.

I can't stand it when people come into the office sick. It's not good for them, and it's not good for others, and it's not good for the company. I just send them home.

Get well soon.

I used to work with three of the nastiest *****es you ever met and if I took a sick day off, it merely gave them fodder for their daily gossip sessions.
I will never work in an environment like that again.

I'm not looking forward to asking to leave early. I know it's going to be awkward. I'll probably get questions about my symptoms, as if that were any of their business... :notamused:

Just be like "Yeah, I've got explosive diarrhea. Somewhere around a 6.5 or a 7 on the Bristol stool scale - it's mostly liquid, but with little pieces floating in it. The abdominal cramps hurt something fierce, but it's really the seepage that's got me wanting to go home."

I'm heading home now. Thanks for the well wishes everybody.

smart choice - feel better.

sick people should stay home from work, all they do when they go in is spread it around

*cough* *cough*...I felt okay a second ago.

Office Heroes, like Super Heroes in comic books generally cause more collateral damage than not in doing their jobs.
Sick...stay home lest you make the rest of my people sick and REALLY screw up the office.

Just share your virus nicely with everybody at work:)

I think it is stupid to have unspoken guideline like that.

Business creates that situation when you are only allowed a certain number of sick days in a certain calendar period.

I accrue 'personal time off'. It lumps sick and vacation days together. I hate it.

My wife has no such limitation, they just start taking vacation days after a certain period of time if too much sick time is taken.

I understand what you feel about the pressure and the guilt. I really do. I've been a victim of it myself but I also realize that it's against worker's rights for them to do that. A lot of it is that you probably care about the company a lot. But do they care about YOU the same way? Just remember that the company will survive for a day or eventually recover.

But right now you are number one and are way more important. Take care of YOU, first. :notamused:

I hope you get some rest and feel better. :o

I accrue 'personal time off'. It lumps sick and vacation days together. I hate it.


Working in a facility where we manufacture biological assays, if someone comes in coughing up a lung, we're allowed to send them home for the safety of our products. :D


I get PTO, also. I'm up to 178 hours right now. :) That's 4.5 weeks.
I hated working at my previous company where I had "Vacation" and "Sick Days". I rarely used vacation time, I was less frequently ill, and we weren't allowed to roll our vacation time over to the next year. Since vacation time isn't earned, they don't have to pay you out for vacation time you don't use; Use it or Lose it.
My company doesn't have a policy on PTO usage until you've accrued 400 hours. (That's 2.5 months of time off.) At 400 hours, you either have to take some of your time off or you stop accruing it and the time is rolled to the equivalent amount of pay, and subsequently taxed as overtime.

Working in a facility where we manufacture biological assays, if someone comes in coughing up a lung, we're allowed to send them home for the safety of our products. :D


I get PTO, also. I'm up to 178 hours right now. :) That's 4.5 weeks.
I hated working at my previous company where I had "Vacation" and "Sick Days". I rarely used vacation time, I was less frequently ill, and we weren't allowed to roll our vacation time over to the next year. Since vacation time isn't earned, they don't have to pay you out for vacation time you don't use; Use it or Lose it.
My company doesn't have a policy on PTO usage until you've accrued 400 hours. (That's 2.5 months of time off.) At 400 hours, you either have to take some of your time off or you stop accruing it and the time is rolled to the equivalent amount of pay, and subsequently taxed as overtime.

I'm currently at 110 hours. I'm taking 4 days before Thanksgiving to go to NYC.

I am seldom sick, and don't do vacations too often.
But I still don't like the fact that being sick is held against you.

I currently work pretty much alone, so I don't generally risk someone else's health either.

do an ipicac slammer and puke on your boss's desk.

nope. I'm the cleaning staff too.

I'm currently at 110 hours. I'm taking 4 days before Thanksgiving to go to NYC.

I am seldom sick, and don't do vacations too often.
But I still don't like the fact that being sick is held against you.

I currently work pretty much alone, so I don't generally risk someone else's health either.

Maybe your PTO accrues at a lower rate than we get here, but for a new FTE, they'll accrue PTO at 4min/hr. That works out to approximately 135 hours total time accrued to use how you see fit. Most companies in my field offer a new FTE 2 weeks of vacation (80 hrs.), 3 sick days (24 hrs.), and 2 'floater holidays' (16 hrs.) totalling up to 120 hours. Technically we're getting a better deal with PTO, especially if you work for a company which did what my old one did: Use up your sick days and floater days, and if you called in sick you simply didn't get paid that day. (No unapproved application of vacation balance toward sick days.)

Yeah, ours amounts to 120 hours per year.
But I had to work here for 6 months for that to start.

But, my hours are pretty flexible, so I don't complain too much.

I accrue something like 120-140 hrs in total. I have it in a spreadsheet at work.
Anyhow, 2008 will go down in the history books as the only year I have actually used all my sick time while sick. ugh
We also do not ask for permission. I informed my boss that I was leaving due to the fact that a stomach virus was about ready to make me spew. We also have an informal policy of "if you are sick work from home". Unfortunately, the stomach virus today came on without any warning an hr after I showed up.
Before our current company purchased us we had a simple policy of 120 hrs of PTO. The current one is a bizarre combination of PTO, personal time, and sick time.

I guess I'm lucky that I even get paid time off. My dad was a laborer when I was growing up, and if he didn't go to work, he didn't get paid. End of story.

I've already decided to stay home tomorrow too. It's nice to not have to worry about that decision tomorrow morning.

As an aside, on my way home I ran into four wrong way cyclists over just two blocks in the Comm Ave. bike lane. I was irritable to begin with, so I yelled at them as we passed each other. It would have felt good to yell if I wasn't positive they were totally oblivious to me.