stress

[nightcrawler13]

This guy was fired from his job after being the in the world news for rescuing his kids from a shark, whilst on vacation in Australia whilst he was signed off from his job with stress.

He claims that his doctor advised him to take a break and go on holiday, the charity he works for (in a letter to him) said that he was well enough to go to Australia and well enough to grab a 6 foot shark, therefore implying he should be well enough to be in work.

Do you think stress is something a company should have to pay out for in regards to sickness, or an excuse people use to get paid time off work?

[Rufus Gwertigan]

This guy was fired from his job after being the in the world news for rescuing his kids from a shark, whilst on vacation in Australia whilst he was signed off from his job with stress.

He claims that his doctor advised him to take a break and go on holiday, the charity he works for (in a letter to him) said that he was well enough to go to Australia and well enough to grab a 6 foot shark, therefore implying he should be well enough to be in work.

Do you think stress is something a company should have to pay out for in regards to sickness, or an excuse people use to get paid time off work?

[nightcrawler13]

I did not think he was sacked for that? I heard it was due to a loss of confidence in him, presumably because he was at the least disingenuous by not telling them he was going on holiday.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

you're reading the same BBC article I am?

[nightcrawler13]

Yes and what does it go on to say? "The breakdown of the trustees confidence and trust in you and your ability to perform the role"

Given he had been off sick since April, and his wife was off sick as well, yet buggers off to Australia for 2 months while on sick, I think there definately is a trust issue.

Edited March 13, 2013 by nightcrawler13

[Rufus Gwertigan]

If the reported facts of that story are true I would imagine if he goes to tribunal he will get an heathy settlement.

If the trust in the employee had broken down then the company should of come to a compromise agreement with him and paid him off but it is clearly not gross misconduct to have simply followed your doctors advice and gone on holiday. There are no limitations where you serve out your sickness.

Easy win at tribunal this one.

EDIT: In fact you don't even need your doctors support to go on holiday. There are simply no limitations on where you serve your sickness. The concept he should of been confined to the four walls of his house is pretty funny actually

Edited March 13, 2013 by Rufus Gwertigan

[Spindles]

Stress is a killer. People who take the piss prevent genuine cases from being taken seriously.

2 months holiday seems like more than the annual entitlement most jobs would receive, although they work for a charity, which for some is just a license to print money. I don't really know anything about them, so would be loathe to make a judgement on whether they were genuine or not on the basis of a few paragraphs on the beeb.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Rufus

Your suggestion is that if he was being paid for sick leave he would still have to inform the company when he went on holiday.

Think logically about it. When is a holiday an holiday ? A holiday has no special status in law. If I went to Wales to see a relative is that a holiday ? If I went to Bolton to see a show is that a holiday ? If I wen to the USA to take a shit and come home is that a holiday ?

Shit like this greats blown up at tribunal every day of the week. Granted some allow themselves to be abused by over bearing companies but hey, that is peoples choices I suppose.

I doubt there is anything in his contract. Might be something in the companies employee handbook but its going to be so difficult to win at tribunal im betting this guy wins.

Of course I don't have all the facts... But neither do any of us.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Another interesting angle to all this is:

If you go on holiday and get sick, then you can retake that holiday leave at another time.

The concept that if he went on holiday it would start to come under a companies holiday policies is weak at best.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/9348026/EU-workers-sick-on-holiday-must-get-extra-time-off.html

[eFestivals]

aren't jobs stressful by default?

If a job isn't stressing you, then you can't be doing it right.

If a job is stressing you too much, then you're not suitable for that job.

While I'm a little uncomfortable with the employer sacking this geezer, I have at least the same level of uncomfortableness about the employees actions.

If that employee has been off work sick with stress for nearly a year, then providing it's purely the job that is stressing him I certainly don't have a problem with his job being downgraded to something less stressful at the very least. A person has to fit the job as much as the job has to fit the person.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Why should they tell their employer ?

They have been signed off WORK not living their lives!!!

[eFestivals]

Well given that the employer has a legal obligation to keep contact when you are on long term sick I would assume it common sense to tell your employer where to contact you so you have a job to return to.

Hmmm ..... I was once (nearly 30 years ago now) signed off work for over a year with a broken hand (I wanted and tried to go back to work with that broken hand; the company wouldn't let me).

Because I was waiting for the NHS to get their shit together to operate on my hand, and because the NHS lead time and the post-op recovery time were both knowable to some extent, it enabled the doc to sign me off for long periods of time each time I needed the sicknote renewed (I forget exactly now, but some of the sicknotes were for 3 months or more).

Each time I got a sicknote I cfontacted the company and let them know I was signed off again, for the length of time of that sicknote. I wouldn't contact them again until the next sicknote.

An employer 'owns' your working rights, they do not own your life. Once your obligations around your working life are covered (as they were by my sicknote) then the employer should have no further call on you.

That's me outlining how I think a relationship with an employer around sickness should be handled.

However, any issues around the sickness itself are a different thing in my mind. My broken hand was a clear obstacle to working for all of the time that I had the broken hand (as my employer made clear by refusing my offer to return to work with that broken hand). Stress is far less clear-cut, and while I fully accept that stress can be debilitating, there's the possibility that the employee is taking the piss by inventing their stress, as well as the possibility of managing the stress within working via different or lesser job tasks, reduced hours, etc. So in this particular case both the employer and employee should have (after a month or two) started trying to work towards a common ground where he could return to work at some level.

In this particular case, while knowing nothing of the case except what has been written in this thread, my suspicion is that he's taking the piss or that his wife is (and perhaps both) - cos both are supposedly too stressed to work. I suspect that one was genuinely signed off for stress, which made the other realise they could use that excuse to take the piss. But that's a guess on very limited info.

And of course the whole story has limited info. It might well be that the employee had long-before refused to engage with the employer about how to manage his stress at work, and when they've seen him living it up on a 2 month Oz holiday it firmly convinced them that he was taking the piss.

[Spindles]

Well put.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Reading other reports he isn't taking legal action which obviously makes you wonder...

But from a tribunals point of view and from how the company handle it under their procedures, stress, if supported by a doctor, wouldn't / shouldn't be viewed any differently than a broken hand would... Both are medical issues and are both handled in the same way (although the resolutions / outcomes can obviously be different paths)

Although I accept people might be suspicious of what is really going on etc...

[bunique]

"If a job is stressing you too much, then you're not suitable for that job."

I disagree with this - the stress of your job is often related to factors that you have no direct control over. I've watched a colleague's self-confidence and esteem be completely destroyed by a manager (thankfully now gone) - the insidious nature of it was not something the colleague or I could control or even take action on. I currently feel under increasing stress at work due to a number of factors, again not in my control: a colleague handing in their notice and my workload increasing at least 70% in 9 months, constant threat of redundancy. I consider myself pretty resilient and well suited to my job but I can see more and more how it doesn't take much to tip people over the edge into full scale wprk related stress/anxiety.

[eFestivals]

I wasn't dismissing all stress factors as making someone unsuitable for that job - for example, the manager example you give.

But if you're a manager and you can't deal with the stress that role brings by default, then you shouldn't be that manager. The capability to do any job is more than just having the 'normal' skills needed for that role, it also includes the ability to deal with the stress that comes with that role by default.

For example, a manager might have to sack people, so they need to be able to deal with the stress that sacking people would involve.

[feral chile]

Stress related illness can be a GP's way of diagnosing something to avoid social stigma, like serious mental illness, psychosis for instance, which often is brought on by stress.

I once worked with a girl who suffered from depression, who was universally hated in work because of behavioural problems that caused problems for other colleagues.

She was reviled for going swimming while off work sick, on doctor's orders, she said, and subjected to people sending each other emails about her behind her back, making 'jokey' remarks about her - 'I was having a good day before you came back' and laughed at for asking him if he was serious, for asking him not to do it again as it was making her illness worse, disappearing into the loo crying. I was new to the office, and was warned not to be taken in by her as she'd play on my sympathy, but 'we can't touch her because she's protected by the DDA'.

There was an incredible amount of hostility towards this girl, and she certainly wasn;t blameless, according to gossip, but the idea that people suffering from stress are malingerers is very dangerous and misinformed.

Stress totally screws up your head - it can make you behave oddly and cause severe mental confusion, and then it escalates because people react badly to your behaviour etc. it can be extremely debilitating.

[eFestivals]

the idea that people suffering from stress are malingerers is very dangerous and misinformed.

I don't think anyone has suggested anything remotely like this.

What has been suggested is that it's possible for someone to claim to be stressed that isn't. And that's been suggested because it's true.

In the particular example which started this thread, (from what's been posted in this thread, i've not read the article itself) both husband and wife are off work sick with stress. While it's of course possible that both are genuine cases, the laws of averages strongly suggests that it's unlikely.

'Stress' is the modern version of 'a bad back' - something it's perfectly possible to genuinely have that stops you working, but also something that can be and is abused to wrongfully take time off sick.

[feral chile]

I don't think anyone has suggested anything remotely like this.

What has been suggested is that it's possible for someone to claim to be stressed that isn't. And that's been suggested because it's true.

In the particular example which started this thread, (from what's been posted in this thread, i've not read the article itself) both husband and wife are off work sick with stress. While it's of course possible that both are genuine cases, the laws of averages strongly suggests that it's unlikely.

'Stress' is the modern version of 'a bad back' - something it's perfectly possible to genuinely have that stops you working, but also something that can be and is abused to wrongfully take time off sick.

Edited March 14, 2013 by feral chile

[feral chile]

In the article under discussion, the guy was diagnosed with work related stress, under medical superviion, and was advised to take a holiday by his doctor.

Stress doesn't prevent you from physical activity, so 'well enough to pull a shark around while on holiday' is an invalid criticism. If hed been claiming for a physical disability, or claustrophobia they'd have a point.

And relaxation away from the stress trigger seems perfectly reasonable in this case, as the stress appears to have been caused by working in the community.

Edited March 14, 2013 by feral chile

[fred quimby]

I don't think anyone has suggested anything remotely like this.

What has been suggested is that it's possible for someone to claim to be stressed that isn't. And that's been suggested because it's true.

In the particular example which started this thread, (from what's been posted in this thread, i've not read the article itself) both husband and wife are off work sick with stress. While it's of course possible that both are genuine cases, the laws of averages strongly suggests that it's unlikely.

'Stress' is the modern version of 'a bad back' - something it's perfectly possible to genuinely have that stops you working, but also something that can be and is abused to wrongfully take time off sick.

[feral chile]

Having read only a little myself it appears they both worked for the same charity working with the Youth in their community. They say it has grown to big for them overthe last 10 years. Now whether they have tried to get anything done about that I haven't seen, or they were just asked to do more for the same.

[eFestivals]

My stance is, you can't know what;s going on in someone's head, so you have to take their word for it that they're ill. otherwise, you can become part of the stress trigger.

a admirable stance perhaps, but one I very much doubt that you actually manage to live up to in all circumstances (I don't mean that as any insult).

It's pretty much impossible to not naturally make judgements over what someone says, if what they're saying means (or has to mean) something to you - as it would in a work situation when someone is telling you that they can't do that thing because they're too stressed.

If someone has been a malingering bastard in the past (because they're a lazy fecker, perhaps they've even admitted that to a colleague, and nothing to do with stress) but then start using a 'stress' excuse to avoid the same things that they previously lazily avoided, then you're going to question whether their claims of stress are genuine or fake - and more so when them doing that add to your own stress levels by having to find cover to get that work done, or take on that work yourself, etc.

Simple fact is that we all know that some people do invent stress to use to their advantage (as they do other things), so in each case we'll naturally make an evaluation over what we think the real truth is.

[eFestivals]

Having read only a little myself it appears they both worked for the same charity working with the Youth in their community. They say it has grown to big for them overthe last 10 years. Now whether they have tried to get anything done about that I haven't seen, or they were just asked to do more for the same.

thanks for the extra info.

On nothing more than just the fact they work for the same organisation, I now think it far less likely that either of them is faking it. It would make their faking it massively more likely to be exposed I would think, and that by itself would stop most people doing it for such a long period of time, I reckon.

[feral chile]

a admirable stance perhaps, but one I very much doubt that you actually manage to live up to in all circumstances (I don't mean that as any insult).

It's pretty much impossible to not naturally make judgements over what someone says, if what they're saying means (or has to mean) something to you - as it would in a work situation when someone is telling you that they can't do that thing because they're too stressed.

If someone has been a malingering bastard in the past (because they're a lazy fecker, perhaps they've even admitted that to a colleague, and nothing to do with stress) but then start using a 'stress' excuse to avoid the same things that they previously lazily avoided, then you're going to question whether their claims of stress are genuine or fake - and more so when them doing that add to your own stress levels by having to find cover to get that work done, or take on that work yourself, etc.

Simple fact is that we all know that some people do invent stress to use to their advantage (as they do other things), so in each case we'll naturally make an evaluation over what we think the real truth is.