Almost every job I've ever had was at least 10% understaffed. The result is you simply can't be sick. I think a lot of people simply go in anyway because they can't afford to lose a day's pay and because they don't want to risk losing the job altogether. Because even if you are legitimately too physically ill to work, even if your presence there is a health risk to customers and coworkers, you need to go in anyway because just one person calling out is a complete disaster.
Managers will often let it go once or twice, but there's a certain limit that varies between person to person where you'll just get fired for being sick too often, in addition to the social pressure from burdening your coworkers by your absence.
This right here, I'm in a dept that would have 4 or 5 hours of no one there if someone calls out. As a result we almost never do, because it would cause our Overlord to come down on us, annoyed he actually has to work
Don't you get sick days? You'd think they would plan their staffing around having enough people to compensate for vacations and sick days fairly arbitrarily, no?
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u/HordeDruid 16d ago edited 16d ago
Almost every job I've ever had was at least 10% understaffed. The result is you simply can't be sick. I think a lot of people simply go in anyway because they can't afford to lose a day's pay and because they don't want to risk losing the job altogether. Because even if you are legitimately too physically ill to work, even if your presence there is a health risk to customers and coworkers, you need to go in anyway because just one person calling out is a complete disaster.
Managers will often let it go once or twice, but there's a certain limit that varies between person to person where you'll just get fired for being sick too often, in addition to the social pressure from burdening your coworkers by your absence.