Soccer sickies

1664kronenbourg · 5 Jul 2021 at 15:09

When I was last in work (Saturday night) there was a shortage of staff, especiallyas England were playing against the Ukraine and I joked about it being Sickieday or Sick Note Saturday.
I don't know how much the sick note culture affects the economy due to loss of working hours but it's givenme an idea for a thread (two of the other staf werewtching the match on their smartphones on the shopfloor- What's your exscuse for a sickie when the football's on?

something daft already!! · 5 Jul 2021 at 15:12

I've not taken any time off sick in years. I enjoy my work.

dave28 · 5 Jul 2021 at 15:17

depends where you work. Government jobs are full sick pay for long periods so they are off whenever they feel like it.

there are about 15 people on sick at my dads council depot.

But then i used to work where there was minimum sick pay and they came into work even with a very bad flu

robgmun · 5 Jul 2021 at 15:20

something daft already!! said:
I've not taken any time off sick in years. I enjoy my work.

Unless you work at the Playboy mansion then you're a werido

413x · 5 Jul 2021 at 15:23

something daft already!! said:
I've not taken any time off sick in years. I enjoy my work.

You're lucky!

something daft already!! · 5 Jul 2021 at 16:02

413x said:
You're lucky!

Yeah I know. It's been a long time coming but I found it in the end.

robgmun said:
Unless you work at the Playboy mansion then you're a werido

Why so? Work doesn't have to be something which causes you pain. I actually get a buzz from my job. The people I help are mostly very grateful and give a glowing report when prompted.

Dyson · 5 Jul 2021 at 16:04

I wouldn't take a sickie, would feel too guilty. Sick pay is there to help when you need it, not additional holiday.

Quartz · 5 Jul 2021 at 16:12

dave28 said:
there are about 15 people on sick at my dads council depot.

Which council? I used to be a council employee (Bucks CC) in the 90s and this sort of thing was dealt with severely.

These days if I were an employer with a football-loving workforce I'd arrange some sort of event at work.

MooMoo444 · 5 Jul 2021 at 16:14

I'd have thought it would be too obvious that people are sick when England are playing. Let em go.

Feek · 5 Jul 2021 at 16:15

Quartz said:
These days if I were an employer with a football-loving workforce I'd arrange some sort of event at work.

Going back to some football tournament between 1996 and 2000 (I can't remember which one it was), at the time, I was working at the head office of Britvic in Chelmsford and some England matches were scheduled during working hours. We set up the big meeting room with a screen and anyone who wanted to watch the match was encouraged to go there to do so.

Werewolf · 5 Jul 2021 at 16:19

dave28 said:
there are about 15 people on sick at my dads council depot.

I would have two questions about that, how big is the depot and are they "off sick" with short term things (or say covid isolation), or long term.

Most councils these days tend to be more like private firms than the councils of old in terms of sick days and general working conditions.

adolf hamster · 5 Jul 2021 at 16:41

Dyson said:
I wouldn't take a sickie, would feel too guilty. Sick pay is there to help when you need it, not additional holiday.

this, absolutely this.

sick days are there for when you are sick. you wanna take a day off because reasons that's called a holiday.

it's one of those systems that is ruined by dishonest idiots who can't or won't distinguish that difference.

even worse i reckon it's something that's been leant on heavily with covid and self-isolation requirements.

Rroff · 5 Jul 2021 at 16:44

Feek said:
Going back to some football tournament between 1996 and 2000 (I can't remember which one it was), at the time, I was working at the head office of Britvic in Chelmsford and some England matches were scheduled during working hours. We set up the big meeting room with a screen and anyone who wanted to watch the match was encouraged to go there to do so.

Some previous companies I worked for would work around the major games getting people to come in earlier if possible, if they wanted, so they could leave in good time to watch the games, etc. etc. it is a bit poor for a one off thing like this if companies can pro-actively make an effort - obviously they can't be doing it for all and every sports event of note and so on but still.

DXP55 · 5 Jul 2021 at 17:01

I'm sick of socca

chroniclard · 5 Jul 2021 at 17:06

Never taken one, 9-5 job usually and the employer generally made provisions for huge matches. Like going to the pub to watch the Brazil world cup game when it was 10am in the morning. Otherwise this tournament has mostly been outside work hours.

Scam · 5 Jul 2021 at 17:16

Couldn't care less about the football but I am moving house on Thursday and the removal guys are due at 8am. There better not be any shenanigans on their part...

VincentHanna · 5 Jul 2021 at 17:39

A solicitor in our house chain left early on June 29th to watch the England game, so we couldn't complete.

Everyone was fuming because the deadline to beat the stamp duty was June 30th.*

*We still managed to complete on the 30th.

Pawnless Endgame · 5 Jul 2021 at 17:43

dave28 said:
depends where you work. Government jobs are full sick pay for long periods so they are off whenever they feel like it.

This!

I've worked in both private sector and public sector.

In private sector, sick pay is normally either half pay or statutory only. End result is that most people were only off a few days per year on average. Anything longer meant that they were having an operation or had a serious injury.

In public sector, sick pay is full pay anywhere between 1 and 6 months per year depending on how many years service you've had. We've seen patterns of sickie Fridays, sickie paydays and people playing the stress card. They go off for 6 months then they suddenly come back only because they've out-stayed their 6 months full pay. It's bleedingly obvious!

As for football, that would be the equivalent to me as clubbing. So if I knew I was going to have a heavy night out, I would book the day before or after off. People pulling football sickies would be too obvious imo.

LeeUK · 5 Jul 2021 at 17:57

If someone wants to take a sickie, for whatever reason, let them. We work to live not live to work. Can't stand folk who parrot on about never taking a sick day in 20 years and so on. Whoopie do for you.

Jean-F · 5 Jul 2021 at 18:11

For the vast majority of my working life I was self-employed, I could hardly call myself and say that I wouldn’t be in that day, plus I wouldn’t watch football if they played the World Cup in my back yard, so there’d be zero chance of my calling in sick to watch it.
The only times that I pulled a sickie when I was employed, was when after being delayed in loading my oil tanker, I knew without a doubt that I couldn’t get home if I took the load to its destination, and would have to overnight in some one horse town out in the boonies.
I only did it twice, but I went to the transport office and said that I was feeling nauseous and clammy, and they advised me to go home and either visit my G.P. or come back to work when it had passed.