A is for Ailments

[the_siobhan]

I am totally stealing this trope from the_other_j.

One of the ways in which I think my workplace maybe hasn't fully thought things through is their policy towards sickness and attendance. Attendance and punctuality in the call centre are what they call "performance measures". And I totally get the driver for this, you can't call customers if you don't have bums in seats. Where it kind of breaks down is where this policy interacts with the meat-based life forms that occasionally get colonized by various viruses, bacteria and parasites.

Because one of the other policies that they have is an employee's personal medical information is private and none of the managers' business. Also completely legitimate. But it leaves a sick employee in a kind of a weird limbo - we can't provide any confirmation that we are in fact ill and not just malingering, but we'll also get dinged on our performance ratings for taking the time off to get better.

So the end result is fairly predictable. Everybody comes to work sick. And in a densely populated room where people sit close together and breathe recirculated air, the result of that decision is likewise entirely predictable. There isn't one bug that hits anybody who works here that isn't shared widely and shared often. I can watch my co-workers get leveled one by one whenever a particularly virulent flu or cold hits town. This most recent one has resulted in epic levels of absenteeism.

Last year when I was really sick I took time off until I got better, or at least less infectious. And I got rated poorly for it. This year I've been dragging myself into work with everything from contagious dandruff to projectile leprosy. And when people ask me why I don't keep my sick ass at home, I tell them the truth - protecting their health directly penalizes me. But if I make everybody else sick my numbers end up looking pretty good.

I'm kind of hoping that this current bug works it's way through the management chain to the people who in charge of the attendance policy. But even if it does I know my victory will be entirely Pyrrhic. They're allowed to take time off.

Comments

[ihvpave.livejournal.com]

Completely unrelated to anything here or anywhere, but how long is the flight from hither to yon?

Actually related to the subject at hand: many moms I know complain similarly about the "perfect attendance" awards at schools becuase kids are so afraid to be sick. I have to wonder what the hell happened to us as a culture ("culture" collectively meaning "industrialised nations") where we see illness as weakness?

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

When we flew down for TSM's wedding, the flight from Buffalo to Charlotte was a little over an hour at most. Flying straight to TO from Charlotte is about two hours.

[ihvpave.livejournal.com]

Excellent...


Looks like I will be making a super-whirlwind-y trip to the TO in about a month (I'll be getting in around lunchtime on a Friday and back out by 6 pm Saturday) for work.

Does the Hotel Gladstone mean anything to you? 'Cos apparently, I'll be staying there.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

!!!!!

The Gladstone Hotel is right around the corner from me - I can walk there in 15 minutes. We *must* meet up for coffee or lunch or something. :) :) :)

[ihvpave.livejournal.com]

It's a date! As I said, I am getting in 'round lunchtime Friday, hitting the Feminist Porn Awards that night, and then back home Saturday evening.

YAY!
In person stuffs!

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Ooo, the Feminist Porn Awards are much fun! I went to the first one. Tristan Taormino was there. *drool*

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Yep. It's right around the corner from us.

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

You should walk into said management's office coughing and tell them that you're really not feeling well, but that you're here risking everyone else's health because they've made it apparent just how important your presence is regardless of your health. Then cough some more. On them.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

You've just touched on one of my pet peeves. I'm lucky in that I work in a place that has reasonable sick leave policies - our employee handbook states explicitly that people with infectious illnesses should stay home. I'm also able to work from home, which is great for days when I'm too sick to commute to work but well enough to sit at a computer.

In the past, I have not been so lucky. Of my past employers, the call centre and the bank were the worst. The call centre managers wanted a doctor's note if you were off for more than 2 days. If I'm down for a couple of days with a sinus cold or the flu, I don't need to go to the doctor. I need to take some OTC drugs and sleep. Wasting what little energy I have to drag myself to the doctor's and then sit in a waiting room full of other sick people strikes me a really stupid thing to do.

No, actually, working in a restaurant was the worst. If I called in sick, it was my responsibility to find someone to cover my shift and if I couldn't find anyone, I was supposed to drag my infectious self into a workplace where people were preparing and consuming food. Very healthy yes? It also meant that I spent hours calling my co-workers when I should have been resting.

I read an article recently about steps the TTC is taking to reduce illness-related absenteeism. Managers will call a sick employee at home and "encourage" them to return to work. To me, that sounds like harassment.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

'Cause what I really need is to be exposed to yet more viruses on my way to work.

Asshats.

[http://users.livejournal.com/cincinnatus_c_/]

Presumably it's a tactic to get the papers off their backs for wasting taxpayers' money by constantly caving to the bloated unions.

[girfan.livejournal.com]

A good friend of mine was working as a programmer and was on her probationary time (3 months) and was ill (a few times fairly seriously-needed to get drugs and steroids, could barely breathe, etc.) due to so many co-workers going into work sick so they wouldn't get reprimanded. She had a warning a few weeks ago, got ill again (had to stay home due to the flu) and was sacked last Wednesday for missing too many days due to illness!

Her immediate managers and team have registered a protest (their work was tightly scheduled and losing her has put them drastically behind on the deadline), but HR won't budge with their "US-style" attitude. The place has a call centre, but treats all staff the same.

Get well soon!

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Part of my problem is that being asthmatic, whenever I catch anything I'm choking on it for months.

[girfan.livejournal.com]

She is asthmatic as well, which is where the problem lies. Though, she said former co-workers who were very physically fit (used a gym, ran marathons, etc.) had not been able to do their normal amounts of exercise due to all the low-grade infections going around the building all winter.

[frogmistress.livejournal.com]

Where I work is very generous when it comes to vacation time. We earn it through the year, but can take it up front.

However, we have no sick days. We have to use our vacation time if we are sick. AND, if we call off after then end of the previous work day (think Friday afternoon if you'll be sick on Monday) our bonus gets docked something like 25%. (This place runs on the bonus.)

Everyone comes to work sick because no one wants to use up vacation time when sick and no one wants to lose money.

Our company is owned by doctors. Irony?

[melete.livejournal.com]

This is one of my larger complaints about the hospital sick time/vacation policy. Nothing like your healthcare workers coming into work sick, no?

But it also reminds me of one of our more suspect policies. We have a list of vaccinations and testing that we must have done in order to work here and to continuing working here (e.g. annual TB testing). We are not required to get the flu vaccine. Though as a courtesy they offer it every year free of charge to those who want it.

Two years ago they started asking us to fill out a declination form stating why we don't want the vaccine if we aren't getting it. No one seems to track the system, so if you don't turn one in and didn't get the vaccine there doesn't seem to be any repercussions or anyone chasing you down to turn it in.

Then this year they have asked if you call in sick during flu season that you specify if you have "flu like symptoms" (including fever, cough and body aches). They are then monitoring this with area managers. We'll leave out the part of the discussion about how a number of viral infections cause fever, cough and body aches. But can you see why people are suspicious of this? It doesn't take a flying leap to imagine workers getting penalized for staying home ill with "flu like symptoms" when they didn't get the flu vaccine.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

Not just are there a number of different things that cause "flu like symptoms" (because they are not actually caused by the virus/bacteria/parasite, but are part of your immune response), but the flu vaccine, because it has to be prepared well in advance, is not guaranteed to be effective against the flu strains that are actually about that winter.