Insomnia and sick days

[mrpupkin]

Is it legitimate to take a sick day when you've been awake the whole night because you're a mental insomniac cunt? I always feel guilty but am useless in the office if I go in. Tell me what to do internet pals

[king_tubby]

I am also interested in this, having been in the same situation recently.

[Janie Jones]

I was a mental insomniac cunt my whole working life and the more crucial and challenging the next day was, the worse my insomnia was. I didn't phone in sick once. You just have to suck it up. Plenty of people in the same boat e.g. new parents. I would not have looked kindly on a colleague letting me down and ringing in sick because they'd not had much sleep.

[Norton Canes]

Tricky question. I'll have to sleep on it.

[im barry bethel]

I would not have looked kindly on a colleague letting me down and ringing in sick because they'd not had much sleep.

I think the general consensus is that short of decapitation anyone ringing in sick is somehow skiving isn't it?, unless I've only worked at firms full of cunts

[Endicott]

Depends on your job a bit. Generally speaking I don't get insomnia but very occasionally I do and then I take the day off, absolutely no problem. I wouldn't be able to trust any of the work I did and I'd have to recheck it all anyway once I was back to normal. Utterly pointless going in under those circumstances.

[thenoise]

If your job is trivial and you can do it while running at 2%, then go for it. Don't do anything dangerous or important of course.

I could be missing limbs and I'd still feel guilty about ringing in. Imagine how good you'll feel afterwards though - just gained a day of your life!

[mrpupkin]

I would not have looked kindly on a colleague letting me down and ringing in sick because they'd not had much sleep.

I'm talking about zero sleep, where you greet the dawn with hot bitter tears, can't think straight for the entire day and existence itself is like nails down a blackboard. As someone else mentioned, you can't produce decent work in this state so what is point.

[Janie Jones]

Well no need to ask, then, is there? If you are in such a state you can't do your job then of course you shouldn't be in work. I often did my job having slept maybe 2 hours in the last 48 but I got by, with the judicious use of caffeine. However, I was only a NHS desk wonk, not an air traffic controller or a HGV driver.

[pancreas]

A crop rotation of benzos/weed/booze to get to sleep, then modafinil/coffee to stay awake. Shat on by downers, shovelled up by stims. Some people microdose LSD, I hear. Anyhow, this is the modern way. Get with the times, Grandparents.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I think turning up to work because of guilt over letting your team down is quaintly sentimental. Many jobs already rely on the goodwill of employees which is why Britain works on average way over our contracted hours (and yet are still chronically under-productive.

Business owes us, not the other way around. It's a sick culture of infantilised obsession with attendance and being seen to be in early and leave late, despite those who do often not producing the work a motivated and skilled employee would given less time.

Seriously though, if you rock up at 8.40 for a 9-5 job and leave after 5.30 that symbolic show of commitment means more to bosses than the actual output achieved during that period. If someone more motivated and skilled decided they were able to produce many times over what the above person achieved and to a better standard in a fraction of the time, but were bad timekeepers and frequently late, they would be the ones on a disciplinary. In a job where timekeeping was irrelevant, that is insane.

Obviously there are specific jobs where this would not be the case but I think it holds true in the white collar service sector office job which dominates our economy nowadays.

[kenneth trousers]

If your job is trivial and you can do it while running at 2%, then go for it. Don't do anything dangerous or important of course.

Fucking hell, I have a job (as in one of a few at my depot) that starts at 01:10 and finishes at 12:50 driving a 2500 tonne freight train. The first shift, on say a Monday, could mean that I've been awake for 36 hours plus before getting to bed if I don't manage a couple of hours the night before.
And it's a job that involves concentration all night, as in lots of shunt moves at your destination, not a step on/step off shift.
You can feel the stress on your body shortening your life.

[Noonling]

I had 10 hours sleep and sat in an office most of the day and I feel exhausted.

Hope that helps :)

[Pingers]

I think turning up to work because of guilt over letting your team down is quaintly sentimental. Many jobs already rely on the goodwill of employees which is why Britain works on average way over our contracted hours (and yet are still chronically under-productive.

Business owes us, not the other way around. It's a sick culture of infantilised obsession with attendance and being seen to be in early and leave late, despite those who do often not producing the work a motivated and skilled employee would given less time.

Seriously though, if you rock up at 8.40 for a 9-5 job and leave after 5.30 that symbolic show of commitment means more to bosses than the actual output achieved during that period. If someone more motivated and skilled decided they were able to produce many times over what the above person achieved and to a better standard in a fraction of the time, but were bad timekeepers and frequently late, they would be the ones on a disciplinary. In a job where timekeeping was irrelevant, that is insane.

Obviously there are specific jobs where this would not be the case but I think it holds true in the white collar service sector office job which dominates our economy nowadays.

Absolutely this. I am a periodic MIC and I have had to take the odd day off because of, well, being mental (had to do the same once through heat madness when I lived in London - found myself in Epping Forest at 4 a.m. having gone mental).  I also manage a couple of intermittent MICs and have been fine with them having the odd day off because of it; they'd have been no use to anyone and basically radge cunts all day, who wants to work with that?

[mrpupkin]

I think turning up to work because of guilt over letting your team down is quaintly sentimental. Many jobs already rely on the goodwill of employees which is why Britain works on average way over our contracted hours (and yet are still chronically under-productive.

Business owes us, not the other way around. It's a sick culture of infantilised obsession with attendance and being seen to be in early and leave late, despite those who do often not producing the work a motivated and skilled employee would given less time.

Seriously though, if you rock up at 8.40 for a 9-5 job and leave after 5.30 that symbolic show of commitment means more to bosses than the actual output achieved during that period. If someone more motivated and skilled decided they were able to produce many times over what the above person achieved and to a better standard in a fraction of the time, but were bad timekeepers and frequently late, they would be the ones on a disciplinary. In a job where timekeeping was irrelevant, that is insane.

Obviously there are specific jobs where this would not be the case but I think it holds true in the white collar service sector office job which dominates our economy nowadays.

A fair few assumptions there, I don't exceed my contracted hours and I don't work in 'business', I work in a struggling children's services department where things suffer if people aren't around. Apologies if you were responding to someone else.

[Mister Six]

Is it legitimate to take a sick day when you've been awake the whole night because you're a mental insomniac cunt? I always feel guilty but am useless in the office if I go in. Tell me what to do internet pals

Yeah. Say you've been up all night shitting. That adds an unpleasant biological twist that should dissuade further questions from any unfairly unsympathetic bosses, and 24-hour shit bugs are a thing, so turning up the next day properly rested won't seem odd.

[Noonling]

I used to do admin for a sales company and I swear 90% of the sick days people (which was a lot...it was a crappy insurance sales office) took were marked "D&V" - Diarrhoea and Vomiting. If anything I think its less convincing.

I reckon general exhaustion is a valid reason to be off now and again. Is there any opportunity to work from home or anything? Or take a half day?

[Mister Six]

Who cares about convincing? Plausible deniability. They're not going to haul you in while you're spraying slurry over the walls and ceiling.

[Noonling]

If you're just worried about being fired or having someone demand you come in, sure. But it reduces your general credibility if you are obviously lying.

[canadagoose]

I've done a good few days (and nights) with no sleep beforehand, and it's always unpleasant. The only times I've been off due to lack of sleep were if I was being sick or having bad cramps during the night, because after that I'm just unable to function. I think the hardest thing is getting past the stage where you feel like you can't help but fall asleep; once you get past that, it's not so terrible, although communicating gets a bit weird and thinking is a bit harder. Does anyone else find they startle really easily if they've not slept in ages? I always find myself jumping at the least little thing when I'm sleep-deprived.

[Mister Six]

If you're just worried about being fired or having someone demand you come in, sure. But it reduces your general credibility if you are obviously lying.

If he's not doing it all the time there's no reason to assume he's "obviously lying".

[mrpupkin]

I reckon general exhaustion is a valid reason to be off now and again. Is there any opportunity to work from home or anything? Or take a half day?

That's kind of what did in the end, and what I often resort to. Went in for the morning and worked from home after lunch, worked only on simple things that I cant fuck up too much. Trouble is I have a zero sleep night at least once a fortnight, followed by a day like this. Not good for staying on schedule with things, not to mention my sanity. Well thanks all for your replies and thoughts.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

A fair few assumptions there, I don't exceed my contracted hours and I don't work in 'business', I work in a struggling children's services department where things suffer if people aren't around. Apologies if you were responding to someone else.

Sorry I thought I made clear in the post it wouldn't apply to some jobs.

They will still struggle from receiving the labour of someone who has had zero sleep.

[The Boston Crab]

I'm bunking off today to play games on my new fancy telly. They can literally go fuck themselves, nobody's gonna die.

I am a senior manager for the Care Quality Commission.

[mrpupkin]

Sorry I thought I made clear in the post it wouldn't apply to some jobs.

They will still struggle from receiving the labour of someone who has had zero sleep.

Yeah agreed, hence my dilemma of what to do, given that its a regular occurrence. Can't take a sick day every week/fortnight, can't carry on being incapable of thought once a week/fortnight. I suppose the answer is something I like to call "just go to sleep then you bellend".

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Some forms of illness don't have easy to understand patterns but nevertheless, it is the responsibility of your employers to understand and make reasonable adjustments, while it's your responsibility to see what treatment or changes may help you cope with it better.

"Letting the side down" doesn't enter into it, and frankly fuck that outlook on life. This isn't wartime.

All I can recommend is clarity and total honesty about the matter, also join a union.

[Pingers]

More employers are starting to experiment with 4 day weeks (same pay as 5 days) and seeing no drop in productivity. In a rational world it would make no odds if you were out of action one day in ten if you are doing well enough the rest of the time to balance it out. If I was your manager I'd be fine with that.

[Janie Jones]

"Letting the side down" doesn't enter into it, and frankly fuck that outlook on life. This isn't wartime.

Yeah, fuck those stupid bovine idiots who care about their team when they should be sticking it to the man by, er, making things harder for their workmates and colleagues.

(I suppose I'd better reply to this as you've said it twice now and absolutely no one in this thread has demonstrated that 'outlook on life' apart from me in the third post in.)

You are in a job where you have a lot of time to disengage from your work, judging from the hours and hours a week you spend on this website alone. You also get a proper lunch break where you can go down the pub. Unfortunately lots of people work in teams that are not run the way yours is. There is no slack. If someone calls in sick, it increases the burden on the rest of the team because for whatever reason there is no cover you can get at short notice.

If a member of my team rang in sick, they knew it could mean that my colleagues and I would be unable to take enough time at lunch to get to the shops for the essentials needed for the kids' lunch tomorrow, or to nip home to check on a parent with dementia or that we would be bleeding into our chairs because we simply couldn't get off the phone in time to change a tampon. They would know we would generally have a tougher, more stressful day and in that sense they were definitely 'letting the side down'. They also knew that we wouldn't grudge them the time off they needed to get better and that they would cover for us if the positions were reversed.  If they said, 'Fuck "letting the side down" ', that would be seen as an ignorant, ugly, selfish, amoral 'outlook on life'.

[Norton Canes]

A glib response to that might be "If I was in a job which was so under-staffed that the absence of one person meant the remainder of the team were put under untenable stress and literally had to bleed into their chairs because they didn't have time to change their sanitary products, I'd end up removing my sanitary product, wrapping it in a tissue and leaving it in my line manager's in-tray so that they unequivocally grasped the implications of the company's employment policy".

Like I say, that's what a glib response might be.

[Janie Jones]

My boss suffered the most, I think. We sometimes wondered if she ever went home. This was an NHS foundation trust. The board who make the decisions are so far removed from the frontline and struggling so hard to deliver the year on year net savings that the commissioners demand from them, that you're never going to target the right people by working to rule or being selfish or uncooperative with your team and immediate superiors.