need help with a very difficult supervisor

There are a couple of different concepts in play here.

1. The attendance policy can be whatever the organization says it is. Sick time is not a legally-mandated benefit. Know your policies.

2. If you work for an employer who offers sick time benefits, however, they are required to abide by their own policies. In other words -- if there are policies/structure in place to address unexpected time off -- including illness/injury which lasts longer than 1-3 days -- they cannot disicipline/penalize you if your situation meets the requirements of those policies, i.e., appropriate documentation from a medical provider that your condition was ____ for ___ dates..

3. A 10-day absence may well fall under some kind of short-term disability policy, rather than a more typical short-term absence of a day or two. Again -- look up your facility's policies! Contact human resources if you have trouble finding this information.

I would make sure I know the policy and then go to HR and let them know the issue.

I have worked places that dinged you per incident-calling out with the flu would have been one incident and not 10 days.

In my opinion, 10 days off work for the flu seems excessive.

In my opinion, 10 days off work for the flu seems excessive.

I'm guessing you've never had true influenza.

Thanks, everyone, for your feedback. I made an appointment to talk to someone in HR this week, and I will discuss this matter with them. When I wrote my post, I made a mistake in that I didn't miss 10 days of work. Instead, I meant to write that I was sick with an elevated fever for 10 days. I think that I missed around 7 days total. And, this strain of influenza was very wicked. It took almost everyone that had it at least 7 days to get over it.

I agree that I will just do whatever it takes to let this blow over. No matter what, you can't win with this boss.

Ultimately though, it has just made me wonder why there are no infection protocols for influenza when there are such strong protocols for MRSA, C. Diff, and other very dangerous bugs. If I had been able to drag myself to work when I had the high fever, I would have been very contagious. It just seems very dangerous to work around patients that may be immunocompromised. I realize influenza doesn't fall into the same class of superbugs as MRSA and the others I listed above, but it's still a very contagious and potentially dangerous bug.

There is a lot of pressure for staff to come to work when they're sick, and it's common to see another staff member coughing or sneezing with a bad cold. Ultimately, we all worry about our absenteeism rate. I suppose that this hits very close to home because I lost a very dear friend to pneumonia last year after she was admitted to the hospital for a simple problem. I had befriended this elderly lady at the nursing home where I volunteer, and over the course of 5 years, she became like a grandmother to me. Last spring, she broke her leg, and they admitted her for a few days to watch her. I ended up staying with her at night, and I was bothered by the fact that one of her CNAs had a bad cold. Every time she entered my dear friend's room, she was coughing and sneezing. Then, just a couple of days later, my dear friend started developing signs of a bad cold, and it then progressed into double pneumonia. She went downhill fast, and I held her hand as she took her last breaths. I will never know for sure if she contacted this virus from the CNA that was sick, but I can tell you that I will always remember what happened.

When I think back to when I was sick with the flu, I know that I had no choice but to call out sick. There is nothing I could have done differently. I don't remember when my fever was really high, but my family and doctor told me that I was hallucinating and "out of it." Obviously, I couldn't have done my job like this. I will just have to somehow deal with the wrath of my boss.

Thanks again, and stay well. Have a great remainder to your week!

Best always :heartbeat

I am curious what the policy would be for such things as surgery or childbirth? At my place a sick day is a sick day...

This is one of my pet peeves about nursing. I don't believe anyone who is involved with direct care should come to work with a communicable disease. Period. As the OP pointed out, even a cold can be devastating to someone who is immunocompromised.

I've worked in LTC and have seen people come to work with fevers, diarrhea during an outbreak of Norwalk virus, and upper respiratory infections. They've been pressured by the facility to come in when they're sick even though they may spread their crud to frail elderly persons for whom such infections can be fatal.

I know that it's tough to work short-staffed. And I know that some people do call in sick even if they aren't. But this is a patient safety issue. A nurse with the flu should not be at work, especially if he/she is exposing people who are already sick.

I'm sorry that you're going through this and yes, I think your supervisor is being unreasonable.