Random Daily Banter

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spen666

Senior Member
Same here, having bought the Guardian daily for years. I'm also surprised there are as many as 850 journalists at the Mirror and Express to sack. How does it take 850 bods to produce what they produce?

The figure is 8.5. The reporting of 850 is down to the shoddy journalism these days 🤡🤡
 

Psamathe

Veteran
Thinking back to the time when Putin was just starting his madness, back to the days when he was passing restrictive anti-LBGT laws in Russia and he was so proud they were hosting the Winter Olympics is Russia. I used to love that Channel 4 back then felt it could poke fun at Putin, short ad generally broadcast just before the C4 early evening news.

Can't see it happening these days in part 'cos Putin madness got a lot more serious (serious enough back then if you were one of his targets), though maybe sadly in part because such "comment" risks backlash from some groups.

Don't know what reminded me of it but great little video.
 
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First Aspect

Über Member
Sick leave. What's normal?

For me, I have to be essentially needing last rites before I can take a day sick. Two days in about the last 5 years.

Whereas our secretarial level and paralegal level people seem to get up and decide they are sick for a day. Usually it's Monday or Friday, but quite often it's a random day or two in the middle of the week. What is it that they have? Bad kebabitis?

The alternative is they get signed off for 2 weeks in advance. And return perfectly fine. Is this for a cold? I've never had one last that long.

Is sick leave seen generally as an entitlement in the same way as annual leave?
 

Pblakeney

Über Member
Sick leave. What's normal?

For me, I have to be essentially needing last rites before I can take a day sick. Two days in about the last 5 years.

Whereas our secretarial level and paralegal level people seem to get up and decide they are sick for a day. Usually it's Monday or Friday, but quite often it's a random day or two in the middle of the week. What is it that they have? Bad kebabitis?

The alternative is they get signed off for 2 weeks in advance. And return perfectly fine. Is this for a cold? I've never had one last that long.

Is sick leave seen generally as an entitlement in the same way as annual leave?

I have seen both extreme cases.
While working in a mandatory unionised company sick leave was seen as an entitlement and used as additional holiday leave.
While working freelance no work means no pay so you'd have to be really sick to be a no-show. I know one freelancer who got a company laptop taken into hospital so he could work while in recovery from a major op.

Neither of those examples are "normal".
 
OP
OP
briantrumpet

briantrumpet

Veteran
Sick leave. What's normal?

For me, I have to be essentially needing last rites before I can take a day sick. Two days in about the last 5 years.

Whereas our secretarial level and paralegal level people seem to get up and decide they are sick for a day. Usually it's Monday or Friday, but quite often it's a random day or two in the middle of the week. What is it that they have? Bad kebabitis?

The alternative is they get signed off for 2 weeks in advance. And return perfectly fine. Is this for a cold? I've never had one last that long.

Is sick leave seen generally as an entitlement in the same way as annual leave?

I've never been solely-employed, at most a minor part of my day being salaried, so the incentive is to drag oneself in. When I had proper "I think I might die" flu, I was glad that my five days virtually unable to move included my two days off, and then I went back to work too quickly, and lengthened the recovery.

OTOH, when I banged my head and was signed off work for two months, at least the 20% salaried work sick pay kept the wolf from the door, and reduced my stupid mindset to go back too quickly.

I'd have thought that there should be some modest financial penalty for 'doing a sickie', whether it's genuine or not, to disincentivise the bogus ones (or ones brought on by stupidity, such as hangovers), and to incentivise a timely return to work.
 

First Aspect

Über Member
We have 6 months full, 6 months half, then 75% salary via insurance. This ensures that people can self certify if they have a hangover or their child has been a shoot head this morning, with complete impunity, safe in the knowledge that people with things like cancer will be financially worse off.

What about the thresholds for referring people who frequently have mondayitis to occupational health?

We don't seem to to that, most likely out of fear that people would get signed off with stress.
 

Pross

Active Member
I used to work in local government where we had 6 months on full pay and 6 months half pay. There was a girl who worked with me who would use all her leave up early and would then openly start on her sick leave 'entitlement'. We had the same in my first private sector job for a few years but then a couple of people really milked it so it was removed and we got 10 days in a rolling 12 month period. The amount of people who are ill for however long it is until you need to obtain a 'fit' note then miraculously recover always surprises me. My last sick leave was when I had Covid 3 years ago but even then I was getting constant calls and got criticised by a director for not updating a client on a job whilst off sick which was the thing that finally led me to quit. The longest I've had was a week after doing an old-school general anaesthetic bone marrow donation, it was the week before Christmas and my boss basically said to take the time to recover properly. Whenever I've felt like throwing a sickie in my 35 years working I've always felt people would know even though I've got a really good record compared to pretty much anyone I've worked with so it's mostly been a day here and there with stomach bugs. Now I work from home it would have to be something really bad or the most I would do would be maybe go for a lie down between working.
 

Pross

Active Member
I keep hearing a radio advert warning people not to use barbecues indoors. This implies that enough people have tried this to need to be warned but surely the number of thickos can't be that high?
 

Pblakeney

Über Member
I keep hearing a radio advert warning people not to use barbecues indoors. This implies that enough people have tried this to need to be warned but surely the number of thickos can't be that high?

You'd think so.
Obviously you/we would be wrong.
 
I keep hearing a radio advert warning people not to use barbecues indoors. This implies that enough people have tried this to need to be warned but surely the number of thickos can't be that high?

Is that the £2 disposable tray bbqs? They give off fumes after being extinguished and there's been a few cases of people using them in tents and being killed by fumes overnight.
 

First Aspect

Über Member
We should be increasingly negative about any product sold with the word "disposable" in the name.

Personally I think those BBQs should be banned from sale. The best case scenario is excess waste, followed by someone responsibly quenching them after leaving a scorched patch of earth and a used tray in the undergrowth. Too often they are used for wildfire management training.

I couldn't care less about people giving themselves carbon monoxide poisoning from using them indoors to be honest. It tends to be people who wouldn't suffer too much from brain damage or death anyway.
 

BoldonLad

Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
Location
South Tyneside
Sick leave. What's normal?

For me, I have to be essentially needing last rites before I can take a day sick. Two days in about the last 5 years.

Whereas our secretarial level and paralegal level people seem to get up and decide they are sick for a day. Usually it's Monday or Friday, but quite often it's a random day or two in the middle of the week. What is it that they have? Bad kebabitis?

The alternative is they get signed off for 2 weeks in advance. And return perfectly fine. Is this for a cold? I've never had one last that long.

Is sick leave seen generally as an entitlement in the same way as annual leave?

There are always individuals who will push the boundaries, in my experience.

During my working life, I had a mixture of Freelancing and employment. As has already said, as a freelance, no work means no pay, so, there is an incentive to drag yourself in, or, in my case as an IT Contractor, work from your sick bed.

I did have a prolonged (for me) period of sickness, after a heart attack (two months off) fortunately I was in full time employment at the time. The employment included 6 months full pay sick and 6 months half pay.

The most extreme case of "pushing it" I recall, was when I was Contracting at CQC. There was a young woman who was frequently absent for a half day, or few days. Over the time I was there (about 12 months), she often talked about "having to care for Henry". I naively assumed "Henry" was a Parent, Partner or at the very least, a human being, I subsequently learned that "Henry" was a horse.
 

Pross

Active Member
Is that the £2 disposable tray bbqs? They give off fumes after being extinguished and there's been a few cases of people using them in tents and being killed by fumes overnight.

Who knows? It basically says that if it rains when you have a BBQ don't be tempted to take it indoors. With the amount of smoke they produce I'd be amazed if anyone had even considered using one in an enclosed space but maybe I need to recalibrate my stupidity meter.
 

Pross

Active Member
There are always individuals who will push the boundaries, in my experience.

During my working life, I had a mixture of Freelancing and employment. As has already said, as a freelance, no work means no pay, so, there is an incentive to drag yourself in, or, in my case as an IT Contractor, work from your sick bed.

I did have a prolonged (for me) period of sickness, after a heart attack (two months off) fortunately I was in full time employment at the time. The employment included 6 months full pay sick and 6 months half pay.

The most extreme case of "pushing it" I recall, was when I was Contracting at CQC. There was a young woman who was frequently absent for a half day, or few days. Over the time I was there (about 12 months), she often talked about "having to care for Henry". I naively assumed "Henry" was a Parent, Partner or at the very least, a human being, I subsequently learned that "Henry" was a horse.

I had one colleague who got very upset that she wasn't allowed paid bereavement leave when her cat died. I know people get attached to pets and get genuinely upset when they die so would understand a request for a couple of days' annual leave or even unpaid leave but expecting it as additional paid leave was pushing things especially when the policy didn't allow this for human relatives other than parent, grand parent, sibling or child. I've had another colleague that apparently had more than 4 lots of compassionate leave for grandparents over the time he'd worked at the company. I think he 'lost' 3 in the year I worked with him along with various other relatives. They all seemed to die after he'd used up his annual leave.
 
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