co-worker sick 6 days with flu

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

jc, i completely understand your point. having someone sick for that long is going to make your life harder. i understand and feel bad for you.

but, i bet there are days where if you called in sick people wouldn't be that burdened. if you are working on something that has a deadline in 3 weeks and you can make that deadline and miss a day or two of work, I have no problem with people faking a sickness in that case to collect on time off that they haven't used.

Think of it like this. Say you make 50K a year. You probably bill out at roughly 80 bucks an hour. If you have 10 sick days and don't use any of them, tha tis 10 extra days you are working or 80 hours. 80*80 = 6400 dollars. In essence, you did 6400 dollars worth of work for your company above what you agreed to do and didn't get an extra penny for your trouble. It may or may not be noticed by your superiors. And, it's likely more people are like you and everyone is starting to do this so it is almost expected. I think that is ridiculous.

[Popeye_Card]

Think of it like this. Say you make 50K a year. You probably bill out at roughly 80 bucks an hour. If you have 10 sick days and don't use any of them, tha tis 10 extra days you are working or 80 hours. 80*80 = 6400 dollars. In essence, you did 6400 dollars worth of work for your company above what you agreed to do and didn't get an extra penny for your trouble. It may or may not be noticed by your superiors. And, it's likely more people are like you and everyone is starting to do this so it is almost expected. I think that is ridiculous.

At my company, it takes 7 billable hours to make up 1 overhead hour charged back to the company. So using up 10 extra sick days rather than billing that time out has to be made up somewhere else with 70 extra billable hours.

[JCShutout]

AW, these threads are starting to come together: My response is the same as what I said in the other thread.

Oh, AW, I'm not talking about not using all your alloted days. At my company, there are no alloted "sick days", but if you have to miss you have to miss. Kind of a, "don't abuse it" system.

That said, wow, you're really $$$ driven.

EDIT: What popeye and Tabasco said. No tracking system perse, but if you abuse the system, you'll missout on solid bonuses and raises.

I got a 33% raise, even though they knew I only wanted to be here one more year and needed the job (thus had no real barganing power), and would miss some misc school time, and had already scheduled a vacation longer than what they would normally offer (b/c I thought I was going to be between jobs - 6 days instead of 5). I told them I had already paid for the flights so I coulden't miss my trip - BenNX74205's wedding), and was willing to push back my start date (I was moving from houly to salary) until after the vacation so they wouden't have to pay me for time off, and they said, "no, you've worked hard, I think you've earned a paid vacation, and don't worry about taking time off for school"

My employers are far from ideal, but that's not a dick move on their part.

Additionally, I'm looking to eventually, when I teach, not work for money. I want to do something I love. I take the money so I can pay my bills, but I don't care about getting a nice house or a family, I just want to try and help kids achieve something which will empower them. I ether want to teach, or work for a NPO/NGO which works towards a mission I care about. Teachers get a little bit of vacation I think.

I sure as heck don't do that now, but doing this allows me to finish school so I can, and I appreciate that.

[Freed Roger]

I missed three straight weeks of work one time with vertigo-like symptoms. Took the Doctors forever to figure out what was wrong. Imagine having drunk bed-spins when your completely sober,and it doesn't matter if you're laying down,standing up,sitting or anything.

What was it? Sounds like you had a concussion.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Think of it like this. Say you make 50K a year. You probably bill out at roughly 80 bucks an hour. If you have 10 sick days and don't use any of them, tha tis 10 extra days you are working or 80 hours. 80*80 = 6400 dollars. In essence, you did 6400 dollars worth of work for your company above what you agreed to do and didn't get an extra penny for your trouble. It may or may not be noticed by your superiors. And, it's likely more people are like you and everyone is starting to do this so it is almost expected. I think that is ridiculous.

At my company, it takes 7 billable hours to make up 1 overhead hour charged back to the company. So using up 10 extra sick days rather than billing that time out has to be made up somewhere else with 70 extra billable hours.

Don't you think they already have figured that out when they agree to give you X amount of time off? If they are saying you can take 3 weeks off and have no way to pay you for those three weeks, I would guess the company is going to fail pretty soon unless no one is taking time off.....

Again, i'm not advocating hurting your company, but rather simply taking advantage of what they give you.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Additionally, I'm looking to eventually, when I teach, not work for money. I want to do something I love. I take the money so I can pay my bills, but I don't care about getting a nice house or a family, I just want to try and help kids achieve something which will empower them. I ether want to teach, or work for a NPO/NGO which works towards a mission I care about. Teachers get a little bit of vacation I think.

I sure as heck don't do that now, but doing this allows me to finish school so I can, and I appreciate that.

That's awesome. It really is and it will lead to a much happier life than trudging through wishing you didn't have to go to work!!!!

It doesn't mean you have to ignore money completely though. In fact, living "below" where you are capable makes good financial sense.

[Popeye_Card]

Don't you think they already have figured that out when they agree to give you X amount of time off? If they are saying you can take 3 weeks off and have no way to pay you for those three weeks, I would guess the company is going to fail pretty soon unless no one is taking time off.....

Again, i'm not advocating hurting your company, but rather simply taking advantage of what they give you.

The engineers are supposed to maintain a 92% charge-out rate, individually. That covers all of your training, vacation, sick time, etc. That does allow for plenty of sick time if you are otherwise keeping yourself busy.

As for your last note, I guess it depends on how you classify "what they give you". In my line of thinking, the employer allows you 10 or 15 or whatever sick days to be used for when you're unable to work, but not on vacation. And after that, they start docking your pay. I think most employers view using up all your sick time in emergency situations, having a chronic condition, pregnant, etc. If you're a pretty healthy young guy and using up all of your sick time, you don't make a very good impression on the higher-ups. That holds true for any company I've worked for. It's not flex time--it's sick time.

I think I'm paid pretty well for the work I perform. I'm not interested in "taking advantage" of the man.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

The engineers are supposed to maintain a 92% charge-out rate, individually. That covers all of your training, vacation, sick time, etc. That does allow for plenty of sick time if you are otherwise keeping yourself busy.

As for your last note, I guess it depends on how you classify "what they give you". In my line of thinking, the employer allows you 10 or 15 or whatever sick days to be used for when you're unable to work, but not on vacation. And after that, they start docking your pay. I think most employers view using up all your sick time in emergency situations, having a chronic condition, pregnant, etc. If you're a pretty healthy young guy and using up all of your sick time, you don't make a very good impression on the higher-ups. That holds true for any company I've worked for. It's not flex time--it's sick time.

I think I'm paid pretty well for the work I perform. I'm not interested in "taking advantage" of the man.

Yeah, 15 sick days seems way excessive. I am not interested in hurting any company I work for. At all. But, when they say they plan on me not being there 5 days a year due to sickness, I don't feel bad lying about being sick in order to get that time off as long as it's not hurting anyone.

[Hudler]

I missed three straight weeks of work one time with vertigo-like symptoms. Took the Doctors forever to figure out what was wrong. Imagine having drunk bed-spins when your completely sober,and it doesn't matter if you're laying down,standing up,sitting or anything.

What was it? Sounds like you had a concussion.

Menier's disease

[planet planet]

OK, where do I rank on your guys' rant meter? I've had a bad cold the past couple of days which culminated last night/this morning, so I took a half day this morning, slept in to 11:30, and prepared and went to an important 2:00 meeting. No, I was not "completely unable to come into work", but I was a coughing zombie and Dayquil/Nyquil wasn't doing the trick anymore. I would have taken the whole day had I not had an important meeting.