Firms troubled by sick people in office

The current trend is to combine sick and vacation pay into one small pool. Naturally, people don't want to waste a vacation day on sickness.

About damned time! The only problem is that employers then put the squeeze on the middle managers with productivity quotas and absenteeism policies.

At my last job, people were afraid to stay home because of the warnings handed out by the manager for excessive absenteeism if you were out for more than two instances per quarter.

People would stay home one day then come back the next and infect everyone around them. Those that stayed home until well would return to work only to be reinfected by those who didn't stay home.

The manager would send people home with an admonishment about excessive absenteeism and regularly handed out warnings to people stating they would be fired if there were any more absences in the quarter.

It isn't the employee who needs to be educated on the importance of staying home while sick. Employees would love to feel secure enough in their jobs to be able to do so!

Agreed. I understand some abusing paid sick time, but there's got to be some happy medium that could be arranged.

Sending sick employees home, who came to work, without the benefit of some compensation doesn't sit well with me.

I think most employees, at least in corporate settings, are compensated. I don't know if that's true in the retail business. I guess it depends on how long you've worked there.

Actually, this is a pet peeve of mine. Just recently one of my co-workers had to drag themselves in, even though they were sick....and I mean noticeably sick.

This person sits right behind me, but I somehow managed to avoid getting infected. Another co-worker wasn't so lucky. She caught the sickie's "bug" and got a bad case of it. She had to take off for three days and was still sick over the Christmas holiday! (Of course, the original "sickie" was all better by Christmas.)

Man, if I had caught that bug and had to be sick over Christmas, I would have been soooo mad!

It's true that when people come in sick, they aren't performing up to par, plus it takes them longer to get well. But the worst -- and most inconsiderate thing -- is that they infect the others around them.

All too often it doesn't have anything to do with them being compensated -- which they usually are -- it has to do with them proving how dedicated they are and making themselves look like a hero. Sheesh!