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Disclaimer: I'm a US Citizen / Worker, white collar. My first job had: Unlimited sick time. Take it when you need it. No doctor's note. I think you may have

by ilc 3mo ago

Disclaimer: I'm a US Citizen / Worker, white collar. My first job had: Unlimited sick time. Take it when you need it. No doctor's note. I think you may have needed one at the week mark. Never hit at that employer. Most employers have been limited sick, with a note at a week. I can't imagine note on day 1. That's just... nuts. The lack of trust shown there is massive. I'm making calls on stuff far larger than my sick days. If you can't trust me on sick days, how can you trust me to do my job?

joe_mamba 3mo ago
>The lack of trust shown there is massive. All systems based on trust eventually get abused. Not by everyone of course, but catching a few with their hands in the cookie jar is enough to trigger a rethink on the whole trust-based thing. Most corporate German workers I knew were taking a few extra vacation days a year as sick leave, or using fake sick leave(often weeks or months!) as revenge if their employer didn't give them their desired raise or promotion. Their own admission, it's basically an open secret when you move there. Hell, we had German colleagues that would mysteriously get "sick" exactly before the customer delivery crunch, every-single-time, like clockwork. The problem is when this becomes culturally normalized, more and more people do it as they see those abusing it get away with extra vacation days so then they think why wouldn't they do it too, otherwise they're suckers, right? And so after a while, the abuse starts to become so rampant and obvious to the employers as well, which leads to increasing the cost of doing business in Germany, and so everyone gets the collective punishment if they still wish to keep their jobs and not lose them to neighbouring countries that have cheaper labor because workers there don't abuse this system(yet). That's the same thing that ended 100% remote/WFH jobs and triggered the return to office mandates, too many people obviously scamming the trust based system pretending to work while actually doing nothing. >I'm making calls on stuff far larger than my sick days. If you can't trust me on sick days, how can you trust me to do my job? These policies aren't meant to target the German workers making important decisions who have a lot of bargaining power, but those on menial jobs to keep them working on the hamster wheel. It's what the communist system was designed to do to workers too. You keep them busy all day conforming to stupid bureaucracy and queues, and they're too busy to protest or switch jobs, forcing them into indentured servitude. Merz is a product of Blackrock after all. So it's either a 50 IQ move or a long term 500 IQ move. Anyway, this isn't the first time in recent history when labor privileges were scaled back in Germany. Agenda 2010[1] did similar things, mostly by defanging unions. The truth is that those crazy good perks were gotten by the working class when Germany was the world industry leader post-WW2, but now Germany's industry output is at a 20 year low(thanks to a series of political and corporate self-owns) so it can't afford the same perks like in the past, and needs to scale back its generosity if it wishes to stay solvent. At the end of the day it's just business, and you need business to fund the welfare state. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2010
- dijit 3mo ago
  > System based on trust eventually get abused. This is true. The tyrrany of the untrustworthy is that they destroy society for the rest of us. The best thing we can do is control our spaces where it can be controlled. Don't hire untrustworthy people, be extremely punishing to those who break trust. Rule 0 of any good community is: don't act in a way that makes me create a new rule. Workspaces are as much community as anywhere else, as much as Americans promote the idea that we're not actually fully human when working.
  - _DeadFred_ 3mo ago
    In the USA the most untrustworthy among us who in your words are "destroying society for the rest of us" are employers, as wage theft by employers is the largest form of theft in the country. If workspaces are as much a community as anywhere else, the fact that the rot starts at the top should be the most major concern. People taking sick days seems like it falls way down the list of concerns in trying to get the American workspace ethical and overcome the tyranny of the untrustworthy (employers) of which you speak. https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-workers-hundreds/ https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-... "In 2019, the total cost of every robbery in the country was $482 million. The cost of wage theft was more than 100 times that number." https://www.workingnowandthen.com/blog/wage-theft-the-50-billion-crime-against-workers/ https://www.workingnowandthen.com/blog/wage-theft-the-50-bil... "More than $1.5 billion in stolen wages recovered for workers between 2021 and 2023" https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-2021-23/ https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-2021-23/
    - joe_mamba 3mo ago
      >In the USA the most untrustworthy [...] are employers [...]tyranny of the untrustworthy (employers) Have you ever been an employer? Like if being a trustworthy employer is so easy why aren't you and many other people doing it to set an example? How come all employers are tyrannical? IMHO your blame is misplaced. A lot of the issues you point out are not due to employers, but due to government regulations or lack thereof, and the issues of the way the economy and financial systems are setup to incentivize, which the government is also responsible of regulating and enforcing. Without proper regulation and enforcement to even the playing field, the only ones who manage to stay in business will be the unethical ones and all those gets dragged into the mud. Try being an employer for a year and find out for yourself. It's easy to just say employers are tyrannical when you've never been on the other side and never had to deal with workers like you who automatically blame society's woes on you just because you're a business owner as if S/M business owners make and enforce the laws.
rich_sasha 3mo ago
Don't know about other places, but in places I have worked that required sick note on day 1, you could get one via a phone/video doctor's appointment. You could argue that this is accountability theatre, though frankly for something like a cold - what will a doctor see face to face that they won't on the phone? It's still a positive amount of faff but pretty tiny.
- eska 3mo ago
  If I was going to pretend I’m sick I’d just say I have diarrhea. There’s no way for the doctor to check it. So yea this is theater.
wqaatwt 3mo ago
Employers still have the option to not require it on day one if they choose? It’s just that they have the option now if they feel specific employees are abusing it. Considering that you can’t fire people in Germany for taking an excessive number of sick days (even if you have good reason to believe they are faking it that doesn’t seem unreasonable)
- Timon3 3mo ago
  > Considering that you can’t fire people in Germany for taking an excessive number of sick days (even if you have good reason to believe they are faking it that doesn’t seem unreasonable) This is not true, it is possible to fire people in these cases.
- inigyou 3mo ago
  You have the option in Germany to require a doctor's note on day 1. If an employee is sick too much, their health insurance reimburses you for their salary.

by ilc 3mo ago

joe_mamba 3mo ago

>The lack of trust shown there is massive. All systems based on trust eventually get abused. Not by everyone of course, but catching a few with their hands in the cookie jar is enough to trigger a rethink on the whole trust-based thing. Most corporate German workers I knew were taking a few extra vacation days a year as sick leave, or using fake sick leave(often weeks or months!) as revenge if their employer didn't give them their desired raise or promotion. Their own admission, it's basically an open secret when you move there. Hell, we had German colleagues that would mysteriously get "sick" exactly before the customer delivery crunch, every-single-time, like clockwork. The problem is when this becomes culturally normalized, more and more people do it as they see those abusing it get away with extra vacation days so then they think why wouldn't they do it too, otherwise they're suckers, right? And so after a while, the abuse starts to become so rampant and obvious to the employers as well, which leads to increasing the cost of doing business in Germany, and so everyone gets the collective punishment if they still wish to keep their jobs and not lose them to neighbouring countries that have cheaper labor because workers there don't abuse this system(yet). That's the same thing that ended 100% remote/WFH jobs and triggered the return to office mandates, too many people obviously scamming the trust based system pretending to work while actually doing nothing. >I'm making calls on stuff far larger than my sick days. If you can't trust me on sick days, how can you trust me to do my job? These policies aren't meant to target the German workers making important decisions who have a lot of bargaining power, but those on menial jobs to keep them working on the hamster wheel. It's what the communist system was designed to do to workers too. You keep them busy all day conforming to stupid bureaucracy and queues, and they're too busy to protest or switch jobs, forcing them into indentured servitude. Merz is a product of Blackrock after all. So it's either a 50 IQ move or a long term 500 IQ move. Anyway, this isn't the first time in recent history when labor privileges were scaled back in Germany. Agenda 2010[1] did similar things, mostly by defanging unions. The truth is that those crazy good perks were gotten by the working class when Germany was the world industry leader post-WW2, but now Germany's industry output is at a 20 year low(thanks to a series of political and corporate self-owns) so it can't afford the same perks like in the past, and needs to scale back its generosity if it wishes to stay solvent. At the end of the day it's just business, and you need business to fund the welfare state. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2010

dijit 3mo ago
> System based on trust eventually get abused. This is true. The tyrrany of the untrustworthy is that they destroy society for the rest of us. The best thing we can do is control our spaces where it can be controlled. Don't hire untrustworthy people, be extremely punishing to those who break trust. Rule 0 of any good community is: don't act in a way that makes me create a new rule. Workspaces are as much community as anywhere else, as much as Americans promote the idea that we're not actually fully human when working.
- _DeadFred_ 3mo ago
  In the USA the most untrustworthy among us who in your words are "destroying society for the rest of us" are employers, as wage theft by employers is the largest form of theft in the country. If workspaces are as much a community as anywhere else, the fact that the rot starts at the top should be the most major concern. People taking sick days seems like it falls way down the list of concerns in trying to get the American workspace ethical and overcome the tyranny of the untrustworthy (employers) of which you speak. https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-workers-hundreds/ https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-... "In 2019, the total cost of every robbery in the country was $482 million. The cost of wage theft was more than 100 times that number." https://www.workingnowandthen.com/blog/wage-theft-the-50-billion-crime-against-workers/ https://www.workingnowandthen.com/blog/wage-theft-the-50-bil... "More than $1.5 billion in stolen wages recovered for workers between 2021 and 2023" https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-2021-23/ https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-2021-23/
  - joe_mamba 3mo ago
    >In the USA the most untrustworthy [...] are employers [...]tyranny of the untrustworthy (employers) Have you ever been an employer? Like if being a trustworthy employer is so easy why aren't you and many other people doing it to set an example? How come all employers are tyrannical? IMHO your blame is misplaced. A lot of the issues you point out are not due to employers, but due to government regulations or lack thereof, and the issues of the way the economy and financial systems are setup to incentivize, which the government is also responsible of regulating and enforcing. Without proper regulation and enforcement to even the playing field, the only ones who manage to stay in business will be the unethical ones and all those gets dragged into the mud. Try being an employer for a year and find out for yourself. It's easy to just say employers are tyrannical when you've never been on the other side and never had to deal with workers like you who automatically blame society's woes on you just because you're a business owner as if S/M business owners make and enforce the laws.

rich_sasha 3mo ago

Don't know about other places, but in places I have worked that required sick note on day 1, you could get one via a phone/video doctor's appointment. You could argue that this is accountability theatre, though frankly for something like a cold - what will a doctor see face to face that they won't on the phone? It's still a positive amount of faff but pretty tiny.

eska 3mo ago
If I was going to pretend I’m sick I’d just say I have diarrhea. There’s no way for the doctor to check it. So yea this is theater.

wqaatwt 3mo ago

Employers still have the option to not require it on day one if they choose? It’s just that they have the option now if they feel specific employees are abusing it. Considering that you can’t fire people in Germany for taking an excessive number of sick days (even if you have good reason to believe they are faking it that doesn’t seem unreasonable)

Timon3 3mo ago
> Considering that you can’t fire people in Germany for taking an excessive number of sick days (even if you have good reason to believe they are faking it that doesn’t seem unreasonable) This is not true, it is possible to fire people in these cases.
inigyou 3mo ago
You have the option in Germany to require a doctor's note on day 1. If an employee is sick too much, their health insurance reimburses you for their salary.