Off sick, calls from manager

NoobCannon

NoobCannon

NoobCannon

Soldato
Joined
13 Jun 2011
Posts
6,053
Hi all.

first time ive been in this situation as ive been self employed up untill April last year.

We are very under staffed, were running A 4/5 man contract on 3 and a part timer. One of my colleagues is on 2 weeks leave and as of Tuesday morning i have been off sick.

yesterday afternoon i recieved a phone call from my manager 1. To complain that i have to call him by 9am to let him know that im not coming in (apparently texting at 10pm the night before To explain that im really not well isnt acceptable) and 2. To essentially make me feel guilty for being off sick, saying things such as “you know i was relying on you being in Thursday” and “the other guys are really busy and cant do what was planned for you”

Being self employed before if i was sick the firm didn't care as i just didn't get paid and my work just pushed back until i returned.

have any if you been made to feel the same way? I assume its not right to try and make you feel like your letting everyone down because your sick.
 
This is pretty standard sadly. Still to this day i've yet meet a manager who leads from the front and by example.
Just tell the manager, "sorry yeah okay", in a dumb kind of sense, as that's what he likely thinks of his team.
Or if you're a confident person, explain that you were best intended, he needs to take a step back and think, and ultimately his actions have made you unhappy.

These kind of people soon back off when you show that you won't take no crap. I've never had a problem with a manager threatening to try and dicipline me as i've always been right to show some aggression, and more importantly always turn up to work and work hard.
 
The phone call part may well be company policy, I've worked for places where it had to be done as a call rather than a text even though my manager was quite happy for me to just drop him a message.

The other bit tell him to stick it, if he's running his team so lean that he can't factor in sick time then that's his problem not yours and I wouldn't expect to be made to feel guilty about it. My manager will normally ask if there's anything critical that needs passing over to someone else that day but that's as far as it goes.
 
So the 9:00am call is usually standard however I’ve yet to meet a boss who c@red, I just sent a mess at 7am advising I wouldn’t be in.

phoning you is out of order, you’re sick - don’t answer.
 
When I have sick days I normally just message my manager.

I always find a phone call in this situation so forced and awkward.

I don't take many days off though for sickness, probably why my manager is happy to get a message rather than a call.
 
Stu999 said:
Phone calls are usually pretty standard on each day that you are going to be off unless otherwise agreed with your manager.
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^This.

That said, if one person going off sick is having such an effect on the productivity of his team, then he's a crap manager. If he tries to make you feel guilty again, ask him if he'd rather you come to work and risk infecting the rest of the team, that'll shake him up a bit.

It's understandable that he's likely very stressed given the current situation however he could've prevented this himself completely, and taking it out on you is just awful form and would be a massive red flag for me. A good manager will find a way to get the job done regardless, not use his staff as punching bags.

Honestly some of the stories I read really make me wonder if I'm a good manager, or if those around me are just crap.


Don't take it Noob, you're not paid to deal with this rubbish.
 
Today will be my second day off sick since Joining April last year so im not exactly a sick note.

Will call him this morning to say that i wont be in. And just ignore anything else he says in relation to the guilt tripping. In my current state i wouldn't be able to do anything anyway
 
While they shouldn’t make you feel like you let anyone down the rest is reasonable. We have no text has to be phone call and by 7am. A phone call the night before is ok but not a text.
 
The call every day thing is pretty standard for most employers, I've never known one to actively enforce it but its usually in the employee handbook.

The guilt tripping thing is wrong though, if he tries that today just end the conversation quickly 'I am off sick, we can discuss when I'm back in the office' - and then when you're back in the office let him know that pressuring you to come into work when you're sick is out of line and against company policy. I've only ever had one person try that with me in the past and I shut it down pretty quickly, never happened again.
 
This stuff irks the crap out of me tbh. This isn't convenient for me... well no ****, it's not exactly rosy this end otherwise I'd be at work, clearly.

Call in the morning is pretty standard though, but as people have said, most reasonable people accept a note the previous evening for god sake. You're sick, rest up, get better. Simple as.
 
You've got to play the game. Your manager isn't getting on you about being sick (he's not allowed to), he's getting on you for not following company policy and calling in when you are supposed to. Just make the call, say you're too ill to work, shut down any other conversation. Refuse to be guilted, it's not your fault the company has cut staff to the bone and can't deal with a few sick days.
 
Sounds like a numpty, he had the text the night before so what does a phone call in the morning matter? Did he get any additional information from you by calling? If not then it was a waste of his time and your time.

[phone call rant]
Phone calls interrupt people and request they drop what they’re doing and give you their time right now - if the topic isn’t urgent or doesn’t require immediate reply/information from the other party then they’re just rude/annoying... send a text or an e-mail. I put my phone on silent at one company, if I saw it flashing then I’d chose to answer based on who was calling and what I was doing, if I missed it then I’d just look at the recent calls. If someone wants to get hold of you they can use instant messenger or e-mail... it doesn’t demand you drop everything.[/phone call rant]

I don’t see how the work situation is relevant, you’re either sick or your not... this guy telling you about how difficult it is etc... isn’t going to magically make you well, I’d be inclined to politely tell him something along those lines and end the call unless he’s got any questions.

“Look I get the picture Bob, but I’m sick and there isn’t anything I can do about that now, let’s figure it out when I get back to work but unless you need something from me urgently I’m going back to bed now”
 
This is a bit of a tricky one for me as I can see both angles and am now a manager.

Company procedure for us is that you have to ring on the day, between 8AM-9AM so if someone texts me, whilst I appreciate the heads up, I ask them to call. I've had it before where it's all to easy to throw a sicky and text me, so I merely enforce the company policy.

He shouldn't have started banging on about how busy the team are, but I've said that once or twice before in truth. I think from my perspective it entirely depends on the reason for the sickness.

For example, I once had a guy on the team that suffered from IBS, there were trigger foods and for some reason, he would keep on eating them and then repeatedly phoned in sick. I suggested he perhaps should ease off on the trigger foods and he simply wasn't interested.

Also lines like "I won't be in today, I cooked some chicken last night, it tasted really off but I still ate it and now my anus is exploding" - All this when he was in probation as well.

What I don't do is attempt to contact the person once they've called in sick though.
 
dowie said:
Sounds like a numpty, he had the text the night before so what does a phone call in the morning matter? Did he get any additional information from you by calling? If not then it was a waste of his time and your time.
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Phone calls are very standard. In my business experience it also seems to help weed out some of the more dubious sickness absences from a small subset of employees. The actual phone call itself isn't that big of a deal.
 
The phonecall thing is a bit of a joke, if someone is genuinely ill and knows they are not coming in the next day the last thing I'd want them to have to do is set an alarm at a fixed time just to call in and disrupt their rest which they probably need to help recover. At the same time someone who is using a sick day as a personal holiday can just call in that morning and claim they're not coming in, giving less time to try and find cover for them. Also with a phonecall it's your word against theirs, with an email/sms there's written confirmation.
 
Pudney said:
Phone calls are very standard. In my business experience it also seems to help weed out some of the more dubious sickness absences from a small subset of employees. The actual phone call itself isn't that big of a deal.
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How does it help to do that? Like unless someone is fully taking the Micky and actually at some music festival/all day rave with music blaring in the background etc.. then phoning up to call in sick doesn’t give much additional information. If you’ve got food poisoning or flu etc.. then a manager who isn’t medically qualified isn’t diagnosing it on the phone, in fact it opens it up to nonsense like “oh you don’t sound ill” etc... or even asking for details is a potential can of worms - like say a female employee has some private issue she’d rather not discuss with a male manager. This is the sort of policy that doesn’t really have a tangible benefit and opens up the potential for the sort of nonsesnse the OP had to deal with and/or potentially worse. That it’s common or standard in some places doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good policy.
 
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