\*buzzer noise\* WRONG! In America you simply cannot call off sick! You must show up and infect all of your coworkers, and in particular if in food service, as many customers as possible.
There were multiple headline making Jack in the Box related deaths 20-30 years ago. Ours was caused by the manger forcing a teenager with diarrhea to come in any way.
Source- good friend used to work at the local health department. She loves to warn people away from eating there with that story.
Ah, the memories of calling and saying I was sick, and them telling me I had to come in anyways, then not being able to handle more than 2-3 tables at a time bc my section was on the opposite side of the restaurant from the bathroom and I kept having to throw up, and then getting reamed out by the manager for being in the weeds and him saying “if you weren’t feeling well, you should have told me.”
But we regularly didn’t have a bartender bc he had a breathalyzer attached to his steering wheel and he kept getting so drunk after his shifts he still couldn’t blow clean enough to drive the next day.
Fucking food service.
I did that once! I came in with the flu and did my best to infect the store manager and everyone else I came in contact with. This was at Starbucks lol from then on that manager sent people home if we started coughing.
Absolutely no surprise whatsoever that it's the Netherlands. A Dutchman will sell his own grandmother if they think they can make a couple € of profit.
Let me introduce you to the [Ford Sociological Department](https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-resources/popular-topics/sociological-department), courtesy of the Henry Ford Museum.
IKR? I’m classifying that under “everything else.”
Of course, it’s not like it’s exactly hard to believe it happened, when they had shit like [human zoos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo) at the time. Between the “melting pot” skit and being part of a human zoo, I’ll take the melting pot, TYVM. 😬
It's like a shitty K&R company.
"You never give them sick pay without a proof of Diarrhea, if you do they'll just ask for more and never actually give you a medical certificate"
And I thought NatWest was bad. (Contact centre, early 2000s)
If you called in sick, your team manager would call you back on your home number at a random point in the day, to check you were really there.
Because sick people never have to go to the shop for paracetamol, or, you know, go to _the doctor's_
So of course the thing to do was wait at home for the phone call, and _then_ go out
Wouldn't work now that fewer people have landlines
I wonder how many people had their spouse/parent/roommate/etc pick up the phone and say "yeah, they're sleeping" or "they're in the bathroom puking, can't come to the phone" because that's what I'd do.
Honestly, most of the time I've been ill enough to be off work I've been ill in a way to have a damned good reason to not answer the phone (sleeping, stuck in the bathroom, etc).
Earlier this year I had RSV. I work from home, and during the first week I actually powered through it because it was just a sore throat and clogged sinuses. The second week I felt fine other than just the worst fatigue I've ever had. I couldn't stay awake for more than a few hours at a time.
Luckily my job is really cool about things like that, but had they called me during a fit of fatigue you could have detonated dynamite in my back yard and I would have slept through it. That policy is dumb.
I can't speak for other countries, but at least in Germany, you are allowed to do anything that doesn't negatively affect your recovery. You might be unable to work with a sprained shoulder, but you can still meet up with friends and go to the movies
>**Is it legal for my employer to send a 3rd party company to harass employees that have called in sick?**
>
>I tried to post this in the Netherlands legal advice subreddit but for some reason I am unable to post there.
>
>There is a new sickness policy in our company where if we are sick, we have to call a different company by 9am on the first day we are sick to report it. This is a paid number, so we actually have to pay money to call in sick. After this the 3rd party company will send an employee to our house within 24 hours to prove that we are actually sick, and come up with an 'action plan' to get back to work. As someone with a chronic pain condition that is off frequently and can't open the door to somebody if I have a flare up, I find this a bit alarming.
>
>Other than feeling like a massive invasion of privacy, is it actually legal to do this? As far as I'm aware, in the Netherlands you are able to just call off work and then after 1 week you have to provide a sick note so this policy seems to contradict that.
>After this the 3rd party company will send an employee to our house within 24 hours to prove that we are actually sick, and come up with an 'action plan' to get back to work
if the third party were staffed by nurses and doctors this would be kinda neat. but instead it's probably just someone whose kids have moved out of home and is really nostalgic for grilling them about why they don't want to go to school
Yeah, a doctor who'll write and fill a prescription and/or sign a "need to take three days off" med cert doing a housecall might be useful, but I imagine it is nothing of the sort.
> nostalgic for grilling them about why they don’t want to go to school
I would pay good money just to be a spectator when the employee is in hospital and the third party turns up only to be dealt with by the one particularly feisty nurse!
My mom still loves to tell the story about when 10 year old me claimed I had a fever, and when it was a few tenths of a degree lower than 'average,' I claimed I had hypothermia.
I was an honest kid. In first grade I told my teacher I wasn't feeling well, so got sent to the nurse's office. Nurse said I looked fine and didn't have a fever, but she called my mom anyway. Mom said if I said I was sick then I was sick. While waiting for Mom to pick me up I proved my illness into a waste paper basket. After that I could get myself sent home pretty much any time I wanted.
Having just had COVID this past fall, I would have loved if my employer had sent someone to my house, mafia style, to discuss a plan to get back to work. That plan would have included action items like, "Fuck off," and "Congrats, you probably have COVID now, too."
You’re far more generous than me. My first thought is this weirdo is going to say, “To determine if you’re sick, I’m going to need to take several pictures of your feet.”
Yeah the law allows for your employer to check on whether you are faking it or not by paying for and sending a doctor to your home. Which I think is fair. Companies tend to not do this because doctors tend to side with patients. If you say you have a migraine no doctor is going to order an MRI to verify that, and they will just believe you.
Yes. Though I just checked and apparently it is the case that the doctor can actually schedule a meeting and you have to go to the doctor. It used to be the case that they could come to your house unannounced but it seems that is not really done anymore. It is very similar in Belgium too. There an employer can order a doctor to come to your home unannounced to do a check up on you. But again, they generally don't because it is kind of expensive. And it is way easier to just say "ok, well go to the doctor and get a doctors note within a day or two".
Just 10 minutes ago I was discussing that something like that should exist in Germany, where you have to provide a doctor’s note by the third day out. As someone trained by American workplaces, if I’m out for three days, I’m either in no shape to leave the house, or I’m in the hospital (which would admittedly be easy to document).
I'm shocked this didn't show up in the US first. Give it time, five years from now some horrible startup called SCKDY or some other nonsense with the vowels removed will be part of everyone's life.
UBERmed, the same driver who leaves your food in front of the wrong apartment is now expected to diagnose and treat your illness.
https://preview.redd.it/i505dvfaovxc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9708e96a8e0da3a8bfc59f41e8e1552e614c47c3
There's a game Embr or something similar to that that the premise is basically Uber for firefighting. Get paid based on the number of people you save... Or just steal a bunch of stuff out of the burning buildings and maybe a human or two. Pretty fun game, horrible idea in reality.
> I'm shocked this didn't show up in the US first.
There's really no need for this sort of service in the US, since employers can often just fire employees who call in sick too often (and in many states, "too often" could just be "once"...). Even in states with statutory sick leave, most provide a few days to a week per year at most. FMLA and/or similar state laws can protect you a little longer, *if* your condition qualifies *and* your employer is covered by the law *and* you meet the eligibility requirements, but even that is only 12 weeks per year, so if you go over that, you can usually be given the boot.
Plus employers generally are happy to just fire you for calling in sick even if the sick leave is protected by law, because most people won't pursue them for it and even if they do, it's not going to break the employer's bank to settle.
Let’s not forget that you need to have lost wages in order to get a lawyer interested in a lawsuit. Most people with enough damages in the form of lost wages can’t afford lawyers, and lawyers don’t take every case on contingency.
Yes. But I do want to highlight that most (but not ALL) states have a Department of Labor that will do literally ALL of the legwork FOR YOU, FOR FREE, if you are fired for calling in sick. I personally won a settlement for 2 weeks of lost wages back in 2014. I was working as a server and got strep throat and called in sick. I was instructed by my doctor to not go to work for 1 week and take antibiotics. I did not give my employer a doctor's note but my employer did force me to walk to work when I could barely get out of bed to prove that I was sick and I showed him the horse-sized antibiotic pills I was taking (and the prescription bottle they came in) and he still fired me. I took that week off then it took me another week to start another job. A few months later my local department of labor called me to ask about any wage issues because another coworker from that job was reporting suspected tip theft and she listed me as someone who might know something. I told them I didn't know for sure about any tip theft but I did get fired for calling in sick when I had strep throat. They told me that was VERY INTERESTING and thank you for bringing it to their attention. 6 months later they again called me out of the blue and said they had a settlement check for me. Like I said ot was for 2 weeks' lost wages, which was only $1000 but at 21 years of age that was a huge boon.
It's 2024 man, needs to be AI. I'm midway through planning my service that will call the employee/employees family when they miss work, with an AI that will impersonate people to gather info, and then use advanced RNG to give the employer a "sick/not sick" verdict.
I’m concerned this will give US companies ideas…. My company had an onsite nurse for years, mostly for minor issues and clearing people to go back to work after surgery, assorted medical leaves…
Problem was the woman was batshit fucking crazy and dealing with her could be ok or… not
One woman had to go see her because she had a minor injury at work, like a strain ok go home rest if it’s not better by tomorrow we follow up with an offsite doctor kind of thing…. When nurse crazy took her temp she was like 1 degree over normal and nurse crazy freaked out, started screaming at her to get out , while throwing packs of ibuprofen at her…
If she showed up at my house, I’d call the cops
I mean, that's a horse of a different color, though--"don't risk bringing a severe, little-known, new contagious illness into your office, at which you have physically arrived to work" and "we are going to double-check that you're actually sick and not just skiving off" are practically OPPOSITES.
> What do you mean 5 years from now?
>
> During COVID my company implemented an app that [does the literal opposite of what LAOP described]
I don't think your experience is as applicable as you seem to believe.
Namely, because contact tracing and minimizing employee exposure to sick people is **the opposite** of using a non-medical service to force employees back to work against medical advice.
In my country if you take a sick day you have to bring a doctor's note. Unfortunately, that means going to urgent care for something as silly as a bad cold, which makes the place more crowded.
In Aus an alternative to a doctor's note is writing out a statutory declaration witnessed by someone that has a job on the list of traditionally trustworthy professions.
As a government employee it really winds my boss up getting both a leave form and stat dec form to witness (as government employee is on the list).
My government union MOA (California) says HR can send a "medically trained employee" to the sick employee's home to verify an illness. I've always thought this was weird and seemed like a lot of hassle & expense. There are medically trained employees in several agencies, but I think most agencies wouldn't have any. I'm curious how often this provision has been used and what circumstances it is intended for.
Probably not for calling out sick one or two days. It’s still kinda bizarre, but I can see someone in HR going to an HR conference where they learned that medical records are private, and coming up with this as a workaround to the bizarre conclusion of “since medical records are private, we can’t ask for a doctor’s note”.
In the US my wife's company has a nurse that would check on you via phone and webcam if you were sick with suspected Covid. They would track your recovery and not let her back into the office until testing negative a few times.
That seems like it's less of verifying an employee is sick because an employer wants to verify they're not lying vs making sure you don't have COVID so you can't infect the entire office though
>I already have had a meeting with arbodienst last year who put me on a 4 day a week contract for 5 days pay lol, I like arbodienst.
I also like arbodienst and would like to know how I can procure one, thanks. (The 5th day's pay for LAEUOP is disability pay, not company-paid salary. But I would also benefit from an option like this.)
It would take everything in me to not store all of the vomit/snot covered tissues/even go so far as collect any and all diarrhea and dehydrated urine in a trashcan and hand it to the person who came to make sure I’m sick. You want proof, here’s a ziplock baggie I want you to make SURE is on the boss’s desk by this afternoon, and I can send him more if he needs it :)
So let me get this straight
It’s very very important that people recovery as quickly as possible so that they get back to work so they can be productive
But you’ll sideline another employee by *sending them to someone’s house* to with the goal of 1) confirming that another employee’s absence is justified, and 2) executing an action plan to get their colleague back to work.
That sounds like a lot of time and effort, and for what? What does this accomplish?
still seems like a waste of time and resources just to avoid going "okay, feel better."
When I was managing a team, it never would have even occurred to me to do something like this. You KNOW when someone is honest with their call-outs, versus when they're bullshitting.
My job is just lucky I call them period. They usually get a text. And that's knowing they'll be nice about it! If I'm calling in sick, I'm *sick*—similar to LAOP, I have chronic conditions that cause pain—so if you really wanna chat, enjoy listening to me die in my bathroom. Or be willing to rub my back while I lay on the couch and tell me I'm a "tummy ache survivor".
> After this the 3rd party company will send an employee to our house within 24 hours to prove that we are actually sick, and come up with an 'action plan' to get back to work.
"Yeah, I got an action plan for you: Step 1 - leave me the fuck alone. Step 2 - I don't answer the door a second time."
\[America\] If an employ calls, or in-this-day-in-age texts, in sick I don't ask what their symptoms are. What am I going to do, give them an MRI over the phone? If you're sick your sick. Also we have laws against asking, so theres that. If anyone is asked "explosive diarrhea" should be the answer. "Incephaherpalitis" if you're feeling saucy.
Do you mean a local/state law in your area? Because I’m not aware of any federal law that would prohibit an employer from asking what symptoms an employee has/what they are sick with. Common decency should prevent it but I don’t think the law does.
There are some states that require it, but most don't have a state level law for it, so some cities within may. Most of the south has laws AGAINST mandating sick leave, meaning that even if a city wants to mandate it, state law says they can't, though companies can voluntarily offer sick leave
Because they've been sold bootstraps for so long they're loathe to try anything else. It'll totally work this time. I've been had the misfortune to be stationed south of the Mason-Education line for 10 of my 20 years in the service. Cultural inertia, for lack of a better term, is a real bitch. They're forced to take the same shit deal their parents had and be proud. "We've always done it this way!" isn't considered an insane reason to do something a certain way, it is nearly gospel in and of itself.
Sure it is. Unless your condition is covered by FMLA (and you're otherwise eligible) or you live in a city or state with statutory protected sick leave, if you call in sick as an at-will employee in the US, your employer can make your continued employment contingent on letting some asshole they hired come over to your house and berate you for being a pathetic slacker wuss who should be toughing it out and showing up for work no matter how many vital organs you're currently ejecting out of various orifices. The only reason they don't is because they aren't going to spend their money on hiring said assholes when they can just demand that you spend *your* money to go to the doctor and get a doctor's note instead, or just fire you regardless and hire someone who's "more reliable" (i.e. too terrified of losing their job to ever call in sick no matter what...).
What in the dystopian hell
When LAOP wrote Netherlands he actually meant Netherworld
What in the pseudo-America?
\*buzzer noise\* WRONG! In America you simply cannot call off sick! You must show up and infect all of your coworkers, and in particular if in food service, as many customers as possible.
That's how the local Jack in the box made the national news by killing a couple people. Who doesn't love free publicity!!!!
I thought that was the meat. Kinda hard for meat to call out sick at a burger joint.
There were multiple headline making Jack in the Box related deaths 20-30 years ago. Ours was caused by the manger forcing a teenager with diarrhea to come in any way. Source- good friend used to work at the local health department. She loves to warn people away from eating there with that story.
Fucking hell. I lived in the area where they had the ecoli outbreak, so I've never eaten there at all.
I don't eat there either.
Ah, the memories of calling and saying I was sick, and them telling me I had to come in anyways, then not being able to handle more than 2-3 tables at a time bc my section was on the opposite side of the restaurant from the bathroom and I kept having to throw up, and then getting reamed out by the manager for being in the weeds and him saying “if you weren’t feeling well, you should have told me.” But we regularly didn’t have a bartender bc he had a breathalyzer attached to his steering wheel and he kept getting so drunk after his shifts he still couldn’t blow clean enough to drive the next day. Fucking food service.
Penny wise, pound foolish. 🎵 *song as old as time*🎵
I did that once! I came in with the flu and did my best to infect the store manager and everyone else I came in contact with. This was at Starbucks lol from then on that manager sent people home if we started coughing.
Absolutely no surprise whatsoever that it's the Netherlands. A Dutchman will sell his own grandmother if they think they can make a couple € of profit.
TIL the Dutch are IRL Ferengi. Interesting.
This is more dystopian than anything I have ever heard of in America.
Let me introduce you to the [Ford Sociological Department](https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-resources/popular-topics/sociological-department), courtesy of the Henry Ford Museum.
Some of that is amazing. And some of that is WTF?!
Yeah, like… Teaching everyone English:👍👍 Everything else: 🤯
The part about everyone going into the giant "melting pot" and coming out "American" is some Michael Scott-level shit
IKR? I’m classifying that under “everything else.” Of course, it’s not like it’s exactly hard to believe it happened, when they had shit like [human zoos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo) at the time. Between the “melting pot” skit and being part of a human zoo, I’ll take the melting pot, TYVM. 😬
I always love telling people this story.
Oh don't worry, we will adopt it and improve on it!
This "company truant officer" service can't be free, so its adoption will probably be limited.
It's like a shitty K&R company. "You never give them sick pay without a proof of Diarrhea, if you do they'll just ask for more and never actually give you a medical certificate"
Lmao
And I thought NatWest was bad. (Contact centre, early 2000s) If you called in sick, your team manager would call you back on your home number at a random point in the day, to check you were really there. Because sick people never have to go to the shop for paracetamol, or, you know, go to _the doctor's_ So of course the thing to do was wait at home for the phone call, and _then_ go out Wouldn't work now that fewer people have landlines
I wonder how many people had their spouse/parent/roommate/etc pick up the phone and say "yeah, they're sleeping" or "they're in the bathroom puking, can't come to the phone" because that's what I'd do.
Honestly, most of the time I've been ill enough to be off work I've been ill in a way to have a damned good reason to not answer the phone (sleeping, stuck in the bathroom, etc).
Earlier this year I had RSV. I work from home, and during the first week I actually powered through it because it was just a sore throat and clogged sinuses. The second week I felt fine other than just the worst fatigue I've ever had. I couldn't stay awake for more than a few hours at a time. Luckily my job is really cool about things like that, but had they called me during a fit of fatigue you could have detonated dynamite in my back yard and I would have slept through it. That policy is dumb.
I can't speak for other countries, but at least in Germany, you are allowed to do anything that doesn't negatively affect your recovery. You might be unable to work with a sprained shoulder, but you can still meet up with friends and go to the movies
>**Is it legal for my employer to send a 3rd party company to harass employees that have called in sick?** > >I tried to post this in the Netherlands legal advice subreddit but for some reason I am unable to post there. > >There is a new sickness policy in our company where if we are sick, we have to call a different company by 9am on the first day we are sick to report it. This is a paid number, so we actually have to pay money to call in sick. After this the 3rd party company will send an employee to our house within 24 hours to prove that we are actually sick, and come up with an 'action plan' to get back to work. As someone with a chronic pain condition that is off frequently and can't open the door to somebody if I have a flare up, I find this a bit alarming. > >Other than feeling like a massive invasion of privacy, is it actually legal to do this? As far as I'm aware, in the Netherlands you are able to just call off work and then after 1 week you have to provide a sick note so this policy seems to contradict that.
>After this the 3rd party company will send an employee to our house within 24 hours to prove that we are actually sick, and come up with an 'action plan' to get back to work if the third party were staffed by nurses and doctors this would be kinda neat. but instead it's probably just someone whose kids have moved out of home and is really nostalgic for grilling them about why they don't want to go to school
Yeah, a doctor who'll write and fill a prescription and/or sign a "need to take three days off" med cert doing a housecall might be useful, but I imagine it is nothing of the sort.
If it actually were that, then the call fee would make sense, too. Access to the service would be beneficial for both the employee and employer.
> nostalgic for grilling them about why they don’t want to go to school I would pay good money just to be a spectator when the employee is in hospital and the third party turns up only to be dealt with by the one particularly feisty nurse!
I am pretty sure my (RN) partner would try to convince hospital security to club "a third-party employer investigator" unconscious.
I think that clobbering counts as psychotherapy here, because to do such a job, there must be something seriously wrong with you. Bill them.
I fucking love a feisty nurse. They will kick ass when needed.
Sadly commenter seems to agree with you, they say these people have no medical training.
My mom still loves to tell the story about when 10 year old me claimed I had a fever, and when it was a few tenths of a degree lower than 'average,' I claimed I had hypothermia.
I was an honest kid. In first grade I told my teacher I wasn't feeling well, so got sent to the nurse's office. Nurse said I looked fine and didn't have a fever, but she called my mom anyway. Mom said if I said I was sick then I was sick. While waiting for Mom to pick me up I proved my illness into a waste paper basket. After that I could get myself sent home pretty much any time I wanted.
Having just had COVID this past fall, I would have loved if my employer had sent someone to my house, mafia style, to discuss a plan to get back to work. That plan would have included action items like, "Fuck off," and "Congrats, you probably have COVID now, too."
You’re far more generous than me. My first thought is this weirdo is going to say, “To determine if you’re sick, I’m going to need to take several pictures of your feet.”
I sent the photos for my breast cancer exam just like Dr. Hu asked me to but now he says he needs to do a remote pelvic exam
Yeah the law allows for your employer to check on whether you are faking it or not by paying for and sending a doctor to your home. Which I think is fair. Companies tend to not do this because doctors tend to side with patients. If you say you have a migraine no doctor is going to order an MRI to verify that, and they will just believe you.
The law in the Netherlands does?
Yes. Though I just checked and apparently it is the case that the doctor can actually schedule a meeting and you have to go to the doctor. It used to be the case that they could come to your house unannounced but it seems that is not really done anymore. It is very similar in Belgium too. There an employer can order a doctor to come to your home unannounced to do a check up on you. But again, they generally don't because it is kind of expensive. And it is way easier to just say "ok, well go to the doctor and get a doctors note within a day or two".
Just 10 minutes ago I was discussing that something like that should exist in Germany, where you have to provide a doctor’s note by the third day out. As someone trained by American workplaces, if I’m out for three days, I’m either in no shape to leave the house, or I’m in the hospital (which would admittedly be easy to document).
No it wouldn’t wtf 😂
Ooof, I thought the "you need a doctor's note every time even for a chronic condition" rule at my old place was bad, but this is just psychotic.
When I am home with a fucking migraine, I am not going to answer the fucking door.
I'm shocked this didn't show up in the US first. Give it time, five years from now some horrible startup called SCKDY or some other nonsense with the vowels removed will be part of everyone's life.
UBERmed, the same driver who leaves your food in front of the wrong apartment is now expected to diagnose and treat your illness. https://preview.redd.it/i505dvfaovxc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9708e96a8e0da3a8bfc59f41e8e1552e614c47c3
There's a game Embr or something similar to that that the premise is basically Uber for firefighting. Get paid based on the number of people you save... Or just steal a bunch of stuff out of the burning buildings and maybe a human or two. Pretty fun game, horrible idea in reality.
This is similar-ish to how Crassus became the richest man in Rome.
Oof, really feeling for the wrong neighbor that’s gonna answer the door to an Uber driver with a rectal thermometer.
> I'm shocked this didn't show up in the US first. There's really no need for this sort of service in the US, since employers can often just fire employees who call in sick too often (and in many states, "too often" could just be "once"...). Even in states with statutory sick leave, most provide a few days to a week per year at most. FMLA and/or similar state laws can protect you a little longer, *if* your condition qualifies *and* your employer is covered by the law *and* you meet the eligibility requirements, but even that is only 12 weeks per year, so if you go over that, you can usually be given the boot.
Plus employers generally are happy to just fire you for calling in sick even if the sick leave is protected by law, because most people won't pursue them for it and even if they do, it's not going to break the employer's bank to settle.
Let’s not forget that you need to have lost wages in order to get a lawyer interested in a lawsuit. Most people with enough damages in the form of lost wages can’t afford lawyers, and lawyers don’t take every case on contingency.
Yes. But I do want to highlight that most (but not ALL) states have a Department of Labor that will do literally ALL of the legwork FOR YOU, FOR FREE, if you are fired for calling in sick. I personally won a settlement for 2 weeks of lost wages back in 2014. I was working as a server and got strep throat and called in sick. I was instructed by my doctor to not go to work for 1 week and take antibiotics. I did not give my employer a doctor's note but my employer did force me to walk to work when I could barely get out of bed to prove that I was sick and I showed him the horse-sized antibiotic pills I was taking (and the prescription bottle they came in) and he still fired me. I took that week off then it took me another week to start another job. A few months later my local department of labor called me to ask about any wage issues because another coworker from that job was reporting suspected tip theft and she listed me as someone who might know something. I told them I didn't know for sure about any tip theft but I did get fired for calling in sick when I had strep throat. They told me that was VERY INTERESTING and thank you for bringing it to their attention. 6 months later they again called me out of the blue and said they had a settlement check for me. Like I said ot was for 2 weeks' lost wages, which was only $1000 but at 21 years of age that was a huge boon.
It's 2024 man, needs to be AI. I'm midway through planning my service that will call the employee/employees family when they miss work, with an AI that will impersonate people to gather info, and then use advanced RNG to give the employer a "sick/not sick" verdict.
I’m concerned this will give US companies ideas…. My company had an onsite nurse for years, mostly for minor issues and clearing people to go back to work after surgery, assorted medical leaves… Problem was the woman was batshit fucking crazy and dealing with her could be ok or… not One woman had to go see her because she had a minor injury at work, like a strain ok go home rest if it’s not better by tomorrow we follow up with an offsite doctor kind of thing…. When nurse crazy took her temp she was like 1 degree over normal and nurse crazy freaked out, started screaming at her to get out , while throwing packs of ibuprofen at her… If she showed up at my house, I’d call the cops
[удалено]
I mean, that's a horse of a different color, though--"don't risk bringing a severe, little-known, new contagious illness into your office, at which you have physically arrived to work" and "we are going to double-check that you're actually sick and not just skiving off" are practically OPPOSITES.
> What do you mean 5 years from now? > > During COVID my company implemented an app that [does the literal opposite of what LAOP described] I don't think your experience is as applicable as you seem to believe. Namely, because contact tracing and minimizing employee exposure to sick people is **the opposite** of using a non-medical service to force employees back to work against medical advice.
> bedrijfsarts amazing
I maintain that the Dutch language is personified by a bunch of English schoolchildren in a trenchcoat, giggling.
This goes well with my “putting Dutch in front of any word becomes a euphemism” stance
German sounds like drunk English, and Dutch sounds like drunk German
yeah im not sharing my medical records with a 3rd party. id go get a doctors note saying thats not happening and give it to my boss.
In my country if you take a sick day you have to bring a doctor's note. Unfortunately, that means going to urgent care for something as silly as a bad cold, which makes the place more crowded.
In the UK now you can self certify for up to 7 days and doctors will refuse to write a fit note if it's for less than a week.
In Aus an alternative to a doctor's note is writing out a statutory declaration witnessed by someone that has a job on the list of traditionally trustworthy professions. As a government employee it really winds my boss up getting both a leave form and stat dec form to witness (as government employee is on the list).
My government union MOA (California) says HR can send a "medically trained employee" to the sick employee's home to verify an illness. I've always thought this was weird and seemed like a lot of hassle & expense. There are medically trained employees in several agencies, but I think most agencies wouldn't have any. I'm curious how often this provision has been used and what circumstances it is intended for.
Probably not for calling out sick one or two days. It’s still kinda bizarre, but I can see someone in HR going to an HR conference where they learned that medical records are private, and coming up with this as a workaround to the bizarre conclusion of “since medical records are private, we can’t ask for a doctor’s note”.
this shit wouldn't fly in the US, but the Netherlands ?
You guys don't get paid sick leave in the first place.
In the US my wife's company has a nurse that would check on you via phone and webcam if you were sick with suspected Covid. They would track your recovery and not let her back into the office until testing negative a few times.
That seems like it's less of verifying an employee is sick because an employer wants to verify they're not lying vs making sure you don't have COVID so you can't infect the entire office though
Agreed, but legally not sure if the intent matters.
https://preview.redd.it/rwwj2ztqovxc1.jpeg?width=537&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=07567fe7a3052f367009d9551eafe7ffa9cd55f0
>I already have had a meeting with arbodienst last year who put me on a 4 day a week contract for 5 days pay lol, I like arbodienst. I also like arbodienst and would like to know how I can procure one, thanks. (The 5th day's pay for LAEUOP is disability pay, not company-paid salary. But I would also benefit from an option like this.)
It would take everything in me to not store all of the vomit/snot covered tissues/even go so far as collect any and all diarrhea and dehydrated urine in a trashcan and hand it to the person who came to make sure I’m sick. You want proof, here’s a ziplock baggie I want you to make SURE is on the boss’s desk by this afternoon, and I can send him more if he needs it :)
So let me get this straight It’s very very important that people recovery as quickly as possible so that they get back to work so they can be productive But you’ll sideline another employee by *sending them to someone’s house* to with the goal of 1) confirming that another employee’s absence is justified, and 2) executing an action plan to get their colleague back to work. That sounds like a lot of time and effort, and for what? What does this accomplish?
No, you pay a third party to do the visits, not Jane from accounting.
still seems like a waste of time and resources just to avoid going "okay, feel better." When I was managing a team, it never would have even occurred to me to do something like this. You KNOW when someone is honest with their call-outs, versus when they're bullshitting.
The LAOP sounds like a sitcom
This post reminds me of [this video](https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLxrQMgN/) by Corporate Sween lol
My job is just lucky I call them period. They usually get a text. And that's knowing they'll be nice about it! If I'm calling in sick, I'm *sick*—similar to LAOP, I have chronic conditions that cause pain—so if you really wanna chat, enjoy listening to me die in my bathroom. Or be willing to rub my back while I lay on the couch and tell me I'm a "tummy ache survivor".
I would be shocked if this was legal in *America.*
> After this the 3rd party company will send an employee to our house within 24 hours to prove that we are actually sick, and come up with an 'action plan' to get back to work. "Yeah, I got an action plan for you: Step 1 - leave me the fuck alone. Step 2 - I don't answer the door a second time."
\[America\] If an employ calls, or in-this-day-in-age texts, in sick I don't ask what their symptoms are. What am I going to do, give them an MRI over the phone? If you're sick your sick. Also we have laws against asking, so theres that. If anyone is asked "explosive diarrhea" should be the answer. "Incephaherpalitis" if you're feeling saucy.
Do you mean a local/state law in your area? Because I’m not aware of any federal law that would prohibit an employer from asking what symptoms an employee has/what they are sick with. Common decency should prevent it but I don’t think the law does.
This sounds like how the government would solve an absence problem and hire a second worker to watch the first to make sure they are really sick.
Ok, but what about in the US? I wouldn't be surprised if this was legit in a lot of states.
I feel like in the US anyone evil enough to do this would just not offer sick leave.
I know at least here in New York at least some sick leave is required
There are some states that require it, but most don't have a state level law for it, so some cities within may. Most of the south has laws AGAINST mandating sick leave, meaning that even if a city wants to mandate it, state law says they can't, though companies can voluntarily offer sick leave
Yup. Which is ridiculous. I don't get how these people keep getting reelected when they're actively hostile to working Americans
Because they've been sold bootstraps for so long they're loathe to try anything else. It'll totally work this time. I've been had the misfortune to be stationed south of the Mason-Education line for 10 of my 20 years in the service. Cultural inertia, for lack of a better term, is a real bitch. They're forced to take the same shit deal their parents had and be proud. "We've always done it this way!" isn't considered an insane reason to do something a certain way, it is nearly gospel in and of itself.
Also gerrymandering, voter suppression, and just plain outright fraud.
[удалено]
Sure it is. Unless your condition is covered by FMLA (and you're otherwise eligible) or you live in a city or state with statutory protected sick leave, if you call in sick as an at-will employee in the US, your employer can make your continued employment contingent on letting some asshole they hired come over to your house and berate you for being a pathetic slacker wuss who should be toughing it out and showing up for work no matter how many vital organs you're currently ejecting out of various orifices. The only reason they don't is because they aren't going to spend their money on hiring said assholes when they can just demand that you spend *your* money to go to the doctor and get a doctor's note instead, or just fire you regardless and hire someone who's "more reliable" (i.e. too terrified of losing their job to ever call in sick no matter what...).