What, (if anything), would make you call in sick to work?

I had fever and vomiting this morning and decided to stay home and recuperate. It's funny that such behavior is discouraged among physicians (especially surgeons who have some macho attitude), because it's essentially encouraging being sick around patients. I'm expecting to get either the cold shoulder tomorrow or get chewed out, but I couldn't care less really.

I've got to be seriously sick in order to call off from work. To the point where I literally cannot perform my job duties.

I absolutely hate people coming into work sick, it spreads and screws over everybody. Take some time off ya selfish bastards instead of making everyone suffer

Depends on the severity and how much contact I have with others. Usually gastrointestinal problems are the most inconvenient, so if they're bad I would stay home. Lower respiratory infections can be really nasty and might also be worth it.

The sad part is, I used to bartend, and I wasn't allowed to call in sick at all. I had to come to work no matter what, even though I was serving drinks.

Since I feel ****ty at the drop of a hat (given a poor diet, poor sleep schedule and travel sicnkess), nothing short of incapacitation will stop me going into work.

Usually, I have to be really sick to call in - upper respiratory, chills, etc. I also checked Nothing as sometimes I do call in for the occasional mental health day. Maybe that should have been "other"...

It really depends on the job though.

I'd say all of the above but only for serious things. I won't call in for a minor headache, but if I had a huge migrane and couldn't function, well, no point in being there. Only a couple things would make me not go at any level: vomiting and fevers.

I hate missing work. It's either got to be a) a ****ty time at work with not a big work load or b) I'm nearly on my death bed because I hate missing work

Considering I can do almost all of my job from home (although I hate doing so), aside from direct client interaction, I'd stay home for anything more than a minor headache, slight cough, etc. If I'm sneezing or coughing a lot, I'm not going into the office, cause I know how annoying it is when someone else does that.

However to not work at all I'd need to be sick enough to not be able to actually do my job. So I'd basically have to be sick enough to not want to get out of bed at all.

Anything short of vomiting and I'll generally go in. If it's upper respiratory, I'll just make sure I'm not spreading pathogens, but I draw the line at vomiting.

I haven't taken a sick day in 2 and a half years. I recall roughly 10 days where I should certainly have stayed home, but I can't stand missing work.

Strangely, if I actually feel sick but I want to come in, I come in.

The days which I feel like damn-I-just-don't-give-a-**** are the ones I actually think about not coming in, despite being (physically) fine.

i can usually manage with a headache... but if it gets to the point where advil does nothing then I will leave early

The last time I took a sick day was last summer (2009), when I had Beaver Fever (actually, the tests results came back negative, so I never found out what it was... but I had the symptoms. The hershey squirts aint fun!).

Generally, the jobs that I have held in the past have me working outside a lot... this keeps me pretty healthy, and I rarely feel sick.

Right now, though, as I am teaching at a college, I'd have to be seriously sick in order to call in and say I'm not coming. It's not easy to get another teacher to cover your class at the last moment.

Law student. I'll skip generally at the slightest opportunity, and certainly chill out a bit after having a gunman on campus. Will be sleeping to noonish tomorrow, I think.

Interesting. I didn't know this was a real term meaning giardiasis...

I've never taken a sick day from work, but I guess vomiting would do it.

Fever or severe cold or flu or whatever.

In Finland you usually seem to be able to take 3 days off without a doctor's certificate so in theory I could be "sick" more often. Huhm.

I'm not allowed to call in sick. I have to go in to work no matter what, and then I have to go to Sick Call. They'll decide whether or not I'm fit to work. If I absolutely cannot get up to go into work, then I'm expected to go to the ER. Pretty much sucks. Since I've been in the Navy (over 2 years), I've only ever had a "sick day" once ... That was when I got swine flu and was put in quarantine for 7 days. It was running wild on the ship during our last deployment and anyone that got it had to be quarantined to try and prevent the spread.

That said, at my old job, I used to take a "sick" day probably 1 to 2 times a month. They kept giving me all these sick days and sometimes I'd wake up on a friday and not feel like going in. So I'd call in sick. My boss knew I wasn't really sick, but didn't care, because I never went over my sick days. I thought of it as a three day weekend.

It'd have to be something that would hinder me from doing my job (or something contagious).

The only sick time I've taken was to recover from eye surgery; have never taken a sick day (yet) otherwise. I have left early when sick, but I did show up first.

Either explosive diarrhea or uncontrollable vomiting, that's it.

This. Especially since I have a weakened immune system as it is (LOL AIDS... but really CVID, look it up). People who come to work sick are guaranteed to make me have to take days off. Thankfully my company recognizes my disorder and provides me with more sick time than the average employee.

Also, agreed with Deadman and Yecti.

And Darth, have you ever had a very high fever? You may not be having diarrhea or vomiting, but it's just as serious a condition and can incapacitate you just as quickly.

(For example, when I did have swine flu, before I was put into quarantine, I was barely able to walk up the ladderwells on the ship.)

You still work for Best Buy? Because I know they sure weren't that accommodating to me when I worked there. At all. In fact, they all but fired me over it, despite having mountains of paperwork written and signed by various doctors about it. They wouldn't actually fire me, but they reduced my hours to the point where it wasn't worth my time to even come in.

Well, I mean obviously if I'm hallucinating because my head is so hot, I'd probably not go anywhere but a hospital. Yet, people frequently fake, bull****, and over exaggerate their illness.

Not a stab at Matty, but I always find it funny when hourly employees say "it's not worth my time" because I can calculate exactly how much your time it's worth. It's probably hovering right around $10 an hour.

I know that's not what you meant, but that's what it caused me think about.

Well yea, but the idea is time in bulk, not per hour. If I end up with a $50 paycheck after taxes at the end of the week, I'm barely breaking even after gas and food. I actually made more money sitting on my ass at home doing random crap.

I know, I've been there before. $5.75 an hour (in 2001), four hour shift, 30 minute commute each way. **** that.

Yes, I still work for Best Buy. And believe me, as a store associate it definitely wasn't the case. I ended up using the vacation time I otherwise never had the ability to use (been working for BBY since 2000) for illness most of the time; which is an egregious HR violation, however my management was okay given the circumstances.

However, as a corporate employee there are different levels of benefits that become available to you once you're no longer reporting through the ranks of a store. The primary one for me obviously being that given my tenure with the company I was able to speak with human resources about adjusting my employment package to include additional sick time and personal holiday hours to accommodate for my disorder. This is not something that is done at the company's behest, but rather something I had to work for and negotiate and ultimately find executive sponsorship to accomplish. Thankfully I have a number of friends in SVP / EVP positions and was able to get this taken care of.

I don't call it Best Buy anymore, I call it the Buy More.

I don't work for an hourly wage, but I still never call in sick.

I just take days off when I feel like it. Usually Mondays, sometimes Tuesdays.

I want to be more like you.:eng101:

No you don't.

If I call in sick, I'll miss out on $200-$300 for 6 hours of work (bartender). So nothing short of vomiting or intense fever will keep me home.

Plus it would screw over anyone else working that night and the bar.

I work food prep, so I play it safe. If I can't get my nose plugged up I stay home, thankfully I have a badass immune system so that means about a day every few months.

Last time I missed work was when I got hit by a car. Since then I've only been on bereavement.

Unless it's flu or some sort of serious stomach virus I usually just med-up and go back to work. I haven't taken a sick day since last year when I got salmonella poisoning. How awful that was.

I don't find that hard to believe.

It really doesn't take much for me to call in sick. To me it's just one of those things where if I know I'm going to be doing something while trying to hold in coughing, blowing my nose, sneezing, it's just not worth my time to go to class and such ( i'm only a student now so this will probably change). But as it stands right now, i know that if I'm sick I just wont' concentrate during class, so it just isn't worth my time to go.