Pandemic personal consequences

[LDC]

The problem with making it a disciplinary matter to come in sick is that it is so often a grey area whether or not one is "sick". I can't count how many days in my life when I've woken up with a sore throat that subsequently dissipates by about 10am. I suspect this is caused by a tendency to sleep with my mouth open, although I don't really have any way of knowing. So if I wake up with a sore throat, is that a sign of illness or just a sign of sleeping badly? I have to make a decision straight away if I'm going to leave the house by 7am, as I need to. If I guess it's just poor sleep and go in but it turns out to be something worse, am I subject to disciplinary action?

That's just a non-issue tbh, if you just have a sore throat and it usually clears up fine then do whatever. Then if you started feeling actually sick at work, you tell someone and go home. Anyway, it's a cultural shift we want, vague individual possibilities aren't the concern.

 

[William of Walworth]

Personally think coming to work ill should be some sort of disciplinary issue. Alongside proper sick pay etc etc.

At my last job (NHS!) going off sick was pretty much looked at as a disciplinary issue ffs.

"Bradford Scale" - a recipe for workplace bullying.

I had to look that up!

And here's the Wiki version

 

[William of Walworth]

And yes, it all looks very 'Management'!!

 

[mx wcfc]

And yes, it all looks very 'Management'!!

I've sent people home for being poorly - dumb fucks who spout "I've never taken a day off sick" as if it's a badge of honour - that was in the civil service and private sector. It's no use ending up with half the team off sick if they've spread a lurgy.

On the other hand, I had one colleague who complained vociferously that their mates in the DHSS were "allowed" 22 days off sick every year, and just took them regardless of whether they were ill or not.

Which is fair play on one level but if you ever had to wait weeks for your dole check ...................

That was over 30 years ago mind.

 

[William of Walworth]

I've sent people home for being poorly - dumb fucks who spout "I've never taken a day off sick" as if it's a badge of honour -

Now that would be good management!

I couldn't really understand how 'The Bradford Scale' works in practice, but the content of the links I posted looked much more like it's a tool for using someone's poor sick record to punish them .....

Where I work -- Civil Service like the DWP -- Managemernt very often use peoples' sick record to put all sorts of bad pressure and disciplinary action against them

I don't really know whether they use 'The Bradford Scale' or not, though

 

[mx wcfc]

Now that would be good management!

Yeah, but "good management" used to be common sense and simple human decency. I'm not sure that applies anymore.

and the civil service sounds quite different now.

private sector is, on one level harder. They don't need the same hard and fast formula, but are always wary of being sued. On this side of the fence (perhaps 20 years ago) I used to work with a bloke who rang in sick every Monday morning. Basically, he'd been on the piss/pills all weekend and needed to recover. Fair play, but it's a bit silly to expect a capitalist employer to put up with that. He walked before he was pushed.

On the other hand just in the last couple of years, my private sector employer has been really supportive of a colleague with a really serious congenital condition, who needed a lot of time off and "consideration" from colleagues and has taken on an employee with a condition that means they can't work normal hours.

It's almost as if the civil service is always a few years behind the private sector and permanently getting things wrong.

I remember a tory demand that the civil service should be more like the private sector, years ago. All that led to was senior civil servants on inflated salaries and University vice chancellors on a quarter of million pounds a year. Which tories also complain about now. But it also led to "normal" employees in the public sector being treated like shit, because that was apparently how the private sector should behave, but isn't, actually when they are dealing with qualified, experienced people.

It's a mess.

and I'm waffling, cos I'm pissed. sorry.

 

[William of Walworth]

Lots to think/talk about there, mx wcfc , but I've got to go to work soon ...

 

[Looby]

The civil service, or at least the bit I worked in, have a strict absence policy based on trigger points. Number of days/absences.
I think after 5 days/2 absences there was an initial discussion.
Basically you could be sacked within 3 or 4 stages. I represented a woman having chemo that was being dismissed.
I can’t imagine other parts of the civil service would be any different in terms of policy but maybe smaller parts might have been more flexible in implementation.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I have a bloody zoom meeting every other Wednesday, with a 7.30 am start, so I am normally just in a t-shirt & boxers, and if I need to get up, I'll just kill the camera.

This morning I was clearly not paying attention and hit the unmute button instead of stop video, and flashed my boxers.

 

[Clair De Lune]

The sun is shining and this weekend I can meet a friend in a garden for a drink This makes me v happy.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Ceramics studio opens up again in April and I'm wondering if I'll go again before the second jab which I suspect is mid-April to May (had first early Feb)

Doubt the work I had half finished will have survived the last 3 months on the shelf without drying out so I'll have to start over as well.

 

[William of Walworth]

The sun is shining and this weekend I can meet a friend in a garden for a drink This makes me v happy.

Our good (Gower) friends who are right in the middle of selling their house and buying their retirement home in Chester -- all going well, it seems -- will be back down here this w/e

And even though the forecast for Saturday and Sunday looks chilly and cloudy in Swansea and around, meeting in the park or on the beach with beers, will amount to much better socialising under the new Welsh rules, than we've been allowed to do for months ....

 

[William of Walworth]

The civil service, or at least the bit I worked in, have a strict absence policy based on trigger points. Number of days/absences.
I think after 5 days/2 absences there was an initial discussion.
Basically you could be sacked within 3 or 4 stages. I represented a woman having chemo that was being dismissed.
I can’t imagine other parts of the civil service would be any different in terms of policy but maybe smaller parts might have been more flexible in implementation.

Bang on accurate, Looby ... when did you work in the CS?

As you probably know, the rules and application of them in our bit of the CS and elsewhere, remain like that

 

[Wolveryeti]

It's almost as if the civil service is always a few years behind the private sector and permanently getting things wrong.

You can't generalise about the whole civil service - there's a lot of variation.

E.g. my last CC employer had no flexible working (i.e. 9-5 expectation for all), weekly timesheets, forced ranking at annual appraisal. Would grudgingly allow 1 day wfh per week.

My current CC employer (pre pandemic) was flexible working, monthly timesheets, informal qualitative performance review and some people were doing 3 wfh per week.

Night and day.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Son has woken with shortness of breath, a cough, and cannot taste chocolate, jam, oregano, or cinnamon. Getting him a test.

None of the rest of us have symptoms but we're obvs all staying home.

Gonna have a lateral flow test in a minute. Not sure how. My anxiety is full steam ahead and I keep boaking with fear

ETA He's being tested at 10

 

[Edie]

Son has woken with shortness of breath, a cough, and cannot taste chocolate, jam, oregano, or cinnamon. Getting him a test.

None of the rest of us have symptoms but we're obvs all staying home.

Gonna have a lateral flow test in a minute. Not sure how. My anxiety is full steam ahead and I keep boaking with fear

ETA He's being tested at 10

Even if the test is negative, clinically he has covid and needs to isolate along with you all. Hope you all sail through okay, thinking of you xx

 

[pinkmonkey]

Last January 2020 I designed a bridal shoe range. That's gonna be the last range for quite a while. The company I did those for is surviving by selling PPE. Yesterday I took on a work gig designing airline amenity kits that hold masks, hand gel and gloves. Oh and I have to design the masks and the prints for the kids masks.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Lateral Flow Test returned a negative for me. He's gone off to be tested with Mrs SI. I'm fussing too much, I was all "make sure you're masked and he sits in the back with the windows open and he wiped everything he touches" etc.

 

[Steel Icarus]

I've not had a proper prolonged anxiety bout for a couple of years and I've not missed them I can tell you. I know I'm overreacting and even as I hear Let's take each thing as it comes my brain is telling me I'm dead in a week lol

 

[LDC]

I've not had a proper prolonged anxiety bout for a couple of years and I've not missed them I can tell you. I know I'm overreacting and even as I hear Let's take each thing as it comes my brain is telling me I'm dead in a week lol

I shared a house with a teenager with covid recently and me and the other person here didn't catch it, we even sat across from them for dinner at probably the most infectious time, and my partner also shared a car with her for about 30mins around the same time, so it's far from certain you'll even get it. Hope it goes OK.

 

[ska invita]

I shared a house with a teenager with covid recently and me and the other person here didn't catch it, we even sat across from them for dinner at probably the most infectious time, and my partner also shared a car with her for about 30mins around the same time, so it's far from certain you'll even get it. Hope it goes OK.

...you may have already had it asymptomatically and be immune?

 

[LDC]

...you may have already had it asymptomatically and be immune?

No, highly unlikely, had antibody test a bit ago, on a vaccine trial that tested me, and also doing lateral flow tests for work. And ditto for other person here. The kid was really good though, she stayed in her room pretty much the whole time, and wiped down the bathroom and any door handles after she used it. She was a bit of a star tbh.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Yeah, he knows he's basically gonna be room bound for a bit if he has it, and wiping stuff after.

 

[maomao]

Yeah, he knows he's basically gonna be room bound for a bit if he has it, and wiping stuff after.

Telling a teenage boy he has to stay in his room is presumably not going to be a tough sell.

 

[Edie]

Yeah, he knows he's basically gonna be room bound for a bit if he has it, and wiping stuff after.

I had Christmas dinner with elderly relatives, kissed both my kids, hugged my ex, and wiped absolutely nothing and didn’t pass it on to anyone (despite having a low fever throughout)- thank God! Also mate even if you get it it won’t be as bad as you fear x

 

[SpookyFrank]

That's just a non-issue tbh, if you just have a sore throat and it usually clears up fine then do whatever. Then if you started feeling actually sick at work, you tell someone and go home. Anyway, it's a cultural shift we want, vague individual possibilities aren't the concern.

Woman I work with yesterday was trying to mark test papers with a migraine aura. Anyone who's had a migraine aura knows that focussing on anything small like writing and numbers while it's happening is out of the question. But this poor woman soldiered on.

Stop for a minute, I told her, just sit there with your eyes shut for half an hour, have a cup of tea and it will pass. But I have to do this, she said. But you can't do it, I said, it's not physically possible for you to do this work right now. But I have to do it....and round and round we go.

We've all internalised the shitty voice of management, is the point of this story. We're more willing to believe impossible things, that despite misplacing a leg we will still emerge victorious from this afternoon's ass-kicking contest, than to accept that we are mortal beings who malfunction in thousands of different ways and who need time off sometimes.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I had Christmas dinner with elderly relatives, kissed both my kids, hugged my ex, and wiped absolutely nothing and didn’t pass it on to anyone (despite having a low fever throughout)- thank God! Also mate even if you get it it won’t be as bad as you fear x

I ran with scissors once and nobody got hurt so now I do it six times a day without fail.

 

[Edie]

I ran with scissors once and nobody got hurt so now I do it six times a day without fail.

I’m not advocating it you wally.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Telling a teenage boy he has to stay in his room is presumably not going to be a tough sell.

I'm trying very hard not to make a crass joke out of the '...and wiping stuff after' bit here.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Telling a teenage boy he has to stay in his room is presumably not going to be a tough sell.

He's been much more sociable recently, he was downstairs with his sister for a couple of hours last night and later came down to see us for an hour. But yeah, he's happy in his cave.