calling in sick

[missioncontrol]

How to Call in Sick When You Just Need a Day Off

[Thenasty]

just call in sick. If they ask whats wrong, you just say "I'm sick of working". 

[ChadTower]

Eh, just say the kids are sick and you need to take care of them.

[paigeoliver]

Eh, just say the kids are sick and you need to take care of them.

Yep, I am the person who gets all the call offs at my work, and 95 percent of them are sick children and not sick adults. Perfect excuse because there is almost no way to verify it.

[missioncontrol]

I guess you can tell from this thread I'm not looking forward to my vaction being over     

[shmokes]

I never worry about calling in sick anymore.  I've grown out of that.  I used to try to sound sick and miserable when I called.  Not any more.  I just call in and in a perfectly normal voice say, "Hey, I'm not feeling well.  I don't think I'll be in today.  Call me if there's an emergency."

[toolaa]

I'm sure this thread started off as a joke and I agree that everyone needs a day off from time to time, so just take one.  Use a vacation day and enjoy it.  If you work your @aa off and put in 60+ hrs for the company when things are busy any self respecting supervisor would acknowledge that and probally let you take that "DAY OFF".  Calling in sick when you not is just plain lame... If you abuse it more than once then "Everyone" will know soon enough and then you wont have any respect from your peers, supervisors or worst of all your subordinates.

Be man enough to have the kind of relationship with your team to tell the truth or find a new job it your on a $hitty team.

[ChadTower]

If you work your @aa off and put in 60+ hrs for the company when things are busy any self respecting supervisor would acknowledge that and probally let you take that "DAY OFF". 

Sadly, that's untrue more often than it is... most supervisors don't care about the people under them and never will.

[toolaa]

If you work your @aa off and put in 60+ hrs for the company when things are busy any self respecting supervisor would acknowledge that and probally let you take that "DAY OFF".

[missioncontrol]

I'm sure this thread started off as a joke and I agree that everyone needs a day off from time to time, so just take one.

[Thenasty]

Be man enough to have the kind of relationship with your team to tell the truth

just call in sick. If they ask whats wrong, you just say "I'm sick of working".

[Bones]

I can't come to work today because I am sick.
How sick are you?
Well I am in bed with my attractive sister.

<clunk>

[Tailgunner]

Well I'd have to call myself to call in sick, and then I'd have to fire me for lying about it to get the day off.

Best excuse? "I won't be coming in today, the voices commanded me to stay home and clean my guns."

[DaveMMR]

I'm sure this thread started off as a joke and I agree that everyone needs a day off from time to time, so just take one.  Use a vacation day and enjoy it.  If you work your @aa off and put in 60+ hrs for the company when things are busy any self respecting supervisor would acknowledge that and probally let you take that "DAY OFF".  Calling in sick when you not is just plain lame... If you abuse it more than once then "Everyone" will know soon enough and then you wont have any respect from your peers, supervisors or worst of all your subordinates.

Be man enough to have the kind of relationship with your team to tell the truth or find a new job it your on a $hitty team.

Wha...........?  I don't know what Utopia you're working in but where I am, you can't suddenly take a personal day on a whim. Say I wake up one morning and decide I need a day off, if I call and tell them that I've been working hard and need a 'personal day', they'll probably suffocate from laughing so hard -- but not before telling me to get my lazy butt into work.  But if I just say I have a 'stomach thing' and I can't come in, there are no questions and I don't have to sit there and read off some laundy list of recent work performance to justify it.

Yes, calling in sick when you are not is lame - but work is even lamer. 

[lokki]

I really can't belive the number of people who consider sick time another type of vacation time.
Some of of co workers can't believe I have 80 Hrs sick time accumulated (the maximum that we can accrue). Most of them get sick as soon as they accrue 8 hours.

[toolaa]

Wha...........?

[paigeoliver]

Wha...........?  I don't know what Utopia you're working in but where I am, you can't suddenly take a personal day on a whim.

Who said anything about personal days.  I'm not trying to flame you, but hear me out.  Take a vacation day if you really want the day off.  Plan it in advance.  Unless your job is so useless and unimportant that your coworkers won't even know your gone calling in sick because you stayed up too late playing Pac-Man or watching Monday night football or some other weak excuse is pitiful at a professional level. 

I've had guys work 8 Saturdays straight.  I expect them to show up when we are busy, but when things are normal, I remember those who went over the top.  On the flip side I've had a few losers who called in sick every inventory day or recently a goofball who went to see all the starwars flicks and III on opening night at the Midnight showing.  Then called in sick the next day.  All of his coworkers knew what happened and they bore the brunt of his unexpected absence.  If he had made arrangements in advance we could have easily adjusted the work load.

Not everyone even gets vacation days.

[geomartin]

It really isn't an issue to just call in sick, unless you do so often.  When I call in to say I'm not coming they just assume I'm sick, because I rarely miss a day.  If you feel like you need to explain, then you are probably calling in too often.

Just my 2cents worth

[Sephroth57]

this is funny cause im really considering calling in sick tomorrow just cause for some reason im not tired yet and i have to be up in like... 6 hours. and i dunno im not in the mood for work tomorrow =p

[jbox]

this is funny cause im really considering calling in sick tomorrow

   

[duffjr]

i show up 30 minutes late everyday.  it evens out the sickdays i don't get.

[DaveMMR]

Wha...........?  I don't know what Utopia you're working in but where I am, you can't suddenly take a personal day on a whim.

Who said anything about personal days.  I'm not trying to flame you, but hear me out.  Take a vacation day if you really want the day off.  Plan it in advance.  Unless your job is so useless and unimportant that your coworkers won't even know your gone calling in sick because you stayed up too late playing Pac-Man or watching Monday night football or some other weak excuse is pitiful at a professional level. 

I've had guys work 8 Saturdays straight.  I expect them to show up when we are busy, but when things are normal, I remember those who went over the top.  On the flip side I've had a few losers who called in sick every inventory day or recently a goofball who went to see all the starwars flicks and III on opening night at the Midnight showing.  Then called in sick the next day.  All of his coworkers knew what happened and they bore the brunt of his unexpected absence.  If he had made arrangements in advance we could have easily adjusted the work load.

Ahhhhh -- you've misunderstood.   

If there's something I'm planning to do (like a day trip or something), I will take a personal day off in advance.  But if I wake up one morning and decide, "hey, it's a nice day out and life's too short to work", I'll call in sick.  I can't take a "personal day" on such short notice, although ulimately, they're basically the same to my company,.

[Stingray]

I don't think there's a tip on that link at the top of this page that I haven't already used at one point or another. I'm the master of the "sick day". However at this point, I've been at my current job for so long that if I decide to use a sick day (and I think I have something like 200 hours of them built up), I'll just call in and say I'm not coming in today. Usually there aren't any questions at all.

-S

[Thenasty]

guys, this thread is making me sick....where is that phone (dialing to work), Good morning Jane, I don't feel to good this morning, I am calling in sick, hope I feel by tomorrow

[Stingray]

I'm already at work. Do you think anyone would notice if I call in sick from  the office and then go home?

-S

[ChadTower]

Before a couple weeks ago, I had called in sick a total of maybe 5 times in the last few years.  I called in three times in the past two weeks, though with a back injury and medical documentation.

[shmokes]

If a company wants to curb sick-time abuse they should appeal to the wallet and not to moral fiber.  For example, I have a good work ethic.  My job doesn't magically do itself when I'm gone, so calling in sick has personal repercussions.  I don't do it often.  And I don't get sick often.  I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 hours of sick leave accrued.

But I have coworkers who have worked at my work as long or longer as I have who have none.  They use their eight hours of sick leave on a monthly basis (the rate at which it is accrued).  My work benefits directly from me.  For evey eight hours that I work, where one of my coworkers is faking sick, I am like money in the bank to them.  A simple policy like, "Every 8 hours accrued above 200  can be converted into 4 hours of extra pay,"  would give employees a real incentive not to abuse sick leave.  Nobody gives a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- about being "man enough."  What's so manly about working tirelessly for someone and have that go unacknowledged?

Companies who exploit their good employees while rewarding their bad employees deserve to be screwed.  If a company can't even get their priorities straight enough to acknowledge the direct benefit I give to them by accruing 300 hours of sick leave by giving me a direct benefit back, I'm not going to think twice about giving it to myself every once in a while.  The employees who use their sick leave as it is accrued certainly know how to convert their sick leave into 8 hours of pay.  Seriously, think about it.  That means that I've worked 300 hours more than some of my coworkers in the same 5-6 year period, but all of us have been paid for exactly the same number of hours!!!  That's more than a month and a half's pay.  I've worked a month and a half more than others and not been paid a dime more than them.

[ChadTower]

The problem there is that people don't get rewarded for NOT being negatives, which is kind of what you are suggesting.

The people being negatives should be punished instead.

[shmokes]

I disagree.  The sick leave is earned.  What kind of perverse system says to potential new hires, "One of our benefits is that you will accrue 8 hours of sick leave every month," and then punishes an employee if they use that much?

Employees should be able to use the sick leave they have earned, but incentives should be in place to discourage this.  In the long run it would cost the company less.

By the way, I edited my last post, fixing some things and adding to the bottom so you might have missed something.

[ChadTower]

Well, now we would get into all the other workplace debates, like why people with kids get time off so much more often/easier than single people, or why smokers get so many more breaks than nonsmokers, etc etc... all age old workplace debates.

[Buddabing]

The company I work for switched to "Paid Time Off' last year, where "sick days", "personal days", and "vacation" are all lumped together. It's a more realistic way of looking at vacation.

It works great for people like me who are sick 2-3 days a year and don't take personal days.

[ChadTower]

That's the best practical solution you're going to get.  The other solution, which I have seen done, is to give the bonus that shmokes spoke of... but the company will also usually give a small bonus to each manager that does not pay out any sick time bonuses.  What happens is you get a conflict of interest, where the employee doesn't want to take any sick time so he can get the bonus, but the manager wants his own bonus, so he encourages sick time, but only a little sick time... and that's where the psychology comes in that makes for a poor workplace.

Lumping it all in together works best for the employee, but usually not for the employer.  On average most people end up with sick time left over at the end of the year but rarely do people forfeit vacation days, so the end result of having it all in one package is that everyone takes their max time of both sick and vacation.

[shmokes]

I'm in the enviable position of having maxed out my allowed accrued vacation time.  That means that between now and December 31st I will be forced to take 60 hours of vacation time just to bring me down to 240 hours, which can be carried over into the next year without losing anything.   

[JoyMonkey]

For some retarded reason, my union decided that we don't need paid sick days. So now if I'm sick and can't afford to go unpaid, I have to come to work sick and give everyone else my various diseases. Smart.

[ChadTower]

I'm in the enviable position of having maxed out my allowed accrued vacation time.

[DaveMMR]

The company I work for switched to "Paid Time Off' last year, where "sick days", "personal days", and "vacation" are all lumped together. It's a more realistic way of looking at vacation.

It works great for people like me who are sick 2-3 days a year and don't take personal days.

That's basically what we have too.

In response to someone else's reply: yeah, good work in hardly ever acknowledged, much less rewarded, where I work.  There's only enough motivation to do the bare minimum as there's not even a pat on the back for going above and beyond.  Actually, I'm surprised my place is still in business.  I work in a typical company that used to know the value of keeping their workers happy.  But then the owner passed the business to his two sons, who grew up never knowing hardship in life and never learning what it's like to really have to work for something.  They treat the employees like peons.  We get the bare minimum in benefits.  So yeah, I use those sickdays quite often.  They don't even realize I'm gone sometimes.

[AmericanDemon]

I used up all of my Sick Days

So I'm calling in

DEAD

And I'd like 3 funeral days

along with

my weekends off

[Stingray]

-S

[shmokes]

I'm in the enviable position of having maxed out my allowed accrued vacation time.  That means that between now and December 31st I will be forced to take 60 hours of vacation time just to bring me down to 240 hours, which can be carried over into the next year without losing anything.   

Out of curiousity, what is the real benefit to having maxed out accrued vacation time?  The only thing I can think of is that if you get laid off, they'll give you 6 weeks' extra pay.

No net benefit, I guess.  I'd get the same as much vacation time whether I took 10 hours off every month or built it up and took a two-week vacation.  I prefer the latter, though.  The main reason it builds up is that I've always got a lot of work to do at work, so I never use it because I just don't feel like going into work one day.  Even when I do feel like that I figure I need to take a "stress" day and I use sick leave.  Being forced to take a 60-hour paid vacation is something to smile about, though.

[Daniel270]

wow.....  300 days....

only 65 more days and you could just take a whole YEAR off......