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    Ken Yadiggit, AdiosTracy Moore
    11/20/15 1:26pm

    Question... does everyone get sick days AND vacation days or are they one in the same for you?

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      Princess PeachKen Yadiggit, Adios
      11/20/15 1:28pm

      I get both. Plus two personal days. And I never use sick leave because if I’m sick, I just work from home.

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      Murry ChangKen Yadiggit, Adios
      11/20/15 1:29pm

      I get separate sick/vaca/personal days, but from what I see, that’s a rarity these days.

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    Ladyheatherlee 2016 EditionTracy Moore
    11/20/15 1:28pm

    So my husband had this co-worker who got sick a couple years back. He was feeling pretty gross, but you know - can’t take a day off! Sick days are for the weak! He starts driving out of town to a job site. He starts to feel really weird and suddenly he’s coughing up blood everywhere. He calls a relative who is a nurse and she’s all - go to the damn hospital. So he freaking drives himself to the hospital, walks in the door of the ER, and collapses. Severe case of H1N1. Organs shutting down. Family told to prepare themselves. Fortunately after weeks in a coma, he pulls through.

    Take the damn sick day! Seek medical attention! Probably caught it from someone else who went to work sick, too. Aaaahhh!!!

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      SqarrLadyheatherlee 2016 Edition
      11/20/15 1:31pm

      Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesus.

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      1llamarampage will write againLadyheatherlee 2016 Edition
      11/20/15 1:34pm

      My best friend’s mother had a persistent cold for a few months - but worked as a manager at a pizza place, what can you do? She was already immunocompromised because of a chronic disease, but when you don’t have sick days or insurance, you don’t have sick days or insurance.

      Except it turned out it was viral pneumonia, and she didn’t find out about it until it got into her heart and her organs started shutting down. Many months of hospitalization and one experimental mechanical heart transplant later, my friend’s mom died, leaving behind four kids from college- to grade-school-age. It was before I knew Friend and it’s been about 10 years, but that story still just makes me so angry at the world.

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    FridayFridayTracy Moore
    11/20/15 1:33pm

    I have an office job and we get 3 sick days a year. If you go more than 3, it comes out of vacation time and requires a doctor’s note. Really though you’re not supposed to use any. My supervisor had a heart attack on a Thursday last year, and he had to have surgery, and he was back in the office on Monday. Really.

    So when I got the flu last year and literally couldn’t leave my bed for a week, yeah, I got a lot of shit about it. And people accused me to my face of faking it.

    I give no fucks, though. If I am contagious or feel physically unable to work, I am not coming in. They can dock my pay or fire me if they want, screw it.

    edited to add - oh yeah, and there was the one time a coworker of mine had a miscarriage, and because she was out of vacation time, she had to come in the next day. And she cried at her desk, all day. It was monstrous.

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      ShadowPrydeFridayFriday
      11/20/15 1:39pm

      I don’t say this often but.... your employers are pieces of shit. Some people just get off on flogging a horse to death and we have a term for that - psychopaths.

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      FridayFridayShadowPryde
      11/20/15 1:46pm

      The trouble is my boss is literally ancient and has been healthy as a horse his whole life. He hasn’t missed a day in years so he expects all of us to be like him. It’s infuriating.

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    John BoehnerTracy Moore
    11/20/15 1:27pm

    I remember working in a place with a three strikes policy. It was food service. Half of the employees didn’t have health insurance and couldn’t afford to go to the doctor for something like a stomach virus, just to get a fucking doctor’s note, because god knows they weren’t going to pay money to fill prescriptions.

    So the people handling your food constantly came in with fever, diarrhea, and vomiting, because they would be fired if they didn’t. I’m looking at you, brewery in Dayton, Ohio.

    Just think about that the next time you go out to eat.

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      Ladyheatherlee 2016 EditionJohn Boehner
      11/20/15 1:29pm

      Ewwwww.

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      Major Lazer Power BlazerJohn Boehner
      11/20/15 1:34pm

      i was a server when i got swine flu- called to tell my boss (from the ER where i got 3 bags of fluids) and she was so mad i was calling out she hung up on me. servers work sick ALL the time

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    IndianaJoanTracy Moore
    11/20/15 1:28pm

    I’ve already had the flu this year and I was horribly sick. I stayed home for two days and then had two weekend days before I went back to work. I was still pretty sick though on Monday and should have stayed home, but I felt too guilty, and part of me even felt like I needed to go back to work with obvious symptoms to prove my sick days were legitimate. I felt guilty even on the days I took off, like I was getting away with something, even though I was actually terribly ill. How do you turn that guilt off? It’s awful!

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      LostAnotherBurnerPasswordIndianaJoan
      11/20/15 1:32pm

      Do you have a job where if you’re gone for a few days, you’re really creating a lot of work for your coworkers? My work is seasonal, so at certain times I’d really be screwing my coworkers if I missed several consecutive days (in which case I come in, leave my office door shut, and wash my hands before I touch anything). But unless other people are staying late to make up for your sick day, why feel guilty?

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      IndianaJoanLostAnotherBurnerPassword
      11/20/15 1:42pm

      I have a very small office, but our busy periods vary. On this specific instance, it was right after finishing a major deadline, so at least I had that under my belt. But really, it doesn’t even matter if we’re busy or not, I still feel guilty. I don’t know why. One of my first jobs I had, I had no sick leave and it was a customer service job where someone had to be there, so you had to get someone to cover your shift if you couldn’t come in, and there were only a few of us who could. So it was just expected that you went in sick no matter what, so maybe that’s why I feel guilty now about calling in sick?

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    thatsjustmyhairTracy Moore
    11/20/15 2:04pm

    ... i just barfed at work. i should go home, but i have so much to do....

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      goddessoftransitorythatsjustmyhair
      11/20/15 2:07pm

      Baby, you’re not going to get anything done in this condition! Pack up what you can do at home, go home, put on your PJs, get in bed, and work at a relaxed pace with frequent naps.

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      thatsjustmyhairgoddessoftransitory
      11/20/15 2:35pm

      i will. just waiting for some docs to be signed and then home. i cant even sit up straight and half the lights are off in my office.

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    Dinosaurs and Nachos, girlfriend!Tracy Moore
    11/20/15 1:59pm

    For all the Small-Businesses-Can’t-Afford-Sick-Days-Employees-Aren’t-Really-Sick-Anyway-Why-Can’t-I-Have-More-Loyal-Employees-Anecdata-Is-Real-Data crowd:

    FUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU.

    Signed,

    A small business owner who tells her employees to stay the fuck home and get better when they need and whose business continues to grow and prosper

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      goddessoftransitoryDinosaurs and Nachos, girlfriend!
      11/20/15 2:06pm

      A large part of which is undoubtedly due to A) your fostering of real loyalty by showing it and B) not exposing your customer base to death’s-door employees who are practically passing out at their desks.

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      dalilaDinosaurs and Nachos, girlfriend!
      11/20/15 2:23pm

      Thank you.

      My father is always going on about the needs of small businesses (which is funny, because he does not own one) and something that really gets his goat is the “lack of loyalty” to employers nowadays. Why should employers give more sick time if employees are just going to leave? Why should employers offer health benefits if they know they employees are eventually going to find other jobs?

      You know how employees become loyal? By working for employers that treat them with respect and kindness. This includes fair wages, health care, and ample time off to tend to their personal business. It’s not that fucking hard, honestly. If small business owners can’t handle that, then I’d suggest that perhaps they should not be small business owners.

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    Murry ChangTracy Moore
    11/20/15 1:29pm

    Personally, I stay home when I’m sick and I yell at coworkers when they come in sick. I got goddamn strep from my old boss like 10 years ago because he was fucking Supermanning it in August with a horrible sinus infection. I had to go to the doctor for the first time in 5+ years with that one, I wasn’t able to swallow.

    Also, fuck open office environments. When I had an office of my own I didn’t get a cold for like 4 years in a row. Since we moved to an open office a couple years back, I now get them like twice a year:(

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      EmpressConstancepantsMurry Chang
      11/20/15 1:43pm

      I hate that so much. I get weeks-long bronchitis when other people get a two day head cold, so when people came to school (work I can understand to a certain extent, but not class) and hacked phlegm up inches from my face I wanted to throttle them. My former friend was immuno-compromised and routinely missed weeks of classes because assholes thought missing one class was worse than infecting their entire cohort. Grr.

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      Murry ChangEmpressConstancepants
      11/20/15 1:50pm

      Yeah fuck those people. You might get an award for perfect attendance at the end of the year, but it’s utterly meaningless and you just look like a fool to everyone else.

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    BabyFireflyTracy Moore
    11/20/15 1:36pm

    I got fired years ago from a certain American carhop joint, because I missed a day of work after already giving my 2 weeks leave notice, because I was sick, I even dropped a doctor’s note off on the day I missed.

    I came in the next day to find my name not on the day board, had it out with my manager, (Because I was a good employee and had worked there for nearly 2 years)...Then proceeded to walk down the line of customers and give them all the finger on my way out.

    It was so fucking liberating.

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      goddessoftransitoryBabyFirefly
      11/20/15 2:05pm

      God, why do they even want you to come in when you’re hacking and spitting and look like death warmed over? What customer is going to say wonderful, this enhances our dining experience? I get filling in missing workers is a pain but guess what? It’s a regular part of managing! I’ve worked many a job short-shifted and we all just worked a busy shift—never has any job I ever had gone down beneath the waves because two people called out with the flu.

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      dalilaBabyFirefly
      11/20/15 2:19pm

      I worked in a place that had this policy. Once you give your 2 weeks, you have to come in every day or else you’d just be immediately canned. They’d rather the whole office get the flu than have the departing employee stay home a day. Asinine.

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    FarticusTracy Moore
    11/20/15 1:27pm

    As bad as this sounds, I miss when my coworker was undergoing chemotherapy, and the “No Sick People” rule at work was actually enforced.

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      LostAnotherBurnerPasswordFarticus
      11/20/15 1:30pm

      I don’t want anyone in my office to have to go through chemotherapy for everyone to stay home when they’re sick!

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      taluladoesthehulaFarticus
      11/20/15 1:34pm

      It's sad that it takes something of that magnitude for some employers to behave like decent human beings.

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