Attendance Policies

[33anda3rd]

I think that's a good reason to have a blanket policy for everyone, so that people who are not as conscientious as tlombard but work in places with dual policies don't rock the boat by visibly violating a policy that doesn't apply to them but does to others.

[Leroy]

We're adults in my firm. We actually show up when we are supposed to. And on time even.

We don't need that third grade crap.

Of course I should get a ribbon for showing up as scheduled. I want a @@@@ing ribbon.

[Jocephus]

--and cooks, physically, are not always in terribly great shape and health and need sick days.

im curious if there is a "reason" for that, from what you've seen.

[Michael]

For salary positions moving to PTO clears up a lot of this nonsense.

[tlombard]

Sadly there is a reason for the policies we have for hourly positions, especially in customer service. You used to be able to clock in up to 15 minutes late with no limit but then one guy ruined it for everybody. He clocked in 14 minutes late EVERY SINGLE DAY. And he was a horrible employee. He grew up well off and was only working because his parents made him get a job. I wasn't in the department at the time but I would walk through the customer service room later in the evening after the supervisors had left and see him kicked back with his feet up on his desk talking on the phone with a friend and trying to get into online casinos all while the phone system overflow was going off.

Instead of trying to act like they left and sneak up on him to catch him in the act (we didn't have the capabilities to nail him via the phone logs like we would now) they just put in a limit to the number of times you could clock in late without consequences and it didn't take long to have the justification to fire him. He just couldn't get here on time.

[cards2468]

They won't tell us how many sick days we get. Work day is 6:30am-4pm, show up late, get chewed out, leave on time, get evil stares. Take a sick day, get judged for it. Funeral? They will dock you pay for the amount of time you take off for it unless it's an immediate relative (this happened to me when I took off 2 days to travel for my wife's grandmother's funeral). If they decide you're sick too often or not working as many hours as they magically decided should be required, they fire you at the end of the season. Very passive aggressive system.

[tlombard]

For salaried employees we don't actually have a set number of sick days. All up to your boss. Because half of my group was hourly previously I had an official 5 day max limit but it was never actually enforced. Of course I never even came close to calling in five times in a calendar year.

My old boss was great too. When he first took over our group he literally told another guy in myself (we like to have fun) to just text him if we need to take a sick day and don't even bother calling so that we didn't have to fake being sick. Said he understands and sometimes just needs a day off too and that way nobody has to feel uncomfortable about anything.

[MrCrowesGarden]

I love that about where I work now. If you're late a few minutes due to traffic, have an errand to run on the way, or have to take a kid to the dentist, it's no big deal. You can make it up later if you want to make up the time, or if you're hourly you can just lose the time. As long as you're doing you're work and you're not missing meetings.

This sounds like where I work now. Granted, I don't know anyone who has no-call/no-showed, but if you're going to be late or absent, they just believe you. I do know people that have blown through their sick days and end up having to use their vacation/floating holidays to make up for it.

By far the most strict job I ever had on attendance was emergency medical helicopter dispatching. If your shift started at 6AM, you were expected to be there at 6:00:00. Knew a guy who was marked tardy because he was 11 seconds late.

[tlombard]

I know one person who has been fired for no call/no show. She messed up big time and lost a great job. She's the reason that I get extremely nervous every time a friend picks up a second job at a bar to pick up extra cash. She started at Hooters and was working so much that Hooters became her social life and would go out for a few drinks with them after they closed. Then she moved to another actual bar and things just went downhill.

Not going to lie, part of me loved the Hooters stretch because on the few evenings she had off she'd want to do something and her and I would end up at Hooters just sitting there getting all of the attention in the world from the girls. I couldn't complain about sitting in a booth at the bar surrounded by four or five Hooters girls when things were slow.

Then she just kept slowly slipping and got in an accident after being out after work one night. They didn't charge her with anything at the time but eventually they charged her with DUI and issued a warrant for her arrest. Instead of taking care of it right away she left the next day for a holiday weekend at a lake near where she grew up near Chicago figuring she'd take care of it when she got back. On her way home she was pulled over for speeding and they found the warrant. It took them four days to transfer her from Sangamon County Jail back to the City so she could get out. Whoever she called wasn't her job and they didn't let her bosses know so when she missed work she was fired. If whoever she called had just called her bosses they would have worked it out and she would have been able to keep her job but they didn't. At the time she called me for everything so I wish she would have called me that time too. I was and am still friends with her bosses and would have not only thought to call them but I had both of their numbers and would have been able to call.

After that she ended up relying solely on working in bars to make ends meet and just went farther and farther downhill. She eventually bottomed out but thankfully eventually got her stuff together and is now married, back in her field as a radiation therapist and going back to school at SLU to further her career.

[Gashouse]

We're project based, so as long as you finish your work and bill enough hours, I don't care when you show up. Work it out with your team if it's short notice, but otherwise take it whenever you need to.

Ding ding ding. Kid was sick yesterday, and fortunately, my calendar wasn't very full. I just rescheduled the only meeting I had scheduled, so that was the only person I officially told I was going to be gone. Worked a little from home during the day and last night. Now working a long day today to meet a deadline.