Peculiar British.

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 gimmergimmer 25 Nov 2020

British are 'peculiar' for going in sick says Matt Hancock. I'm thinking reason- millions don't get sick pay till the 4th day. Including care workers and  the supermarket checkout. Hancock should be fixing that rather than calling us peculiar-discuss. (And thats ignoring zero hours).Matt Hancock.https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55061543

Post edited at 21:53
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 marsbar 26 Nov 2020
In reply to gimmergimmer:

It's the peculiar idea that being ill is a disciplinary issue that could be the problem.  

Disgusting way to treat people.  

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 girlymonkey 26 Nov 2020
In reply to gimmergimmer:

I think it was when I applied for a care job at the start of lockdown that one question on the application form was about how many sick days I had taken in the last year! I was really surprised by this, and I guess it just highlights the culture surrounding taking time off sick. 

I have no children, so I am rarely sick, but if I did have germ incubators in the house then I guess there would be no way round it!

 Tom Valentine 26 Nov 2020
In reply to marsbar:

It's a disgusting way to treat people who are genuinely ill, but the fact that the phrase "throwing a sickie" *has earned a place  in our language shows that there are plenty of people ready to milk the system at the earliest opportunity. I certainly came across plenty in my career.

*( I've only ever heard it used for taking time  off work with no valid reason)

 neilh 26 Nov 2020
In reply to gimmergimmer:

It is not a unique British issue, ask people in other countries.

Why oh why do we think of ourselves as exceptional.It really is pathetic.

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 rj_townsend 26 Nov 2020
In reply to gimmergimmer:

You've stated one possible reason but there are plenty of other options, including a general attitude of not making a fuss, having plenty to do so wanting to carry on despite feeling a bit grotty, and wanting to be productive rather than sitting at home feeling sorry for oneself. Those traits are not exclusive to the British, but seem to have a higher prevalence (in my opinion) here than in some other countries. 

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 rj_townsend 26 Nov 2020
In reply to marsbar:

> It's the peculiar idea that being ill is a disciplinary issue that could be the problem.  

> Disgusting way to treat people.  

I'm sure it does happen, but in all the places I've worked genuine illness, including long-term chronic illness, has always been supported rather than punished, even in employers using the Bradford Points system. However, "sickie-throwers" have been shown the door which seems entirely right to me - why should everyone else pick up their work just because they can't be bothered to turn up despite being able to?

One workplace had areas with a somewhat bizarre "I get x days annual leave and y days sick leave entitlement so a total of z day off per year" attitude that I could never get my head around.

 StuDoig 26 Nov 2020
In reply to gimmergimmer:

affordability (or lack there off) is definitely part of it, esp for those on lower pay, or dayrating where it can be painful to think how much a sick day costs you!

We do also have a bad attendance culture where a lot of management seem more worried about seeing people in the office than them actually delivering their job - even now we keep hearing from our senior management that we need to get back into the office as home working is "unproductive" (read; they don't know how to manage teams working remotely).

Theres also the horrible fact that "attendance" is a criteria most companies look at during annual reviews and during redundancy assessments so it feels worrying that sick days could be the deciding factor on whether you or someone else is the one to be made redundant.

The flip side I suppose is people think they are "entitled" to sick days and effectively using them as extra holidays making employers suspicious.

I do encourage (pre-covid!) folk in my team to work from home since they all have work laptops etc if they've a cold etc but feel up to working rather than dragging their bugs into the office!

 Doug 26 Nov 2020
In reply to neilh:

I've worked in offices in the UK which only had Brits & in France with a very international mix of staff. Didn't seem much difference in attitudes to sickleave between the nationalities

 neilh 26 Nov 2020
In reply to Doug:

LOL. Exactly.

Why oh why do we think of ourselves as different,,, it really is a load of old bo###cks

In reply to neilh:

An air of superiority and haughtiness towards the rest of the world is a fairly old British trait.  

We used to have an empire don't you know, you don't build an empire by being sick, or having compassion for the sick all the time. You build it off the backs of those you deem to be lower or less important than you and working them to the point of sickness, and beyond.

It's all the managers fault, comrade

edit: typo

Post edited at 13:40
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OP gimmergimmer 26 Nov 2020
In reply to rj_townsend:

The problem is 'throwing a sicky' is very unequal like a lot of Britain. Salaried folk get paid for their sicky and low paid folk miss the opportunity to throw one as they don't get paid.

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 GrahamD 26 Nov 2020
In reply to gimmergimmer:

> The problem is 'throwing a sicky' is very unequal like a lot of Britain. Salaried folk get paid for their sicky and low paid folk miss the opportunity to throw one as they don't get paid.

The problem is "throwing a sicky" full stop.

It diverts resources from the genuinely sick.

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 marsbar 26 Nov 2020
In reply to marsbar:

To be clear I am talking about genuine illness or accident. 

I don't approve of people pretending to be sick. 

I had a particularly nasty HR person in one job.  I got a bollocking for ringing in after a car accident when I'd been told specifically not to go to work by the A and E doctor.  (Possible head injury)

She was also unsympathetic to any kind of illness, and considering we work in a germ factory it seemed particularly unfair to blame us for catching colds and stomach bugs etc.   

Removed User 26 Nov 2020
In reply to marsbar:

> I had a particularly nasty HR person in one job.  I got a bollocking for ringing in after a car accident when I'd been told specifically not to go to work by the A and E doctor.  (Possible head injury)

> She was also unsympathetic to any kind of illness, and considering we work in a germ factory it seemed particularly unfair to blame us for catching colds and stomach bugs etc.   

HR people are invariably like Marketing people....almost always in the wrong chosen career.

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 Ciro 26 Nov 2020
In reply to GrahamD:

> The problem is "throwing a sicky" full stop.

> It diverts resources from the genuinely sick.

When I worked in Australia, we were officially allowed to "throw a sickie". It was known as a Duvet Day. If you woke up feeling like you didn't want to go in to work, you could call in no questions asked. There was an allocation per year - think it was something like 6 days - and if you didn't take them you got paid for them at the end of the year.

I thought it was a much more civilized system - acknowledging that sometimes it's better for all concerned if an employee just has a day off to recharge and return to work motivated.

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 flatlandrich 26 Nov 2020
In reply to gimmergimmer:

He should try being self employed with no sick pay at all, regardless of how long you're ill for. You certainly learn there's a difference between being 'sick' and 'to sick to work'.  I once came across a landscape gardener working with a broken jaw, he neglected to mention how it happened but the grimace on his face as he broke up concrete with a jack hammer said plenty about his work ethic.  

 birdie num num 26 Nov 2020
In reply to gimmergimmer:

It’s normally peculiar if I turn in for work

 john arran 26 Nov 2020
In reply to neilh:

> It is not a unique British issue, ask people in other countries.

> Why oh why do we think of ourselves as exceptional.It really is pathetic.

Successful people like to find a reason why they, rather than other people, are successful, even though in many cases it's likely to be little more than having been luckily at the right place at the right time.

Extrapolating this somewhat, people in the UK found their country successful for large parts of the 19th and 20th centuries. As it doesn't make people feel terribly good to think it was purely lucky circumstance, people naturally developed the idea that there was something about British people that was different to those from other nations, and that must be responsible for their success. Hence the completely unfounded myth of British exceptionalism.

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In reply to Removed User:

> HR people are invariably like Marketing people.

I think 'Human Resources' is carefully chosen name for the job.

Resources are things to be exploited...

Post edited at 21:55
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In reply to neilh:

> Why oh why do we think of ourselves as exceptional.It really is pathetic.

Maybe ask that question of Handjob...? This thread is questioning his statement, after all.

 Clarence 26 Nov 2020
In reply to gimmergimmer:

I had a week off when my dad died and three days off with a broken foot from an injury at work. If I have any more time off I will lose my job so Hancock can f*ck right off.

 fred99 27 Nov 2020
In reply to Clarence:

I regard myself as quite "lucky" - at least as regards sick pay.

Had a motorbike accident on Bank Holiday Saturday in August - not my fault , car driver who was sped off at high speed !

Due to broken ankle and reverse (!) dislocation of right shoulder (pins and plates in ankle, 3 tendons in shoulder re-attached with nuts & bolts), I've been off ever since, and expect to be until the New Year.

However I'm still on full pay, and the boss is adamant that I mustn't return until properly fit enough, and I've still got more time (if needed) to be off sick before my income is affected at all. A point he made was that, in the present situation, even if I wanted to be picked up and driven into work, such wouldn't be "Covid-safe", so I need to stay off until I can drive myself (safely).

 girlymonkey 27 Nov 2020
In reply to flatlandrich:

This does not make it right though. Just because self employed people are not able to get any support to cover illness, it does not make it ok that we expect people to soldier on regardless. I have been self employed for long enough that I could cancel a couple of days without a problem, but in the early days I couldn't. Thankfully, I was never really ill or injured. This year, I did cancel some work when I had what I now think could have been Covid. It was "mild" if it was it, but I had coughing fits that left me gagging and struggling for breath and I couldn't have got my voice to carry far enough. Previously, I would have had to go in anyway, this time I had the resources to stay away. Maybe I saved a load of people from Covid? Almost certainly saved them from some sort of nasty cough!

 Bacon Butty 27 Nov 2020
In reply to birdie num num:

> It’s normally peculiar if I turn in for work


Signing on every two weeks doesn't count as work
How do you avoid being sanctioned?

 Kalna_kaza 27 Nov 2020
In reply to gimmergimmer:

A friend works in a company that was brought under new ownership. The new CEO asked what the staff would most like to see in their terms and conditions. The top three responses were:

More holiday.

Paid sick leave.

Better pension provision.

They agreed a staggered holiday increase based on length of service and added 1-2% pension increase based on match employee contribution. But the real difference was getting 10 days paid sick leave a year. Suddenly all the worries about getting the flu and whether or not to come into the office disappeared overnight. Much happier staff and probably less chance of half the workforce getting ill at the same time. My friend reckons the number of people "throwing a sickie" has dropped massively.

Alyson30 28 Nov 2020
In reply to Boris\'s Johnson:

> An air of superiority and haughtiness towards the rest of the world is a fairly old British trait.  

> We used to have an empire don't you know, you don't build an empire by being sick, or having compassion for the sick all the time. You build it off the backs of those you deem to be lower or less important than you and working them to the point of sickness, and beyond.

In order for the working class to accept to be ruled by an unaccountable, incompetent and detached elite without protest, they need to be made to feel like they aren’t the ones at the bottom of the pecking order.

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 timjones 28 Nov 2020
In reply to girlymonkey:

> This does not make it right though. Just because self employed people are not able to get any support to cover illness, it does not make it ok that we expect people to soldier on regardless.

If you are self-employed you need to take out insurance to cover any extended inability to work due to accident or illness.

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 girlymonkey 28 Nov 2020
In reply to timjones:

Fine once you can afford to, no chance when you are starting out!

The point was more meant to be though that just because it's normal for self employed people to drag themselves in whatever state they are in, it doesn't make it a good thing to aspire to. It's not something we should be holding up as an example of great work practice, as it often feels like it is. My example was meant to highlight why we shouldn't do it (I could have spread Covid around before we were really clued up on it).

 summo 28 Nov 2020
In reply to girlymonkey:

> Fine once you can afford to, no chance when you are starting out!

The problem is that those paying the self employed aren't prepared to pay them enough. Accident and critical illness insurance, money for a pension, plus enough to cover tools, travel, a vehicle etc.. so many people just expect paying a one wo/man band should be cheaper than paying a large company. But the company often has more economy of scale.

In reply to Alyson30:

I agree.

 timjones 29 Nov 2020
In reply to girlymonkey:

> Fine once you can afford to, no chance when you are starting out!

Hopefully we can sort that out as part of a re-evaluation of how we work once we get on top of Covid.  Once people understand the risks and the need to insure from day one we might start to see more realistic pay/pricing to cover necessities such as insurance.

HMRC looked into the increase in self-employment I agriculture some years ago and the definitions that we need to work too appear to be flouted by both employers and employees in other industries.

> The point was more meant to be though that just because it's normal for self employed people to drag themselves in whatever state they are in, it doesn't make it a good thing to aspire to. It's not something we should be holding up as an example of great work practice, as it often feels like it is. My example was meant to highlight why we shouldn't do it (I could have spread Covid around before we were really clued up on it).

It's a fair point but we would grind to a halt if everybody took time off at the first hint of a sneeze or sniffle.

 girlymonkey 29 Nov 2020
In reply to timjones:

> It's a fair point but we would grind to a halt if everybody took time off at the first hint of a sneeze or sniffle.

Or maybe there would be fewer sneezes and sniffles about to infect people so fewer people off?

 ClimberEd 29 Nov 2020
In reply to Alyson30:

> In order for the working class to accept to be ruled by an unaccountable, incompetent and detached elite without protest, they need to be made to feel like they aren’t the ones at the bottom of the pecking order.

Good thing it's been working well for 100s of years then.  

1
 Andy Clarke 29 Nov 2020
In reply to girlymonkey:

> The point was more meant to be though that just because it's normal for self employed people to drag themselves in whatever state they are in, it doesn't make it a good thing to aspire to. It's not something we should be holding up as an example of great work practice, as it often feels like it is. My example was meant to highlight why we shouldn't do it

I agree, but when you're "living the job" it can be very difficult to follow this advice. I couldn't bear to take a day off when I was a head and the school was pretty much my life for most of the year. First time I had time off was after 10 years when I was in hospital after falling off while climbing just before Xmas. It made the front page of the local papers so it  wasn't a bad bit of PR! I was determined to be back in school on the first day of term in January, deluding myself it would be "motivational" for the staff. I duly turned up, so out of it on morphine that I couldn't remember all the names of the new teachers I was introducing at the staff meeting. Eventually my senior team ganged up behind my back and phoned my Chair of Governors who came in and sent me home!

 timjones 29 Nov 2020
In reply to girlymonkey:

> Or maybe there would be fewer sneezes and sniffles about to infect people so fewer people off?

The workplce is not the only place where you can catch a minor cold, if you can work efficiently then taking a day off at either your own or your employers expense seems rather silly.

 girlymonkey 29 Nov 2020
In reply to timjones:

I think it would be an interesting experiment. People would need to keep kids off school equally, but after a while it should settle down to fewer illnesses, I would think. I suspect the days that people feel crap, they probably turn up, are no where near as productive as usual, spread it around so loads of other people turn up and are also less productive too etc. So, staying home and having a couple of unproductive days on your own prevents half a work place from losing productivity! Showing up is not the same as working hard!

 girlymonkey 29 Nov 2020
In reply to Andy Clarke:

But if we shifted the culture to see taking a day off when you are ill as an act of compassion and duty to your fellow workers, maybe you wouldn't have felt like that!!

baron 29 Nov 2020
In reply to Andy Clarke:

> I agree, but when you're "living the job" it can be very difficult to follow this advice. I couldn't bear to take a day off when I was a head and the school was pretty much my life for most of the year. First time I had time off was after 10 years when I was in hospital after falling off while climbing just before Xmas. It made the front page of the local papers so it  wasn't a bad bit of PR! I was determined to be back in school on the first day of term in January, deluding myself it would be "motivational" for the staff. I duly turned up, so out of it on morphine that I couldn't remember all the names of the new teachers I was introducing at the staff meeting. Eventually my senior team ganged up behind my back and phoned my Chair of Governors who came in and sent me home!

There must be a few jobs that have that ‘living the job’ experience.

I didn’t have a day off in my first 10 years of teaching.

Partly through being lucky and avoiding serious illness or accidents like yours but mainly by not wanting my colleagues to have to cover my lessons if I was absent.

Unfortunately not all my colleagues had the same approach to absences and it was a real pain to be feeling under the weather and to drag yourself into work to find that you’d been put down to cover an absent colleague!

 Andy Clarke 29 Nov 2020
In reply to baron:

> There must be a few jobs that have that ‘living the job’ experience.

> I didn’t have a day off in my first 10 years of teaching.

> Partly through being lucky and avoiding serious illness or accidents like yours but mainly by not wanting my colleagues to have to cover my lessons if I was absent.

> Unfortunately not all my colleagues had the same approach to absences and it was a real pain to be feeling under the weather and to drag yourself into work to find that you’d been put down to cover an absent colleague!

Yes, every big school must have the odd one or two staff who seem particularly unlucky with picking up bugs over the weekend and having to take Monday off. Maybe they'd have been less sanguine about doing so if they'd seen how their regular appearance on the cover sheet was greeted in the staffroom! "Return to work" interviews were just coming in during my last year or so, so may be the phenomenon is no longer so common. 

 timjones 29 Nov 2020
In reply to girlymonkey:

> I think it would be an interesting experiment. People would need to keep kids off school equally, but after a while it should settle down to fewer illnesses, I would think. I suspect the days that people feel crap, they probably turn up, are no where near as productive as usual, spread it around so loads of other people turn up and are also less productive too etc. So, staying home and having a couple of unproductive days on your own prevents half a work place from losing productivity! Showing up is not the same as working hard!

It woud certainly be interesting would less exposure to bugs mean that we were more susceptible and suffered more severely when we did encounter them?

Deciding when you are fit to work has to be a personal decision  and everybody will have different thresholds at which they class themselves as sick. Some will be too gung ho whilst others will quite simply use it as an excuse to skive.

baron 29 Nov 2020
In reply to Andy Clarke:

> Yes, every big school must have the odd one or two staff who seem particularly unlucky with picking up bugs over the weekend and having to take Monday off. Maybe they'd have been less sanguine about doing so if they'd seen how their regular appearance on the cover sheet was greeted in the staffroom! "Return to work" interviews were just coming in during my last year or so, so may be the phenomenon is no longer so common. 

These interviews certainly made a difference to some people’s attendance and the introduction of cover supervisors made a huge difference to the workload of all teachers.

 alan moore 29 Nov 2020
In reply to gimmergimmer:

The general tone of this thread seems to make the assumption that we in the UK are likely to turn up for work when sick.

But Google says we are the 4th worst in Europe for throwing a sicky . Not very stiff upper lip at all.

Alyson30 29 Nov 2020
In reply to ClimberEd:

> Good thing it's been working well for 100s of years then.  

Not sure everybody would agree with that, especially those thrown under the bus to feed the hois polloi’s cheap pride.

Post edited at 22:55
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