Society & Culture Sick leave

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burge13 said:
Sick certificates are just a crock now too. You can just buy them from chemists and most places accept a stat dec signed by a JP. Why bother requiring one when it's so bloody easy to get a fake one anyway
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I know with us a stat dec is only acceptable for a single day and a maximum of three times a year. And I know this because I have a trainee reporting to me at the moment who started in late-February and has had 24 days of leave. When you factor in all the public holidays between March and July, there's not too many 5 day weeks that he's pulled since he started. I think he's had one at last check.

And it's not so much the constant absences; it's being advised after 9am or a few minutes before. I don't care about getting a phone call (in fact I'd prefer an SMS) but that's just not good enough.
 
Totally agree with the people in this thread advising if you can't get your job done in your allocated hours you're either incompetent or allowing yourself to be taken advantage of. There's a couple of guys I work with who stay back almost every night for an extra hour or two to catch up on work, both of which are completely useless during the course of the day. Everyone else who is halfway competent or realises that a job is a job packs up and leaves on time or shortly thereafter.

A bit of extra overtime here and there for 15-20 minutes is fine, but anything where I'm being asked to stick around or there's overtime being offered there's no chance in hell I'd be doing it for free.
 
ash_1050 said:
Totally agree with the people in this thread advising if you can't get your job done in your allocated hours you're either incompetent or allowing yourself to be taken advantage of. There's a couple of guys I work with who stay back almost every night for an extra hour or two to catch up on work, both of which are completely useless during the course of the day. Everyone else who is halfway competent or realises that a job is a job packs up and leaves on time or shortly thereafter.

A bit of extra overtime here and there for 15-20 minutes is fine, but anything where I'm being asked to stick around or there's overtime being offered there's no chance in hell I'd be doing it for free.
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My biggest peeve with this was my last job. People were staying back until 7-8pm to work when I was literally finished by lunch every day (doing the same job). Got asked to help the others, did once or twice but after that I asked when I was going to get paid more to do their work. Answer, I wasn't going to, 'be a team player'. Also, rather than promote the person who was finished by lunch every day, I was branded as lazy for not helping people who took 14 hours to do 5 hours work. Go figure...

Promptly left & have it on good authority some of the idiots who couldn't get work done inside 9-5 have been promoted due to their 'work ethic'. Insanity
 
burge13 said:
My biggest peeve with this was my last job. People were staying back until 7-8pm to work when I was literally finished by lunch every day (doing the same job). Got asked to help the others, did once or twice but after that I asked when I was going to get paid more to do their work. Answer, I wasn't going to, 'be a team player'. Also, rather than promote the person who was finished by lunch every day, I was branded as lazy for not helping people who took 14 hours to do 5 hours work. Go figure...

Promptly left & have it on good authority some of the idiots who couldn't get work done inside 9-5 have been promoted due to their 'work ethic'. Insanity
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This is going to rattle the world of the office sycophants in here who still subscribe to this high school notion that rewards go to those who deserve it. Classic.
 
Look it's different strokes for different folks, clearly. I know where I am, 38 hours is the minimum, as in you're breaching your contract if you work a minute less. So that's all it is - the bare minimum that you can do to avoid being sacked. And that's fine. But it comes down to how committed you are and if it's an attractive role and you're doing the bare minimum, you're probably pretty replaceable.

I think roughly an extra half hour per day (about a 40 hour week) would be fairly typical and probably more like an extra hour per day (getting to the 40-45 hour range) if you have direct reports.

Some people seem to be looking at it the other way round and that's fine: the whole work to live, live to work argument. But in my experience, the idea that anyone who works more than 38 hours is incompetent or a stooge is just nonsense.

I've always looked at it at my level as I can have a standard finish time, or a standard start time but not both. I like to leave by 4:25, so some days I'll come it at 6:30 and I never come in later than 7:30. If that makes me incompetent or a stooge, I'm in good company.
 
In my role I'll knock people off early when it's a quiet day but they all know that when it's a busy day that they'll have to work back (within reason). This system works perfectly for me and the staff. The owners know I do it, they're not against it but they don't want all the other staff to know I do it so "turn a blind eye".

It really isn't that hard to keep morale up which then has a positive effect on how productive everyone is. An early knock off here and there, the occasional free lunch on a Friday and a xmas/birthday gift every year. Employers would be surprised at how loyal even the lowliest paid employees will be when treated with respect.
 
MC Extra Dollop said:
Look it's different strokes for different folks, clearly. I know where I am, 38 hours is the minimum, as in you're breaching your contract if you work a minute less. So that's all it is - the bare minimum that you can do to avoid being sacked. And that's fine. But it comes down to how committed you are and if it's an attractive role and you're doing the bare minimum, you're probably pretty replaceable.

I think roughly an extra half hour per day (about a 40 hour week) would be fairly typical and probably more like an extra hour per day (getting to the 40-45 hour range) if you have direct reports.

Some people seem to be looking at it the other way round and that's fine: the whole work to live, live to work argument. But in my experience, the idea that anyone who works more than 38 hours is incompetent or a stooge is just nonsense.

I've always looked at it at my level as I can have a standard finish time, or a standard start time but not both. I like to leave by 4:25, so some days I'll come it at 6:30 and I never come in later than 7:30. If that makes me incompetent or a stooge, I'm in good company.
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Yeah, I get in 45 minutes before I start and leave around 5-7 minutes before I finish, and I take a shorter lunch.

Fair trade off really.
 
Cruyff14 said:
Yeah, I get in 45 minutes before I start and leave around 5-7 minutes before I finish, and I take a shorter lunch.

Fair trade off really.
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When did working an extra 40 mins a day (3+ hours a week) unpaid become fair?

I don't get most people ITT. I am as a hard a worker as anyone in the place I work. I get more done in six hours than most people get done in 12. I don't start early and I don't stay back. The field I'm studying at uni could well land me in a job where an 8 hour shift becomes 12 with no warning, but seeing as crime doesn't work on a roster, I expect that. Office workers working for free because of some s**t that apparently needs to be done by Tuesday just doesn't sit right with me
 

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ioppolo said:
When did working an extra 40 mins a day (3+ hours a week) unpaid become fair?

I don't get most people ITT. I am as a hard a worker as anyone in the place I work. I get more done in six hours than most people get done in 12. I don't start early and I don't stay back. The field I'm studying at uni could well land me in a job where an 8 hour shift becomes 12 with no warning, but seeing as crime doesn't work on a roster, I expect that. Office workers working for free because of some s**t that apparently needs to be done by Tuesday just doesn't sit right with me
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Because, as I mentioned, I think a lot of enterprise agreements for full time employees would just have a minimum number of hours that you're expected to work. The job is the job and it takes as long as it takes, the hours in the agreement are arbitrary. I'm certainly not having a go, but if someone's attitude is that they come in at 9 and finish at 5 every day come hell or high water, chances are they're not responsible for other people in the organisation and chances are the tasks that they do are of the kind that someone can pick up with a step-by-step guide.

Whatever works. My way isn't the right way. But it's not the wrong way either. It's what works for me.
 
Yeah this office worker thing is so weird. When I was a kid I saw it like many other sooks of my persuasion as off-cream metal drawers, buzzing thick monitors, and flickering green lights above. And you'd get home depressed and keep going through it. Now I have nfi what office jobs are... what do you do? Why do I never see them advertised?

So weird. Like a completely foreign notion. Guess a rare endearing feat of all my work has been shifts and rosters and your staying back being an option, and if you want to duck off to a party, well someone else'll take the 25 bucks an hour.
 
What reports are so important they are being emailed out in the late afternoon and people are staying back to work them? Are yous working for the United Nations and is there some kind of crisis they have to address tomorrow? Did ASIO uncover a terrorist plot?

It is truly bizarre to me. A foreign world indeed.


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edgie said:
What reports are so important they are being emailed out in the late afternoon and people are staying back to work them? Are yous working for the United Nations and is there some kind of crisis they have to address tomorrow? Did ASIO uncover a terrorist plot?

It is truly bizarre to me. A foreign world indeed.


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That's what I don't get. What run of the mill office report is SO important that it must be completed TONIGHT.
 
ioppolo said:
That's what I don't get. What run of the mill office report is SO important that it must be completed TONIGHT.
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And so urgent that it only came to being A FEW HOURS AGO and until then people were completely unaware of it or it didn't exist?


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For me it might be reviewing part of a tender evaluation, where several floors of our office are locked down from people who aren't involved in the evaluation and you literally aren't permitted to take your work home with you.

Or you're presenting a proposal to your general manager the following day and several of the details have only just been confirmed/made available.

Or you're working to get a contract drawn up and it needs to go through approvals with about four directors and if you miss your opportunity to get one to sign it might cost you a couple of days.

Or if you don't get a report done and sent off before you go home you're in back to back meetings until 3pm the next day.

Or you have to come up with some tasks for an entry level direct report to keep them busy for a day to allow you to focus on something else without them asking for things to do or how to do something.

Or you're preparing an induction ready for a highly skilled direct report so they can hit the ground running and be utilised to their full capacity.

Or you're near the deadline of writing an award submission and you need to schedule time with the SMEs to clarify aspects of the award submission and you need to work around their schedule and not vice versa.

Or you have an event the following day and you have to finalise the speaker notes and presentation.

Or you're drafting a message to go out as an all staff email from the CEO, it's going through three different people for review and you need to ensure that all of their edits are captured in the final version.

I mean, I could go on, but I assume you get the picture. Some things can wait, some things can't.
 
We/I employ people based on their understanding of an ability to achieve a work life balance.
We have a ballpark expectation (openly discussed at interview/employment) if you achieve it completely in 3 days, then enjoy your 4 day weekend, if you achieve it in 6 days, then enjoy your 1 day weekend.
If your struggling = openly communicate it.

If your sick, stay the fk home and don't spread it to other workers or clients.
 
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