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by UnfalseDesign 3356 days ago
It seems like most people here are assuming this'll mean employees will simply go into work when they are sick. This might actually lead to employees taking vacation time instead of sick time. One of my past employers actually did away with ALL sick time. One was only able to take vacation time when one was sick.

In reality, it probably will lead to people coming into work when they are sick. However, for serious sickness, like the flu, it'll probably lead to people taking vacation time.
4 comments
daenney 3356 days ago
> One of my past employers actually did away with ALL sick time.

Thankfully, that's not legal in a lot of countries. Vacation time and sick leave are two separate things workers are entitled to. I'm not on vacation when I'm sick, I'm miserable in bed. Not out enjoying a cocktail on a sandy beach.

But even better, if I'm sick on vacation I can actually swap out vacation days for sick days and recover my vacation time. I can spend all of my vacation days on actually being on vacation, even if I get food poisoning on vacation.

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user5994461 3356 days ago
It's commonplace to use up your vacations when you are sick instead of being declared as sick, in some environments.
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doktrin 3356 days ago
> One of my past employers actually did away with ALL sick time. One was only able to take vacation time when one was sick.

This was policy at my former employer. People showed up sick all the damn time and flu season was invariably a disaster.

Next time an employer presents me with this brilliant stratagem they can absolutely shove it. If people are sick they should damn well stay home, and incentivizing them to sneeze all over their coworkers is myopic.

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Dunan 3356 days ago
My Japanese company does this. Their "solution": don't get sick. You should be taking vitamins and getting enough nutrition.

Miraculously people manage it. Somehow I never get sick on the weekdays and then I can feel my body collapsing on the train on Friday night as I am no longer able to push the sickness back.

I'm not sure what I would do if I had children (and I really want to have them). Fighting sickness as a single man is not the same as fighting sickness when you have elementary school kids in the house.

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WalterBright 3356 days ago
> flu

Get the flu vaccination. I haven't gotten the flu since I started with the vaccinations, while everyone around me was felled by it.

It's one thing to feel righteous staying home to keep from infecting others at the office, but an even better thing to get vaccinated and not transmit it to anyone.

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dragonwriter 3356 days ago
> Get the flu vaccination. I haven't gotten the flu since I started with the vaccinations, while everyone around me was felled by it.

Your lucky; vaccinated people get the flu all the time. The flu vaccine is designed to predict against a set of strains that are expected to be most significant in the upcoming flue season, but, aside from the usual problem of vaccines being less than 100% effective at what they target, there are lots of flu strains that aren't targeted by the vaccine, and often the predictions as to which ones are most important to protect against turn out to be wrong.

It's good to get the flu shot, but it's not anywhere close to a 100% guarantee.

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WalterBright 3356 days ago
> Your lucky; vaccinated people get the flu all the time.

I know, it's around 60% effective. But even if you still get the flu, the symptoms are reduced.

Your point is valid but not justification for not not getting the vaccination. It's irresponsible to not get it. It's free (under Obamacare), and if you don't care about yourself, there are other people who for various reasons cannot get a shot and can die from the flu.

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dragonwriter 3356 days ago
> But even if you still get the flu, the symptoms are reduced.

If you still get one of the covered strains (or similar strains) despite the vaccination, the symptoms are reduced; it's generally ineffective against other strains.

> Your point is valid but not justification for not not getting the vaccination.

Since my point was fairly explicitly that you should get the vaccination, but should not expect it to eliminate the need to take sick days for the flu, I agree with this but find it something of a non-sequitur. "It's good to get the shot" is, indeed, not a justification for not getting the shot.

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rainhacker 3356 days ago
> One of my past employers actually did away with ALL sick

Funny you mentioned this as Amazon is no different. In US Amazon do not give sick days unless required by state law. Say you get an offer from Amazon NY, where employer isn't required to provided paid sick days, you'll get zero sick days.

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