Colleagues who call in sick, but aren't.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

I was talking on the phone Monday with a co-worker who mostly works in Surgery Outpatient (SOP) and Post-Ansthesia Care Unit (PACU). I was considering cutting back some of my hours in the ICU and picking up a per diem in SOP to diversify my experience and try out SOP. We were discussing the latest happenings at the hospital, and we got on the subject of the tolerance for certain poor work ethics at the hospital, the poor leadership, etc. (long story, but probably not uncommon elsewhere)

My friend mentioned, as an example, 'Mike' (not his real name) who works in my unit. My friend works the unit one weekend a month, but mostly in SOP and PACU. Mike called her to see if she could work for him Wednesday (today), and she said she couldn't. So he laughingly said that he felt like he was going to be sick Wednesday, he was feeling it coming on already. My friend questioned him on this, since he obviously was going to plan to be 'sick' on Wednesday. He laughed it off and said "Management will have to deal with it". My friend told him that if they were short, it's his co-workers who would suffer.

Mike never bothered to call me with his request, so I suspect he didn't want to alert too many people to his plans to play hooky if he couldn't find a replacement, or else he didn't want to bother. There was a message on my cellphone this morning that there was a sick call so apparently he carried out his plan.

I love working with Mike, but I'm appalled that he does this. The way the system is set up with sick time at our hospital, it does encourage people to use it up, since low census time comes out of vacation time if you want to be paid for it. There have been other suspicious sudden onsets of nausea by one Med-Surg nurse when it looks like someone is going to get low-census, and insight of the fact that I've already requested it, I've gotten floated to Med/Surg to replace her because she went home sick. This is an established pattern of behavior that is suspicious.

I guess I'm old-fashioned, but I find this deplorable.

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Sounds like Mike was at least trying to cover his shift. Sometime when you've done all you can to get a day off you really need and all else fails what are you going to do?

I hate the people that claim sickness at work when they are just trying to get out of work or floating. Very irritating

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

Sounds like Mike was at least trying to cover his shift. Sometime when you've done all you can to get a day off you really need and all else fails what are you going to do?

I hate the people that claim sickness at work when they are just trying to get out of work or floating. Very irritating

I failed to mention in my original post that Mike wanted to do this for a recreational event. Anyways, not much I can do about it, I'm not about to turn him in, but I do find it irritating. I was brought up by a mother who never missed work no matter what, it was a very strong ethic on her part.

Sometimes I feel like a fool for not doing this too. That's how I feel when I see other people getting away with this.

[ZootRN]

As most of us, I've been on both sides of it, having to work short because somebody called in, and calling in because I knew I won't be able to pull through 12 hours shift. Staffing rarely is adequate, so call ins will always hurt, but what can you do. Maybe this person is not sick himself, but somebody in his family is sick and needs his attention, or something unplanned came up. I would not be angry about people being people, as imperfect as they are. I remember being in need of day off once for personal reason, and nobody would switch days will me. I had to beg manager to give me day off, and she gave me such a hard time over it, I regretted I simply did not call in.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

As most of us, I've been on both sides of it, having to work short because somebody called in, and calling in because I knew I won't be able to pull through 12 hours shift. Staffing rarely is adequate, so call ins will always hurt, but what can you do. Maybe this person is not sick himself, but somebody in his family is sick and needs his attention, or something unplanned came up. I would not be angry about people being people, as imperfect as they are. I remember being in need of day off once for personal reason, and nobody would switch days will me. I had to beg manager to give me day off, and she gave me such a hard time over it, I regretted I simply did not call in.

I can see your point. Maybe I should start doing this too.

[luvbug]

I can see your point. Maybe I should start doing this too.

:uhoh21:I would have to say that you would be stooping to that person's level if you start doing the same thing. It is good to have a great work ethic, even if it doesn't feel like it at times.

I am one of those who only calls in when I'm dying because I want to be a valued employee and I still think that it will get me somewhere someday. (better references for new jobs, deemed a reliable employee, etc).

To me, this is a situation that is unfortunate and probably will never end. Not everyone is raised with a good work ethic and it is very frustrating to those of us who were. If you have a manager that you can talk to, you might consider doing that. However, if the co-worker knows who would have said something, that can cause additional tension.

We have a co-worker who calls in at the first sign of a runny nose or broken nail and it makes me so angry, I did say something to our manager at one time, but it went nowhere. good luck with whatever you decide to do

[ZootRN]

Sick time is there for you to use when you are sick. Now, everyone has to decide for themselves when they are sick, because to me migraine is debilitating and when I have it, I am "sick", but to my coworkers it may seem like "just" a headache and not a valid reason to call in. It would be nice if people would never get sick, never have family emergencies, never used vacation time, never steal or kill and worked for free to make employers happy. But it's not realistic, at least for now.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

I'm getting tired of being unappreciated for never being late or calling in sick. I never miss work, and meanwhile my colleagues are taking sick time to go boating. I'm getting burnt out and maybe I need to start using sick time for my mental health.

[CRNA2BKY]

I'm sorry, but people calling in sick for personal reasons has been going on for probably centuries in every industry. It has always been that way, and it will ALWAYS be that way. Because of this, many progressive companies have stated that the employees may have x-number of days off each year, and they don't call them sick days. This is because they don't care if they are sick, or just want to spend the day at the beach. It doesn't matter. Up to date progressive companies know the realities of life, so they don't force their employees to lie about things. I like this attitude, because if doesn't force anyone to lie about anything. Some of the biggest and best companies to work for have this policy. Many other companies still want to have strict control over its employees, and do not adopt this refreshing attitude. They want to continue to operate like a dictatorship, with evil management, and have poor staffing problems. This can only lead to poor morale, and hence people don't want to work for that company. That leads to further staffing problems, creating more bickering umongst the employees, and job dissatisfaction. It seems this is a huge problem in the healthcare industry. Very sad.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

I'm sorry, but people calling in sick for personal reasons has been going on for probably centuries in every industry. It has always been that way, and it will ALWAYS be that way. Because of this, many progressive companies have stated that the employees may have x-number of days off each year, and they don't call them sick days. This is because they don't care if they are sick, or just want to spend the day at the beach. It doesn't matter. Up to date progressive companies know the realities of life, so they don't force their employees to lie about things. I like this attitude, because if doesn't force anyone to lie about anything. Some of the biggest and best companies to work for have this policy. Many other companies still want to have strict control over its employees, and do not adopt this refreshing attitude. They want to continue to operate like a dictatorship, with evil management, and have poor staffing problems. This can only lead to poor morale, and hence people don't want to work for that company. That leads to further staffing problems, creating more bickering umongst the employees, and job dissatisfaction. It seems this is a huge problem in the healthcare industry. Very sad.

Great idea!!! Makes total sense!!!!!

[ZootRN]

I'm sorry, but people calling in sick for personal reasons has been going on for probably centuries in every industry. It has always been that way, and it will ALWAYS be that way. Because of this, many progressive companies have stated that the employees may have x-number of days off each year, and they don't call them sick days. This is because they don't care if they are sick, or just want to spend the day at the beach. It doesn't matter. Up to date progressive companies know the realities of life, so they don't force their employees to lie about things. I like this attitude, because if doesn't force anyone to lie about anything. Some of the biggest and best companies to work for have this policy. Many other companies still want to have strict control over its employees, and do not adopt this refreshing attitude. They want to continue to operate like a dictatorship, with evil management, and have poor staffing problems. This can only lead to poor morale, and hence people don't want to work for that company. That leads to further staffing problems, creating more bickering umongst the employees, and job dissatisfaction. It seems this is a huge problem in the healthcare industry. Very sad.

I worked sometime for business company; we had certain amount of sick days and certain amount of personal days, where you just take it without any explanation for whatever reason yo wish. And when you had to call in sick, you did not need to go into details about how many trips to the bathroom you made overnight to be believed that you are really sick, and you were not made guilty, and did not worry about what your coworkers might think and "tell on you" to the manager. I don't know what's up with nursing that people have to show up or they'd better be dead.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

I worked sometime for business company; we had certain amount of sick days and certain amount of personal days, where you just take it without any explanation for whatever reason yo wish. And when you had to call in sick, you did not need to go into details about how many trips to the bathroom you made overnight to be believed that you are really sick, and you were not made guilty, and did not worry about what your coworkers might think and "tell on you" to the manager. I don't know what's up with nursing that people have to show up or they'd better be dead.

One reason is probably that you absolutely MUST have coverage for patients, it's not like an office job. I agree, management treats nurses like naughty children playing hooky. I'm really on the fence with this one.