

Ask HN: Do you have more sick time than you can use? - mproud

I am a very healthy 30-year old who only gets legitimately sick once or twice a year. Over the time I’ve been working at this company, I have accumulated over 6 weeks of sick time, and it continues to grow. However, unlike with vacation, I can’t cash it out.<p>Does anyone else run into the same problem? (Or maybe it’s a non-problem?) If so, do you ever use your sick time on a whim?
======
greenyoda
If you ever have kids, you might be glad to be able to take a day off to care
for a sick kid or take them to the doctor.

If you ever catch a nasty case of the flu or are in a car accident, you could
easily be out for more than a couple of days. Being healthy isn't a guarantee
that something bad won't happen to you.

Sick days are also designed to protect employees who are _not_ sick by keeping
sick people out of the office where they could infect others. To make this
effective, the company needs to provide enough sick days to cover the illness
of an average person, not just the healthiest person. So you're actually
benefiting from other employees having more sick days than you yourself could
use. (There also needs to be a corporate culture where people are not
discouraged from using sick days because there's "too much work to do".)

------
DanBC
A company I used to work for allowed its staff 12 sick days per year. These
were used as ad-hoc no-notice holiday days. That was sub-optimal for
colleagues.

The company also introduced a rule that any sick days taken on a Monday; or on
the day before / after a bank holiday weekend, would need a doctor's note.
Legally self certification was all that should have been required. So, this
required a visit to a doctor to get a note. Since, at the time, it was hard to
get an appointment within that time frame the person would require extra time
off to get the note. And by that time they were uealthy and just asking their
GP to write a letter to say that they had been ill with some unspecified
illness; which the GP would do for a £60 charge. So it didn't stop anyone
abusing the sick leave system and increased costs dramatically and made people
take even more time off.

That was a lousy place to work.

------
JacobAldridge
My first question would be 'Are you sure you are accruing sick time?'

It differs around the world, of course, but having worked with many businesses
in the UK and Australia I'm amazed at how many staff think Sick Leave carries
over into a new year (like vacation leave usually does), even though it does
not. Use it or lose it.

I've even seen staff quit after ten years in a job, point out no sick days
ever and ask to be paid out for those 100 days. (10 days pa x 10 years) They
then get surprised to 'learn' that's not how their contracts or the system
works, and usually a little angry (especially if they had already spent those
5 months' salary!).

------
gus_massa
It’s like an insurance policy. You are not expected to crash your car every
month, but you nevertheless have to pay the prime and it covers up to a
certain amount. And if you don’t crash. you can’t carry the amount to the next
month.

~~~
mproud
Yeah, that’s a good way to look at it.

Now only if my medical premium would decrease like how some car insurance
companies reward customers for good driving.

------
helen842000
At my job we don't accrue sick time. We therefore don't feel like we are
missing out if we don't get sick. We are given a set number of holiday days
and just get sick pay as standard. The longer we are off pay gets gradually
reduced until it becomes unpaid leave.

The upside of your company is if you ever had a larger injury you would be
covered, where as after 6 weeks my pay would be a lot lower than full amount.

As long as it rolls over to the next year I think that's reasonable enough
that you can't cash it out.

~~~
mproud
> The upside of your company is if you ever had a larger injury you would be
> covered, where as after 6 weeks my pay would be a lot lower than full
> amount.

That might not be entirely true. After 5 days, I would have to declare a leave
of a some kind. (Not sure how that works with sick time, if I could use that
continuously even while on medical leave.)

------
petersouth
At my job we can donate to others who have run out of time. Not everyone is
nice, but enough are to help out each other when there are critical illnesses.

~~~
mproud
That’s interesting. Hopefully it doesn’t get abused too much.

------
msh
Just curious, how does that work _?

What happens if you use all your sick time, it dont sound like you have too
much of it, happens happens if you get really unlucky?

_Where I come from you dont have a number of sick days like that (if you have
more than 3 consecutive days you technically need a doctors certification) but
if you have more than 120 in a year they can fire you.

------
dozzie
You know, there are countries where there's no such ridiculous thing as fixed
number of sick leaves in a year. Do you really plan all your sickness in
January each year?

In case of sickness, your physician signs your sick leave and you just need to
inform your employer that you take a day (or several days) off because of
that.

------
fnom
i dont have sick time. i just stay home when im sick and need a doctors notice
if its above 3 days. but thats pretty much german standard

