Do you ride when sick?

[Palm_Beach]

@GoodTimes

Do you stay home if you have a cold and could potentially infect other people, or do you go to work because you know they’ll be short staffed and busy tired employees are more at risk of making mistakes?

No one should ever have to make that decision - it sucks you were forced to make that kind of choice.

f you are sick, stay home. There is such a crazy mindset in corporate America wrt paid time off. If each employee gets 18 sick days a year, then #employees x 18 = # shifts that need to be covered so that every employee does their job effectively and every patient has compentent healthy staff looking after him or her.

That was one of my reasons for leaving the corporate world - having to cover for employees who were not there but not getting paid extra for the extra work I had to do. Bring in temps or swing contract workers and give them some of the easier less complicated work and the healthy regular employees can handle the more complicated stuff. Give them extra pay for the work, or factor in the number of times an employee took on a harder shift to cover for an absent employee when calculating bonuses. Reward the harder work with more pay.

I find that employee morale is great when they are getting paid for extra work, and dismal when they are forced to do extra work for no pay. An employee who wants to do the extra work and volunteers to do the extra work is going to do a good job vs. the employee who is forced to do the extra work with no or little compensation.

[GoodTimes]

@Palm Beach

No one should ever have to make that decision - it sucks you were forced to make that kind of choice.

f you are sick, stay home. There is such a crazy mindset in corporate America wrt paid time off. If each employee gets 18 sick days a year, then #employees x 18 = # shifts that need to be covered so that every employee does their job effectively and every patient has compentent healthy staff looking after him or her.

That was one of my reasons for leaving the corporate world - having to cover for employees who were not there but not getting paid extra for the extra work I had to do. Bring in temps or swing contract workers and give them some of the easier less complicated work and the healthy regular employees can handle the more complicated stuff. Give them extra pay for the work, or factor in the number of times an employee took on a harder shift to cover for an absent employee when calculating bonuses. Reward the harder work with more pay.

I find that employee morale is great when they are getting paid for extra work, and dismal when they are forced to do extra work for no pay. An employee who wants to do the extra work and volunteers to do the extra work is going to do a good job vs. the employee who is forced to do the extra work with no or little compensation.

This is not just corporate America. (This was a Canadian hospital like I said in the post).
I absolutely understand and for the most part agree with you that no one should have to make that choice, but reality says it happens every day, in every hospital around the world (and lots of corporate offices, schools, etc). The issue with hospitals is that most positions can not be replaced by a temp and it’s unrealistic and impossible in many places to have enough casual staff to cover.
I’m a cardiac sonographer, my job can only be done by other cardiac sonographers or by a trained physician. I work in a rural area where it’s just me and one doctor within an hour drive who can do these tests. If I call in sick they can’t simply pick up the phone and call someone to do my job. It means very sick patients have to wait or get transported elsewhere for the test, and the remaining patients get cancelled. It is very much a risk benefit situation.
When I worked in the larger hospital there was more coverage and it wasn’t as much of an issue if someone was sick, but again, with specialized jobs a sick employee usually can’t be replaced the same day.

P.S. I can’t imagine taking 18 sick days off work for things like the common cold or mild flu. Unless you have comorbidities that’s a little ridiculous. I don’t remember anyone at that hospital taking more then 5-10 days/yr. The 18 days was only because we had a union.

[luvmyhackney]

I used to ride through everything, now that I only ride 1x a week if I’m lucky and my kids ride the rest of the time, I’m not as pushed to ride through feeling like crap. If I have a migraine or throwing up, I don’t ride or go out. Other than that I usually go out and ride my 1 day I can.

[billiebob]

The only time I can ever remember not riding due to health reasons was when I had my gall bladder taken out. I was back mucking stalls 5 days later, but didn’t ride or run for about 2 weeks (oh, to be 21 again and in the best physical shape of my life…). That being said, I have no major health issues (anymore) and I’m stubborn. I’ve ridden with broken toes, a broken tailbone, and a fractured hand. You know that George Morris saying about getting back on if you don’t have to go to the hospital? That’s me in a nutshell. Don’t follow my example, kids.

I think I’ve taken maybe 5 sick days in the last 10 years. I worked at one job where I was the sole employee for most of my time there and I felt sick days were a luxury I could not afford. It is very hard for me to get out of that mindset. With my current job I can take sick days without things going to hell, but I still drag myself in when I maybe shouldn’t. I don’t like feeling like other people are doing my job and I don’t like asking for help.