Message #57433

[countrigal]

In my company, we accrue sick leave every pay period, just like AL, and it continues to accrue from our first day to our last, rolling over and accumulating.  Basically, we get 1 day a month, every month, till we retire, and so can add up to a lot of leave.  When you retire, you can get paid for a certain percentage (may be all of it, not sure) of your sick leave that you have accrued, as an enticement not to take it.

I hear what y'all are saying about not coming in sick to work, because of causing sickness in others... and once I get enough accrued so that I can be off for my illnesses and my childrens, then I won't.  But right now, I've got to get paid (hence me working) and I know that my kids will get sick, so my leave is for them.  Since our maternity leave is also considered part of our sick leave (ie: if you don't have the sick leave hours,  you don't get paid for the maternity leave), I've used up all of my sick leave and am accruing it very slowly when I have to take time for well-baby appts, doctor appts due to illnesses, and then just general sick babies.  I believe I have somewhere along the lines of 18 hours of sick leave right now because of this.  I just had to take 11 hours of leave last week because of my baby having an ear infection (doc appt - 3 hours), running a fever (8 hours - not able to stay at daycare because of this), and no family or friends around that can watch him while I go to work.  And hubby does what he can, but he works too and he doesn't get sick leave, he just gets annual leave, so when he's off, it costs him vacation days.

So I applaud those of you who have the ability to think of everyone else and not go to work sick.  And for those of us who must... we just need to do what we can not to share our germs.

CountriGal
Peer Moderator