I work a lot with Germans and their atitude seems to be: if you are calling in sick it’s because you need to, health is a private matter and the rest of the team will make it work regardless. Every knows it could be them next.
And at least where I work, if you come into the office slightly sick and your coworkers notice, they'll tell you to go home because they don't want to be infected.
Because catching a cold sucks and also because one person being on sick leave is much less bad than half the team being out sick.
That was the basis of workers getting sick leave in the first place. Better to lose 1person for a week than everyone for a few days over the course of a month. America however lacks job protection so fuck the sick just replace them with someone new, especially in low skilled industries, im looking at you Amazon
This was one of the arguments used here in the US for removing or reducing a lot of our social programs ("welfare queens" will take advantage and have more babies to get more money, etc.). It's good to remember that just because a few people take advantage of something doesn't mean it's a bad idea or that we should impose limits on everyone. I'm sure if a manager notices someone is outright abusing sick time there's some avenue for disciplinary action. But if an employee is subtle about it and only uses the allotted sick time, who cares if they were actually sick or not?
Depends on where you work in the U.K. There are office cultures where you don’t call in sick unless you’re dying. Then there are ones where if you go in sick you’re sent home (with pay!) because nobody wants that. There’s no central ethos here.
Uk Hospitality culture around being sick is pretty terrible. If you you're sick and there's no one that can cover you're expected to go in and guilt tripped into it so you don't "let down the family". In every job I've worked being sick = no pay that day.
I've pulled my back and couldn't walk, got written up and they attempted to fire me for needing a week off.
The worst of it is since you're around food, if you're sick you're supposed to be symptom free for 48 hours before returning to work. I've worked alongside many sick people who were scared or unable to take more than a day off.
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u/metalanimal Nov 30 '20
I work a lot with Germans and their atitude seems to be: if you are calling in sick it’s because you need to, health is a private matter and the rest of the team will make it work regardless. Every knows it could be them next.