It's interesting being the boss these days.
I've had no less than three separate staff members struck down by gastro in the past few months.
I'm beginning to think gastro is the new 'food poisoning'.
Now, I'm not here to pass judgement. Some of those staff members may well have had gastro. I've never had it before, so I'm not really one to judge how long it would take you to get over it. I suppose it's different for different people.
I do know, however, that my sister had gastro recently. She was seriously ill and had to take three days off work. Which makes me wonder if a one-day recovery from gastro isn't a little fast.
Incidentally, I also got an email one morning saying one of my staff members, who had previously used the gastro excuse, had food poisoning.
I didn't believe him - but that's mainly because he's not a trustworthy member of staff.
The thing is, you can't really "not believe" someone if they call in sick. It's not fair. But at the same time, I've used the food poisoning excuse before. When I didn't have food poisoning.
A former employer once told me they had a staff member whose grandma "died" three times over the course of 18 months. Needless to say, third time was a charm.
My rate of sickies isn't particularly high, but usually the common cold is the best excuse - if you can pull off the symptoms, that is.
Which makes me wonder, dear readers, what are your best excuses for calling in sick when you aren't actually sick?
9 months ago
5 comments:
See I hate this whole "are they really sick" thing because it makes me feel so ashamed every time I need to call in sick. Even when I can't see.
My thing is frequency, if they're sick once a fortnight, there's either a serious problem or their definition of "sick" differs from mine.
I have TWICE (twice!) pretended I had to attend the funeral of a distant relative. In both cases, however, I was calling in sick to a shitty temp job I didn't care much about: why did I even go to such effort??!
I never get a chance to call in sick :o( I'll let you know how I go when I do it :o)
I don't really provide any details of an excuse. I say that I won't be at work today, as I'm not feeling well.
Sometimes, having a mental sick day is just as important as a physical sick day. There's nothing worse than going to work feeling about 30% mentally and struggling through the day, possibly snapping at people and making wrong decisions, and then becoming physically run down. It benefits nobody.
I think our company has people taking six sick days per year on average. Anything more and I'd start to worry, especially if they clock up six in half a year.
Diabetes is always a good excuse...thats if you can pull that one off. However, only a select few can, myself included. For those of you who don't like your jobs, try this one next time.
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