How often is it acceptable to call in sick?

September 29, 2023 7:44 AM

I'm feeling very guilty about calling in sick yesterday and today. I just passed my 3 month probation and have only been sick one other day but I'm concerned they will flag me as a malingerer.

I've been feeling very fatigued this week, I think due to being on new antidepressants and perhaps also because I'm anemic.

On Monday I was working from home and got hit by incredible fatigue and staggered to my bed to sleep. I didn't even care that I was supposed to be working, it was overwhelming.

Its gotten better but I called in sick yesterday and today as when I woke up I felt I didn't have the strength to get out of bed. Both days I've messaged in sick and then slept until midday.

I feel incredibly guilty though, as once I'm up and out of bed, I am definitely capable of working from home.

In addition there is a deadline on Monday which I'm dreading and scared about not being able to meet/making mistake. I
think I could have pushed myself to work but the dread about the deadline is definitely a factor towards the decision to call in sick.

I've literally just passed my 3 month probation and I'm planning to be back at work from next week and unless I get really sick I don't want to take any more unnecessary sick days.

Do you think they may be concerned or flagging my sick absence?

posted by Sunflower88 to Work & Money (16 answers total)

In a decent workplace, being sick is not an issue at the rate you’re describing, although definitely you should address the anemia over time so it’s not an ongoing thing.

The deadline is a bigger issue. As your manager I would want you to communicate to me right away if the deadline is at risk. “Hi boss, as you know, I’m on my second day of an illness and feeling terrible. I am concerned about [deadline/project]. Is there anyone who can assist, or is there flexibility on the deadline? Thanks. I’ll be checking email sporadically.”

If you’re truly calling in over anxiety over the deadline, then that’s a whole other issue. It also doesn’t work - you worry more over the weekend and end up in a worse place.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:51 AM on September 29, 2023 [31 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks @warriorqueen. Just to say that upon reading your comment, I immediately messaged my manager to inform her about the deadline and she told me not to worry and that it can be delayed if necessary.

Your advice was most helpful.
posted by Sunflower88 at 8:25 AM on September 29, 2023 [20 favorites]

Your use of the term 3 month probation and some of your previous posts suggest to me you are in the UK.

If so, 2 days sick in 3 months (if that continues, 8 in one year) is well within what I would consider socially acceptable norms. Further, the UK has particularly high employee protections - if an employer were to take action against an employee for being sick 8 days a year, I think that would not go particularly well for them.
posted by saeculorum at 8:28 AM on September 29, 2023 [4 favorites]

I think you are in the UK. I used to work in monitoring sickness absence. Although I don't know the culture of your workplace, i would be surprised if two absences totalling three days in three months reaches the level you are flagged at. Does your organisation have a sickness policy? Mine was that managers should intervene (at the level of "have a conversation with the employee") at a total of ten days of absence or 5+ individual absences at 12 months, though in practice managers often did not, and reasonably not, if they were satisfied that the employee was being honest about their sickness.

I don't think you should feel guilty about feeling you could work in the afternoons. Easy for me to say, I know, but it sounds as if you need a rest.

Hope you feel better soon. (And on preview - that's good news, well done for contacting her!)
posted by paduasoy at 8:28 AM on September 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

Organizational culture always matters but this doesn't sound to me like anything to be concerned about. The only thing I'd have suggested was the same note made above about the deadline, and it sounds like you've got that well in hand. Please try to put this out of your mind and actually get the rest you've taken time off for!
posted by Stacey at 8:45 AM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’m so glad you got in touch. As your manager, the impression I would be left with is, hey Sunflower88 really cares about their work and thinks about deadlines even when sick. Glad I hired them.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:16 AM on September 29, 2023 [22 favorites]

I'd just note that workplace norms around using sick time have changed a bit since COVID began, and it's more often expected that you use sick time if you are sick, to prevent your colleagues from getting sick. Coming from a US perspective here, where we were always encouraged/expected to work through illness before.
posted by kensington314 at 10:41 AM on September 29, 2023 [6 favorites]

Assuming you bounce back and don't miss more days next week, and this isn't a frequent pattern, I think you're fine. Life happens. Sickness doesn't take notice of how long you've been with a job. When you're sick, you're sick.

I'd try to avoid any sick days in the next month or two. If you work from home and you're feeling borderline, I'd phone it in for the day - do the bare minimum, be present online, maybe take your laptop to the couch - but I wouldn't take a sick day unless I really couldn't work.

But as it stands now? Don't sweat it. Communicating with your manager and flagging things before they're a problem is what you need to do, sounds like you did that.
posted by jzb at 11:23 AM on September 29, 2023

Note: My advice above is really based on the idea that you are iffy on your workplace's norms and feel vulnerable. If one of my team says they are feeling ill I tell them get off Slack and get some rest right now and why are they trying to push themselves? As long as people are getting the job done I'm not really interested in tracking the hours they're at the keyboard. If someone is really sick and is going to drop something, make arrangements.
posted by jzb at 11:31 AM on September 29, 2023

Hoping the new antidepressants work out; since anemia can worsen fatigue, anxiety, and depression, please make sure your physicians are addressing that medical condition, too.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:06 PM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

If you're sick you're sick. I'm a manager in the UK and this level of sickness wouldn't cause any red flags with me at all. I would start to be concerned if you were frequently off sick, and be suspicious if you were always/only off sick on Fridays/Mondays. If someone is off sick for longer than a week it's a pain in the neck but not a red flag in and of itself.

If you meant your comment about the deadline to mean, maybe you could have struggled through while being poorly but the work required to meet the deadline would be too much in your current state, then I think that's fine/normal. If however, you mean that anxiety over the deadline itself is causing you to call in sick then for your own wellbeing you need to address the anxiety. Giving in to it will usually make it worse.
posted by plonkee at 12:08 PM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

UK employers often us the Bradford Factor to measure sickness. This works as follows: if you're sick for ten days in a row, then that will attract a low-ish factor. If you regularly call in sick on, say, Friday or Monday for ten weeks (so still ten days' sickness but one day a week) , this will be a much higher factor. If you regularly call in sick on Thursday and Friday or Monday and Tuesday or Friday and Monday over five weeks (still ten days' sickness, but over five weeks) then this will flag up as a high score, and is likely to alert HR to a pattern of someone 'throwing a sickie' to get a long weekend.

I think so new into your employment, it won't cause an issue unless it becomes a regular absence pattern, which HR will probably want to investigate further to see if there is an underlying health or disability issue for which reasonable adjustment needs to be made, or if there is a conduct issue that needs to be addressed.
posted by essexjan at 12:24 PM on September 29, 2023 [6 favorites]

I am a manager in a UK setting chiming in to back up essexjan.

I wouldn't bat an eye at the sick leave your talking about.
posted by knapah at 1:38 PM on September 29, 2023 [2 favorites]

I have five kids. When they were younger I got sick *all the time* because they were in different schools and play groups and brought home germs from everywhere. My house was basically a petri dish.

I was upfront with my boss about it and made sure it never became a problem for her. She, in turn, believed me when I called in sick.

Being honest and direct is probably the best thing you can do, and it sounds like you are doing that.
posted by tacodave at 4:59 PM on September 29, 2023 [1 favorite]

Another UK manager here: again, the levels of absence you are talking about would not raise a red flag. If someone had a recurring medical issue and they told me about it, it would help me understand the situation, maybe plan a bit better for contingencies and be ready to defend them. Our company has a policy about requiring a doctor’s certificate if absences go above a particular - pretty high - level: that is something monitored by HR via timesheet monitoring. There are some people who have the reputation of “never getting sick” - and there are some advantages in not being considered in that category: if you are unwell the organisation should be resilient enough to continue in your absence.
posted by rongorongo at 2:31 AM on October 1, 2023

If you end up needing to take more sick time, I think it will help to explain the anemia and that you're taking iron, or that you're adjusting to new meds. The point is "I realize this is a bit above the norm but it's for this specific known reason that I'm in the process of fixing."
posted by slidell at 8:45 AM on October 1, 2023