I got this idea reading a thread about the “Gods Army” convoy to the border. Several people posted things like “don’t these people have jobs”?, or “how do they have the time to go to the border”? And it got me thinking that it’s bullshit for your boss to have veto on your political activities.
I understand that “Gods Army” are chuds, it’s just the principal.
That’s a valid point. If you’re gone for days on end without a doctor’s note, though, I think your employer has reason to want an explanation. Plus, you’re asking others to pick up your slack. That’s something else to consider.
Also (sorry to be this way) it’s spelled principle in this case.
If someone is ill, they are ill. It’s unfortunate others are picking up that slack, but it is on the company to make sure they are prepared to cover. Please don’t ever shame an ill person because of this, blame your boss.
Also they’re supposed to have enough staff to handle it. Understaffing is their fault
When I ran a team, I would like to keep us at about 50% utilization. The remaining time could be spent improving tools and processes or learning new things.
That way, if someone was out for whatever reason we would only have to ramp up to 60-70% utilization. Still plenty of time for all the other things we need to do, and nobody was too stressed out or felt bad taking a vacation.
In an absolute pinch we could go up to 100% but I made sure that was only a couple days, because clearly something had gone wrong that I needed to fix.
I hear stories like this and try to remember, “Reasonable employment exists!”
Then every job I actually get is a living hell where they have 100% utilization and like, you get screamed at for starting a break two minutes late.
The number of horrible managers I hear about simultaneously makes me want to be a manager again and never be a manager again.
I think that could be reasonable if we got sick time that wasn’t just vacation time wearing a mask.
But since vacation time is being used to skirt sick time laws in many states, I don’t think the employer should be able to ask for a Drs note because the deal was it’s my time to use as I please.
Or, you know, they could treat workers like people.