[kmarc]

Indeed, I, as a fully remote, probably overworked person, sometimes wonder if I'm a loser just because I never

* pick up Becky from school

* feel under the weather today so I'll be offline and "take it easy" (never hear about me anymore today)

* sorry "traffic jam" (10:00am)

* sorry "train canceled"

* will leave a bit early (2pm) for [insert random reason] appointment

While all these can be completely valid reasons, it's just funny hearing one of these daily. On a side note, I also kinda like my job and am not interested in slacking.

[closewith]

What you're describing is life, not slacking.

It sounds like those people have their priorities and you have yours. Personally, theirs sound much more sustainable than yours.

[bagacrap]

I do tend to be a bit suspicious of the one-day "under the weather" events.

However I do think we need to make extra room for parents (I am not one, yet). I'm going to need a doctor who's younger than me when I'm 80+

Folks could always just disappear instead of announcing these things, but is that better? And as a senior on my team, I over announce certain stuff to let the other team members know that WLB is ok.

[xandrius]

Re-reading your own message should definitely be a bell for you to notice either your lack of trust in others and/or your twisted perspective that work is the goal of life.

Unless you are the one paying for that person and they are not performing as by contract, even if someone needs an extra day off to chill, you should be happy they do take it as it creates an environment where you also could take it off if you so wished.

[DiggyJohnson]

I’m neutral on this topic between you and GP, but I do think you’re discounting the fact that distrust can be legitimate. You’re assuming that we should trust blindly, it seems.

[Xelynega]

I don't think they're discounting that distrust can be legitimate, they're questioning whether it's useful to distrust somebody when it's not your job to micromanage them or they're providing adequate output.

[bagacrap]

found the guy who's sick every other Monday ^

[doubled112]

I get migraines that can disappear as fast as they hit me. Can’t see, can’t feel my face and sometimes a limb, can’t focus or form sentences.

I could pretend to be available that day, maybe, but it’s mutually beneficial for me to just take a day off.

The next day I’m usually just fine, and I don’t always give more explanation than “taking a sick day”.

[LandR]

Same here, I'll be fine, then bang I start getting like shiney sharp lines in my vision that spread from the outside to the center. When this happens I absolutely can't work, I can barely see anything (last time my vision was so messed up I couldn't read the pamthlet on my new migraine pills to know if I was to take 1 or 2).

SOmetimes it can knock me out for a day, but sometimes after half an hour or so I'm good to go (especially if there is no pain accompanying it).

I've never had to give more explanation than "Sorry, migraine, I need to take rest of day off, see you tomorrow".

[doubled112]

I have always had a hard time convincing people that I don’t have a headache, I have a migraine. The pain is not guaranteed, but I am still useless.

One of my worst examples was that I made it to work on the bus, and immediately had to take off. I was pretty nauseous by the time I made it home, and should I have been found throwing up in a bush, nobody would have believed “I have a migraine”. To the drunk tank with me, at 930am.

[Cthulhu_]

> and I don’t always give more explanation than “taking a sick day”.

And that's entirely justified; your health is a private matter. If your employer is suspicious, there's ways and means that don't involve sharing your medical history with either your colleagues or employer.

[wallstop]

Interesting. When I do not feel up to the task of working, whether it is a physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or arbitrary cause, I use one of my provided PTO days and email the team a short "I will not be showing up to work today" message, without explaining the cause.

I similarly don't bat an eye when a coworker takes off for whatever reason. We're allotted PTO. Why jump through hoops to convince ourselves that it's ok to use it?

[scarface_74]

I don’t even use a PTO day if I’m just feeling “blah” as long as I’m available via Slack to answer questions and can attend ad-hoc meetings. There are so many times I’ve had to/chosen to work late, I don’t say anything.

I don’t think I’ve taken a “sick day” once since going remote over 5 years ago. But for the last 10 years I’ve been leading initiatives first at startups and then at consulting companies and I mostly have autonomy and the trust to get things done.

[closewith]

It's because the GP doesn't value you as a person or trust you. In that worldview, you cannot allow any autonomy and all time not spent at work must be tightly regulated. It will also spill in other areas, and you can bet the GP is not well liked by their colleagues.

[sgt]

If someone you work with and you otherwise trust e.g. with your code, servers, and business, says they are feeling under the weather, why should you not assume they are not telling the truth?

[jama211]

Especially as it’s obviously not a lie. A lie would be like, their 7th grandma to die or something. Saying you just feel under the weather is… exactly what someone who was just feeling under the weather and didn’t want to lie about it would say.

[hopelite]

It’s that kind of controlling and judgmental mentality of that makes corporate employment so toxic, you are constantly in an adversarial environment where someone believes they have some cause to judge others. He says “I’m suspicious of anyone who says I’m under the weather” as if he had any ethical or moral cause to be so, a right to be controlling over others’ lives.

It is that kind of mentality that unfortunately then gets promoted in corporations and creates a feedback loop to create every less trust, because how could you trust anything or anyone on a system that is like that? You can’t. Only the naive trust anyone at their job. All corporate employment structures are inherently hostile trust environments, you’re always swimming with beasts with toxic control issues above you and random features thrown together around you.

The very core nature of a corporation is inherently a structure of narcissistic control and exploration of people to one degree or another, that is its whole purpose.

[jama211]

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Also it’s crazy how people will say things that out them as being super controlling and judgemental of others and it doesn’t even seem to phase them for a second how bad that is.

[ralferoo]

> I do tend to be a bit suspicious of the one-day "under the weather" events.

I bill by days worked, and I'll still take a day off if I'm feeling terrible in the morning. Even taking the hit on pay is worth it, because I'll probably recover in one day instead dragging it out for 3 days.

But then, maybe I'm too honest. On occasions when I've felt ill later in the day, I've also just signed off early before the team meetings and just left a message like "I worked 6 hours today, but felt really unproductive, so I'm finishing early and I'll only bill a half/quarter day" (depending on how little I got done). Not had any complaints yet.

[exe34]

> I do tend to be a bit suspicious of the one-day "under the weather" events.

That's one reason people feel like they have to keep hiding it and it builds up to burnout.

[dTal]

>I do tend to be a bit suspicious of the one-day "under the weather" events.

If you don't normalize one-day "under the weather" events, you are trading them for multi-day "off sick" events.

Personal anecdata: I recall once at a job with a particularly easygoing boss I simply didn't feel up to my morning commute, for no easily definable reason. I rang in sick anyway and went back to sleep. I then proceeded to more or less sleep through the entire following 24 hours, until it was time to go to work again. Lo and behold I magically had the energy this time, and bounced into work. I then realized that I had been suffering from fatigue from the early stages of an infection which I had successfully fended off through rest - had I dragged myself into work, I most assuredly would not have been there the following day, and probably not the day after that either.

[threetonesun]

It used to be common to say you're taking a "mental health day", which was a recognition that while maybe you were not physically ill (or were, just not in a way anyone else had to worry about or to an extent that you couldn't make it to the office), you were not in a state to contribute meaningfully to the work being done.

Which is fine. And better than the people who show up no matter what and drag others down by being miserable and making mistakes.

[bee_rider]

We shouldn’t make extra room for parents, we should just create a society where everybody has enough free time to handle kids. People without kids can enjoy their other outside work stuff.

Everybody says having kids is really rewarding, so the folks who don’t should also get some time to find their own rewards. And, if we’re making extra space for people who have kids, that puts those people at a competitive disadvantage.

I mean, like, we should have maternity leave as a special thing. But everybody should get enough days off to deal with a 10 year old’s baseball games, school plays, doctor appointments, or whatever. And even for maternity leave—maybe just give everybody a sabbatical at some point!

[rkomorn]

I'm okay with parents getting more perks and time to deal with their kids.

I have zero desire to be a parent but I think people having kids is a pretty important part of keeping humanity/society going, so I'm happy to accommodate (or even reward) it.

[bee_rider]

IMO it would be better to subsidize this at the government level than the employer level.

We definitely don’t want to create a situation where parents are less desirable to employ, right?

And, most people have kids (even in places countries with highly developed economies and lower fertility rates). So, we shouldn’t think of this as an extra perk (some special case benefit). The treatment of folks who have had kids is the average case. The special case is whatever we for people who don’t have them (we shouldn’t make a special negative case, right?)

[rkomorn]

Sure, it's better for governments to provide the incentives.

Regarding your second point, I guess you're right. :) I'm just looking at it from my "you couldn't even pay me to have a child" perspective.

Your question about making it a negative case is an interesting can of worms I'll elect not to open.

[bee_rider]

I don’t think it is a can of worms really; making special negative cases for subsets of the population is a can of poop! There’s nothing so complicated as a worm in there.

[wonderwonder]

I get 3 weeks of sick time. While I rarely take more than a week, most of the time that sick day is because I am just sick of work and need a day. I never say why I'm sick, I just say, taking a sick day today.

Its my time, I'll take it. I have 5 weeks of vacation. I use every one of them.

No one ever asks why I worked 60 hours the prior week and the one before that, that's never noticed. So I'll just do what I want and if that bothers some people, then so be it. I do feel bad though as the other dozens of devs on my team are offshore and they work non stop and its just expected.

Before they got rid of the onshore people though, I never batted an eye when my co-workers took off 2 or 3 days with no warning, its their time.

"as a senior on my team, I over announce certain stuff to let the other team members know that WLB is ok." I'm sure your team very much appreciates this.

[throwaway2037]

    > I do tend to be a bit suspicious of the one-day "under the weather" events.

I will give you an easy answer: The person might have mental health issues (depression or anxiety) that they do not want to share. I use them from time to time to sleep a bit late just for the hell of it.

[jzb]

Um, why?

The other day I had a killer headache. Just couldn’t shake it. I did everything I needed to that was time sensitive, then went AFK. I don’t see any reason to be suspicious of others if they do similarly—we all have days when we’re just not at our best for some reason.

[kmarc]

To defend @bagacrap, they said they tend to be a bit suspicious.

And I am, too, when I hear this weekly from the same person (and when I ask back next day, if she recovered, she asks me "from what"?)

I'm all in for more times off for parents, more PTOs, sabbaticala, etc. But come on, having "a cold" twice a month... IT IS suspicious.

[jzb]

You've added two conditions not present in the original comment.

Some people may "abuse" such things, but I'd say most people legit have days when they're under the weather and feel fine the next day.

Also, if you have kids in daycare or something? A cold twice a month is pretty much the norm as I understand it. I love my nieces, but there's a 50/50 chance each time I see them I'm going to wind up with a minor cold. Toddlers are awfully efficient at spreading disease...

[closewith]

> And I am, too, when I hear this weekly from the same person (and when I ask back next day, if she recovered, she asks me "from what"?)

I'd say you're missing the hint that it is none of your business.

[kaashif]

If someone was ill, then they're back, asking them if they're feeling better is totally normal conversation.

The suspicion etc may not be, but the question is obviously fine.

[closewith]

Given you're suspicious about these people and the way you talk about them, they are most likely well aware that you're on a fishing trip feigning interest.

People like you are always more transparent than you realise.

[dclowd9901]

Do they perform adequately at their job in general? If so, who cares?

[cassianoleal]

And if not, that's a much better thing to focus on vs whether they took a few days off for whatever reason.

[dclowd9901]

Exactly

[kmarc]

I cannot say all of them were performing bad

But yeah, some of them... Definitely.

Someone said in another thread, it's none of my business. Indeed. Especially as an external. I also would never report any of my suspicion. Sometimes,however, I'm blocked by this (waiting on others, etc.) so not entirely unaffected, tho

[SoftTalker]

Typically if such a thing catches your eye it’s because in fact they aren’t performing adequately.

[ryandrake]

One of the benefits (to me) of going remote is I'm sick a heck of a lot less often! In fact, I don't think I've even had a cold or upper respiratory infection since I started remote, where I used to get colds at least once a month, likely due to being in close concentration of other sick people in the office. Touching door handles everywhere to get from office to office, touching elevator buttons, eating together with 100 other people in the office cafeteria... yuck! Now that I'm remote, I'm in my hermetically sealed home office, and I can go weeks without even seeing another person, let alone touching things they touched and breathing their air.

[tetromino_]

> But come on, having "a cold" twice a month... IT IS suspicious

Suspicious in that it's only twice a month? When my kid first started preschool, we got exposed to all sorts of wonderful novel viruses, and I had respiratory infections of various sorts for probably 50% of the days for the entire autumn and winter. Most of them not rising to the level of high fever and not being able to work, but definitely noticeably cutting my productivity.

[kqr]

For anyone curious: an average of 1.2 instances per month the first year and a half. During the worst season, it can be twice in a month, sure. https://entropicthoughts.com/how-often-does-a-child-get-sick

(Child spent 16 % of the year sick. Across two parents, that is nearly a month of absence in a year.)

[71bw]

I might not exactly be the benchmark for this but for the entirety of preschool and then the first 4 years of primary school I went in for a week and took 2 weeks of what I would now call sick leave. Left me with a heart disease and a real scare for what I should do if I ever have kids to avoid this happening to them.

[MichaelRo]

Suspicious that it's probably a massive hangover rather than "a cold". And I assume it's during the week, otherwise noone but your liver cares what you do on a Friday or Saturday evening.

"A cold" doesn't usually totally incapacitate someone working from the comfort of their home, down a paracetamol, drink hot liquids, take a nap, don't need to be 110% productive but still can manage to get some job done. But "a massive hangover" is something that surely can knock someone out.

[tranceylc]

Are you sure you aren’t projecting your substance abuse issues onto others? Assuming someone has a hangover in the middle of the week is odd behaviour

[JoshTriplett]

> "A cold" doesn't usually totally incapacitate someone working from the comfort of their home, down a paracetamol, drink hot liquids, take a nap, don't need to be 110% productive but still can manage to get some job done.

A cold can absolutely do that. Expecting people to work while they're sick is an unhealthy work culture, don't inflict that on other people.

[turtlebits]

Who cares? Only their manager should. And it's not about butts in seats but overall productivity. This attitude is why companies ate pushing for RTO.

[pavel_lishin]

Yeah, children bring home all sorts of vile stuff that'll knock you out for a day. And sometimes, it'll just be something random. This morning I had - let's call it "digestive distress" to avoid describing the horrors - that would have definitely meant I wouldn't be able to work if it were a weekday, but I think I'm over it now, and I'll be showing up tomorrow just fine.

[tayo42]

So many reasons why you might be sick for one day. Colds start light, peak and fade off, sometimes you just need one day to sleep off the worst of it.

[zimpenfish]

> So many reasons why you might be sick for one day.

I'd bet a fair few "under the weather" days are because people have mental health issues but aren't going to announce that publicly (due to the ongoing stigma.)

[dclowd9901]

I've been sick so often now (thanks kids) that I can feel _immediately_ when something is coming on. Rather than be down and useless at home and work for 2 or 3 more days, I tag out, go to bed and usually knock it out in a night. I feel like that's way better for me and everyone else overall.

[Cthulhu_]

Maybe they have heavy period cramps (see also endometriosis). Maybe they just need a break (taking a "mental health day" is encouraged by some employers). Maybe they have a cold, which means they will feel crappy for a day; speaking for myself, I can power through one of those but it would probably be better to take the day and rest up instead of powering through which may make the cold last longer. Maybe they had a vaccination, I know the covid shot hit me pretty hard.

Anyway, over-announcing is good; take away the stigma of calling in sick or taking time for yourself/your family.

[lionkor]

Countries with a (still capitalist) social support system manage this with parents' time off; the mother and father can request a significant amount of paid time off, which is separate to the government mandated 20 or so days per year of paid vacation, and it essentially can't be denied.

Before you say it'll be exploited; the largest economy in Europe does this and it works wonderfully, and so do many others.

[throwaway2037]

I am mostly onsite, but I am careful to watch for exactly this kind of behaviour from mostly remote staff. If I see it, they are moved to the bottom of my "inner card deck" of people to help, as they basically are never helpful as teammates.