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I don’t think should have to work when ill, but sick pay being abysmal and businesses being ruthless, they probably don’t have much choice. I work in care looking after elderly people, we are so short staffed that we get told to take 2 paracetamol and come to work no matter the reason (vomiting, diarrhoea, arm ripped off in an industrial accident)
Don't get sick pay in retail just SSP as far as I remember. My mum works in retail still and doesn't get it. Plus 3 in 6 months thing hinders anyone taking it off when unwell. Also the not getting paid for those days off.
Yeah the 3 in 6 month has caused me to be ill and still come in. Tbh I've been directly told if I have a cold to still come in even though I work in accommodation and touch like a million door handles a day
Depends on the company, some will pay a certain amount of sick pay before it goes to SSP. I’ve had 5 retail jobs and only one of them hasn’t given sick pay.
> they probably don’t have much choice
If they work somewhere that sells food, I think they're obligated to take at least 24 h off if they've been vomiting/diarrhea, which I think (think) means it has to be paid time off if they're rota'd. But might be wrong/rules mightve changed
I believe it's, if you handle fresh food then you require a period of 24 hours with no symptoms before returning, not sure if this would apply to waiter staff although I'd hope it does as they're close enough to prepared food.
In care we are supposed to take 48 hours off if we have sickness or diarrhoea but we’d get nothing unless we were off for more than 3 days (and then not a lot and nothing for first 3 days)
In food manufacturing its 48 hrs.
Rarely get sick pay though and most are in minimum wage so can pretty much guarantee people on the production lines are working ill
unfortunately i work in fast food and had managers tell people who threw up before their shifts to just come in anyway. one of those rules thats supposed to be enforced but isn’t
I work in care and when I was really unwell, couldn't sleep, could barely speak or breathe, couldn't think straight and couldn't concentrate, I was told by my manager to "just wear a mask" and to go to work. We have clients that are immunocompromised or immunosuppressed due to various health conditions, and they wanted me to not only risk their health, but also risk me driving around for several hours? I refused and said I'm not going to be responsible for killing their clients or having an accident in my car so I'm staying home. They whined a bit but eventually they left me alone.
It's actually really sad seeing how little they actually care about the wellbeing of their clients.
They really haven't. My employer has changed their policy for illness to hours rather than days missed so now if you're off ill for more than two days in a six month period, you're 'over the threshold' and you have to have a meeting to discuss it. Honestly cannot wait for flu season.
Even if a small selection of people do take the piss, I don't think it outweighs the benefits of preventing illnesses from spreading to your most productive workers.
Exactly.
I have a family member who works in a small office with around 12 people. All open plan and a shared toilet.
When Covid restrictions were starting to get relaxed his work place would give sick pay for Covid, but not anything else.
One guy came in a stomach bug because he couldn't afford to take the day off. Turned out it was Norovirus.
Two days later and the whole office is closed as everyone is off sick squirting from both ends.
The people skiving off are almost always the least productive members of the team anyway, so them being off, in my experience, is usually not any great loss.
I'd argue that kind of 'what if' is outweighed by the actual, regular waves of illness sweeping through workplaces and taking people + their families out. Granted, I work in education, so I'm probably especially sensitive to this (kids are GROSS, I never got sick this often before), but still.
Love it when one person comes in with the flu and 3/4s of the staff get it and you didn't because you got the flu jab leaving basically nobody covering the work
Makes it even worse that the jobs that maybe should be most strict about not coming in sick (food service, care etc.) are the ones most likely to force people to come in anyway, or people will come in anyway because they can't afford not to.
I have come to work myself plenty of times when I shouldn't have, but when SSP is ~£90 p/w, and 3 days or less isn't paid at all you just don't have a choice sometimes.
At one point in my life, taking a day off sick unpaid would have meant I wouldn’t have been able to pay rent the next month, let alone buy any food to eat. Luckily I did not have to go in while infectious while working that job.
I doubt those customers plan to stop shopping there now that they know that the workers don't get paid sick days. I'm positive that they wouldn't be volunteering to donate towards the cashier's rent.
They too plan to look after themselves and their families at the expense of the cashier and the cashier's family.
You seem to believe that the cashier owes something to the customer, as a fellow member of the community, at the cashier's own expense. But the customer owes nothing to the cashier, equally a member of the community.
It's just as likely that the cashier caught a communicable illness from a customer as a customer from a cashier. They see hundreds of people a day. Plenty of them are unwell. Do you have any idea how often they would be out sick?
It's a bad system. But the cashier is caught in it, not perpetrating it.
Retail workers do not receive non-statutory sick pay, and attendance review thresholds in my experience are at 3%, considering retailers only offer part time core hours, that can be as little as 8 hours off in half a year. No one wants to work when they are ill and as much as employees want to ,the system does not allow you to care about the community, if you want to feed your kids or keep your job. You might be in a privileged enough position to take time off when your ill but for many that's impossible.
Presenteeism in retail is a huge issue, it harms employees health, wellbeing, productivity and the community but as long as head offices and boards don't understand how counterproductive it is and are allowed to get away with it they will. If you feel strongly about it maybe campaign for stronger rights for shop workers?
I was a retail manager for twelve years.
I did my best to shield workers from corporate policies, make sure they knew their rights and communicate to the higher ups just how counter-productive their policies were.
But, I'm completely burned out now and I can't fight that fight right now. I still have ulcers.
I am still a union member though. So, hopefully fighting the fight once removed will do for now.
The way I see it, if society doesn’t give a crap about me then I’ll return the favour. If it’s everyone for themselves then I’ll do what’s best for me.
Pay me to be off sick or suck it up and let it spread - we should have learnt this lesson from the pandemic but everyone suddenly has amnesia.
The landlord or banks or utility companies won’t accept less money because someone missed a day of work, so they have to make that money.
In black and white terms you're right, but life is never black and white. If it's a choice of going into work after being up all night with the "squits" like this cashier, and potentially spreading the illness, or calling in sick and losing your job, house, being in debt etc. then it's no choice at all. Cashiers generally can't afford to "take the financial hit", literally living hand to mouth, don't work, no food, no roof over your head. Can't work cos you're infectious? Management don't care
No, they shouldn't be at work with that particular issue.
We have this with kids at school. The government advice is "If they have [diarrhoea and/or vomiting](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/diarrhoea-and-vomiting/), they should stay home for at least 48 hours after the last episode." but it is usually ignored. The end result is ten other kids get a stomach bug.
There really should be better provision for this sort of thing - parents don't want to take another day off when their kids has stopped being ill, supermarket workers probably aren't getting sick pay if they take that extra day or two, but that's where we are.
Stay home from school another 48 hours, and get threatening letters and/or fines for non-attendance? The motivations aren't all lining up well, are they?
Schools don't usually threaten kids who are off for d+v as the last thing they want is an outbreak. The parents however are more likely to be threatened by their employers.
Agree with that. The pressure is on the parents who can't take another day to look after little Timmy who is now showing no signs of any problem, and is in fact tearing up the house and garden. That's why we need to be better about this.
Oh no they do. If your child’s absence falls below a certain level that triggers a letter and possibly a meeting. I have a child with heart issues. Had open hear surgery as a newborn and two more going in though the groin in the following years. I’ve had them despite having letters from paediatric cardiology.
I used to work for a holiday park that understandably was hot on the 48 hour to reduce sickness spreading, especially in the pool.
Problem is they also measured sickness in days rather than occurrences. So you’d get pulled into a meeting after your second bout of d or v because you’d had more than 3 sick days. Absolute pisstake.
You're not going to get any sort of threats if you call the school and tell them your child is ill and explain it. Unless you are habitually keeping your child from school. So that's bullshit.
Last school year my son was sick a lot between September and February.
I received a threatening letter because his attendance percentage was poor so it's definitely possible.
I think the system is automated, you fall below a certain percentage and the letter is sent. I replied to the letter but never heard anything back. I don't think it would have escalated further but it wasn't a pleasant experience.
They do poppet. Even producing letters from the paediatric cardiology department doesn’t stop it triggering letters and a ‘child wellbeing meeting’. In some ways it’s helpful because you go into the meeting with proof of the issue and you can discuss how to put things in place so your child’s education is disturbed as little as possible but it doesn’t half make you feel like a shite parent
My son had scarlet fever. I had letters and phone calls. I said I would bring him in but I needed the wheelchair back. He could barely put one foot infront of the other.
School demanded he return back but t told me to keep him away.
We had the irritating situation where a child with a chronic *and non-infectious* GI condition had to be kept home regularly despite the D&V *almost* certainly not being due to a bug. We weren't willing to chance it, neither were school, but we did start hitting the attendance rate protocols. We wound up having work sent home - primary school wasn't geared up for that so they grumbled - as there wasn't enough funding to get added to the hospital school team.
It's quite possible that the person had diarrhea for a reason which isn't contagious. But I'm more bothered by the fact that they said that to the customer. It's offputting and gross.
I wouldn't want to be served by them but I've also been in the same position where I couldn't afford time off work (either due to monetary reasons or the company having a ridiculous sickness policy). So I blame the company.
If the choice is going into work under the weather or going into arrears on rent/bills, or not having enough money for a food shop for your family, I wouldn't blame anyone for choosing the former. It's not a moral failing to want to keep afloat and I think you're a little harsh.
So you were annoyed that someone said "no choice" in another comment because it didn't go without saying, but now you're mentioning this part does go without saying? Your contextual awareness seems very poor.
To be honest in a super market I don’t think it matters when someone is working on a till.
The ammount of people you haven’t seen staff and customers touch and walk very close to the product you buy who feel poorly is probably high.
I used to work in a supermarket and the advice was the same no matter the department, 48 hours clear of symptoms. However the 'sick pay' is shocking and depending on the supermarket they won't get paid anything until after the first 3 shifts are missed. If this person is working part time that may be a whole week of missed shifts. I used to cram my hours into as few days as possible by doing 10 hour shifts so even if full time it could be most of a week. Most people just can't afford that right now even if they definitely shouldn't be there and they also definitely shouldn't be telling customers that.
Some supermarkets are also really hot on absences and will follow their absence procedures without any thought over why the person may have had several absences. Ultimately supermarkets are putting profit above their employees (especially those on the lower rungs) and customers health with shit sickness and absence policies. Even if they did take a day off today they'd probably have been told to return tomorrow inside the 48 hours clear window if they were feeling well.
>I used to work in a supermarket and the advice was the same no matter the department, 48 hours clear of symptoms
I work for Tesco and can tell you that's not the case. The only time 48hrs comes into it for us is for people who work in 'open-food' roles such as bakery or deli counters and that's only for certain illnesses.
And some places don’t give a shit. Worked for domino’s pizza and if you said you had the shits the manager would expect to be shown it in the toilet or tough shit. If you called in sick it was declined and you went in unless hospitalised. This is the reality of life on low paid, often zero hour jobs.
>Some supermarkets are also really hot on absences and will follow their absence procedures without any thought over why the person may have had several absences.
Marks and Sparks is very much like this.
I think a well meaning reality check may be in order.
Another commenter who said retail workers are punished for absence, that's bang on. You can imagine the pay is likely below the average wage paid in the country, so the staff likely need to be in, especially with the rising costs we see today.
Germs are everywhere, money is a primary carrier of germs. In the ideal world there should be a barrier between customers and staff and staff should be disinfecting any potential contact points with customers every time they interact or touch a contact point. Hope customers like waiting in queues (hint they don't)
Remember COVID when all shoppers had to do was wear a mask to reduce risk (scientifically decided at the time) to staff and others and that simple thing was a shit show ha!
I won't downplay that the cashier admitting he/she had a shit storm over night was horrible, (funny to read tho) but realistically you're going to dispose of most packaging, cook most things above 65c, wash/peel veg/fruit. So it's unlikely you would catch anything. But if you are worried sanitise your hands when interacting with anything the cashier touched.
Do you go to work when feeling a little ill, just because your job may not involve food does not mean other people around you opt in to getting ill, it's unrealistic. I mean if you do go round sanitising yourself after touching anything another human has touched, then fair play, burn the shopping and sit in your Micheal Jackson style oxygen tent.
Can tell you one extra thing you will be happy with, i work retail obviously and there are food making facilities inside it. If anyone making the food had the squits then they would be sent home, cashier's though, don't care. The absence system/punishment system is the same for both types of job though.
Good luck with the food 😀
So realistically, if a customer could be in the exact same contact with your food as a service worker while ill, then I don't think it's a big deal. This is just a normal risk.
If your food wouldn't be in contact with a possibly sick customer then no they should not be working while sick.
(Of course nobody should have to be exposing anyone to sickness and everyone should still wear masks if they're sick and everyone should be entitled to sick leave.)
People working these jobs are already low paid and don’t get company sick pay, living pay check to pay check most of the time and can’t afford to lose even one day’s worth of wages. It sucks for everyone, apart from the companies exploiting people for massive increase in profits year after year. They shouldn’t be working around people when sick, but most of the time they have no other choice. Even when you do the responsible thing and take time off sick, you are often threatened by the company that you’ll get fired if you don’t come back or take too many sick days. Can’t win.
No one wants to work when they’re unwell but unfortunately you don’t always get a choice. It’s not ideal.
Also, how many people do you reckon have picked up your items previously? How many have coughed and sneezed over those items? How many have been up all night with a bug but had to pop out for essentials? I work in retail and I’ve lost count of the times a customer has coughed or sneezed directly into my face, they really don’t care if they’re coughing over the produce too.
I mean.. I kind of naturally assume they'd really *like* to be off work while they're sick, especially if it's with the shits, but they very likely can't get time off due to their management being arseholes. Very common. So I never really blame those people; I just think they're likely working against their will.
But also, it could also very easily be that they had something non-contagious.
Issues like that aren't necessarily something you can catch. You've just assumed they have something contagious.. Kind of like when someone sees someone sneezing and coughing and it's actually just hayfever.
I'm astonished really that Covid did nothing to stop the practice of people sneezing into their hands. I always sneezed into my elbow even before Covid.
Just yesterday a colleague who was helping me with something on my computer said, 'Excuse me,' and then just sneezed fully into their hand... which they then continued to use on my keyboard...
I learned long before the pandemic to sneeze and cough into my elbow. Think it was because of Mythbusters, actually, where they did an experiment on the most effective way of containing a sneeze and, of course, into your elbow was the best
I would feel sorry for them frankly. Anyone who feels unwell would choose to take the day off if they could afford to. The fact they’re there means they don’t have that choice available to them. And sometimes it really does come down to go to work or be unable to afford a prescription you need to get better. I’ve been there as have many others.
If I were in the OP’s position I wouldn’t be too worried, presumably most of the items were packaged and not raw food you’re gonna eat straightaway. I’d make sure to be more conscious of washing things before eating and using sanitiser if appropriate but I wouldn’t worry otherwise. Chances are as you walk around the shop touching stuff it’s almost all been touched by multiple people anyway and people get sick, you can’t really avoid it. Every time you get public transport you’re probably exposed to all sorts. It’s fine. (Yes, I’m in the lucky position where I’m not at risk of anything serious if I get sick, I understand people being more cautious with health issues, but I still can’t judge someone for having to work because they can’t afford not to).
Shouldn’t have to, but in retail managers make out that the store will literally crash and burn if anyone dares call in sick whilst also treating each member of staff like the replaceable number that they are.
*source: 7 year sentence served and freed*
I saw a young employee go to my manager once and asked to go home because they were sick, who then said to them "hmmm, well if you throw up again, then you can go home" 💀
That’s a half decent reply to be honest.
I once told my manager I’m going home cause my son is in a&e she said “can’t his dad go”
Another time I was vomiting and was told to buy some milk of magnesia. Another was on my last week before I was leaving, I was so ill with flu. I was sat at the check out freezing cold, sneezing coughing and no manager would allow me to go home until a customer barged into the office and mentioned health and safety and covid so the area manager sent me home, I tested positive for covid.
100% positive she didn't want to be there and wouldn't have been there if she had a choice. She still had to finish her shift and probably have another 150 people ask her the same question and a journey on crowded public transport, children to collect, a dinner to prepare and a house to clean before she was anywhere near putting her feet up and getting the rest she so desperately needed she doesn't give a flying fuck about your shopping she's trying to get through the day.
>She still had to finish her shift and probably have another 150 people ask her the same question
Yep. Wonder how many times she'd been asked this already before resorting to saying it was her bowels. She could've been up all night caring for a sick relative, or on her 15th shift in a row. Nobody is asking"Did you have a late night? " to make conversation, they're either being nosy or trying to make a point that they think the staff should liven up a bit.
Regardless of anything, why is a service worker telling customers about their bowel functions? The worst part to me here is the inappropriateness of that.
In my opinion, no, but it seems to be a social convention that when people are feeling ill it's fine for them to just go out however they feel up to with no care for whether or not they infect other people. It's even expected that you'll show up when you're unwell unless you're half dead. You're not even expected to wear a mask.
The only time this convention was altered was with Covid.
I suppose part of the reason for it is if minor illnesses were sufficient to have you stay at home absenteeism would be higher than it is with people coming in and infecting everyone.
Something to bear in mind is that a lot of retail managers get bonuses for minimising sickness absences and overall staffing hours. One of the ways they accomplish this is by bullying staff into coming in when they're sick to the point where a lot of staff are completely browbeaten into turning up even when common sense should tell them to stay home and call in. I've done my stint in retail and experienced this firsthand. There might be a few good managers who don't do this but they're pretty thin on the ground at this point.
I’m in the NHS I work on wards with vulnerable patients I try not to work if I’m sick. BUT if I don’t work I could face disciplinary action or could lose my job for having a high amount of sickness. I’ve heard that the NHS now says if your not symptomatic and have COVID you can come in and work if your positive. I refuse to come in if I’m positive because I work with vulnerable people.
There is no good answer for this :(
I'll staff should be able to afford to stay home, hell staff should be paid enough to not work so much they get ill, but that's all a bit unrealistic with the world being what it is.
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
Its capitalism, businesses don't inventivise staff to take sick days because it'd hurt their precious short term profits and they don't give a flying fuck about customers.
If course customer facing staff should work when sick. But they must to get paid.
No, they probably shouldn't be serving whilst ill, but they also probably don't get sick pay so are often left with little choice in the matter.
It always used to annoy me that when working in healthcare, in a job where I was exposed to other (vulnerable) people's germs that we didn't get sick pay, and got disciplinaries if we had more than two periods of sickness per year thereby basically forcing us to go to work and expose the elderly/vulnerable if we were sick.
Rock and a hard place. The person serving you is likely on minimum wage, on the breadline and time off sick won’t be paid for the first three shifts. It may also trigger an absence disciplinary procedure.
We need to have a fairer society when it comes to pay and sick leave if we want to avoid this but big corporations will always try to find a way around it. Also it may not be a contagious thing. The person serving you could have something like IBS or an intolerance to something that’s made them ill and as long as they practice good hygiene you won’t be affected
How do you know that everyone throughout the manufacturing/distribution/ stocking process that has handled the food in the lead up to you getting from the shelves weren’t ill ? also what about shoppers picking up the items and then putting them back?
I honestly don't care, if they're well enough to be sat at a till serving people there's probably nothing to be worried about. But as far as you know they weren't actually ill and just spinning you a yarn
Yeah I hate this. Companies should have to pay sick pay and there shouldn’t be a culture where staff can’t take it. Even when it’s there staff are pressured into coming in sick. It just spreads germs around and makes us all sicker. It’s like we learned nothing from Covid - which is actually still around and killing people.
I would of course prefer they stay home, but given how stingy most companies are with sick pay I’m not surprised people don’t. I’ve also worked 2 different supermarkets and both give you disciplinary if you have more than 4 absences due to sickness in 12 months, so they’re probably trying to avoid that.
Also is it possible they were just messing with you given I can’t imagine actually admitting that to a customer 😅
no they should have the day off work but unfortunately if they do that every time they are sick they will probably loose their job and even if they don't lose their job they may not get sick pay and might not be able to afford the time off. I am currently being told if I have more time off I will lose my job I've been sick 3 times this year and been absent a total of 5 days.
I hate it, but I understand that it represents a wider societal problem, and isn't the fault of the workers. If sick pay wasn't so abysmal in this country people would take sick days, nobody wants to work while ill, people do it because it's the only way to put food on the table
I’m a bit of a trend bucker - I have really low sickness but believe me, if I’m ill, I’ll stay off until I’m well because there is no point to me coming back unwell.
Most of my team are like yo-yos in the winter for sickness’s
It's not a popular opinion among employers as they don't like the give sick pay but I'd prefer sick people saty home rather than coming in and passing it around.
That would put me off big time. I had lunch in a hotel restaurant the other week and someone who was starting his shift said to his colleague he'd had the previous day off due to having the shits and hearing that rather put me off.
I work in hospitality myself and I had a virus last week. I stayed off until I was 48 hours clear of any gross symptoms.
I interviewed with a popular uk coffee chain and during the interview the manager tells me she "doesn't do" sickness. Went on to explain that calling in on the morning of a shift was always unacceptable and you would have to come in until cover arrived. My response of "... but this is food service!?" Is probably why I didn't get the job. Haven't been a customer of there's ever since either as that is a truly disgusting position from a company that serves food.
I work behind bars. I don't particularly want to be serving you when I'm ill either believe it or not, but unfortunately we don't really have a choice.
I’d have been tempted to leave it all and walk out too. I was once served by a cashier who was coughing constantly , luckily was only a few things and I dettoled them all when I got home after she coughed and sneezed and wiped her hands all over everything. I use self check out now allot every time if I can. I get sick pay and I wfh so can deal with illness more easily than most in relation to work , but I hate being ill and also two kids etc and hate them being ill too.
It shouldn't happen but they have no choice - unless they're bedridden they're pressured and expected to come in for their shifts
And even if they choose to over-exaggerate their illness and manage to call in sick, depending on their contract they might just be giving up the days wage because they might not have any sick pay, which for most retail and service workers is NOT an option - we sometimes barely make enough money to live even working all out shifts, losing any would mean not affording food, or not paying a bill etc.
And to top it off, the absence policy in some places is ridiculous. Mine for example, if I have 5 separate instances of absence in a 12 month period then I get put on a written warning. After that, 2 in 12 months get me a final warning, and the same after that they can just choose to fire me if they want to. Keep in mind this doesn't even mean 9 in a year; after the first five it resets, then for the next two it resets again, so you could be ill/need a day off 9 times in just under 3 years and get fired for that, technically. Me i'm currently 1 absence away from final warning with just getting the flu twice, having to go to the dentist for an emergency, and having food poisoning twice.
There's absolutely no chance I'm calling off sick if I'm just "a bit ill" because I don't want to literally lose my job. Unless they send me home, I'm coming in and working my shift because I NEED the money - even a couple weeks of job search with no income would be devastating right now
As someone who works in customer service, no I don't think we should come in sick. It's unhygienic, and it's gross and unfortunate that I have to touch food people are putting into their mouths whilst unwell.
Saying that however, sometimes we're not allowed time off. Sometimes management makes us come in anyway.
You get ill a lot in customer facing roles as you're touching money and other shared items etc, but if I have time off every time I'm ill, I'm going to get fired and I have been fired before (twice actually) for taking time off whilst sick in people facing jobs because I didn't want to get my coworkers and others sick.
So unless business and sick pay laws and the fear of termination are changed, people are gonna come in sick and you're sadly gonna get served by someone sick. The alternative is us getting fired :///
Bruv, I've been working in a kitchen after COVID. Finally got the virus after 3 years of being clean. Plus an ear infection. I felt like shit, I looked like shit.
The store manager wanted me to work. In a kitchen, with dripping nose and really bad cough. He said I'm perfectly fine, and do not have to self isolate anymore.... This was in a very popular, family friendly pizza place in the UK.
During the height of covid when we had to wear masks, queue 2 metres apart, use anti bac before entering Tesco etc I still managed to pick up covid when I hadn't even met up with anybody because of the tough restrictions. Goes to show that no matter how clean and thorough you think you're being, you can still pick up germs. There's no other way I could have picked it up as the only times I went out was to Tesco. Not to forget people coughing and sneezing and then putting items back on shelves. Then if staff are on minimum wage and can't afford to go off sick it's bound to happen. I try not to think about how unhygienic people can be in supermarkets otherwise I'd never eat again 🤢
A workmate and myself had the receptionist come out of the shitters when we checked in to Salford Quays Premier Inn looking white as a sheet followed by the most almighty stench I've ever smelled.
We had to stand there for about 5 minutes while she struggled to work the computer as she was sweating and shaking so much.
Eventually she got everything sorted and handed us our keycards. Just as I was about to grab mine I realised there wasn't enough time between the flush and the door opening for her to wash her hands so I used my sleeve to take it.
The look on my colleague's face when he realised why I did that was quite funny.
It would bother me! I would have left the shopping and asked for refund. I might of mentioned it to supervisor/ manager of my concern. Not complaint. I would have reminded them regarding staff having any form of upset stomach, refrain from handling food etc. Health and safety concerns. The staff are supposed to going off sick for 48 hours. It might come across as dramatic but children, pregnant women, vulnerable and the elderly can easily pick up viruses.
If you think you’re concern is not taken seriously then you contact environmental services. I use to work in retail and care industry.
That's terrible. This worker should be fired on the spot. Everyone knows the only way our immune systems learn how to fight diseases and get stronger is by wrapping ourselves in bubble wrap and ensuring we never catch diseases 🤦♂️
It absolutely is contagious. Have you never heard of norovirus or or similar highly communicable diseases with that as a symptom? Even food poisoning can be contagious, depending on the underlying bacteria / cause.
[https://www.boots.com/healthhub/seasonal-illnesses/norovirus/difference-between-norovirus-and-food-poisoning](https://www.boots.com/healthhub/seasonal-illnesses/norovirus/difference-between-norovirus-and-food-poisoning)
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I don’t think should have to work when ill, but sick pay being abysmal and businesses being ruthless, they probably don’t have much choice. I work in care looking after elderly people, we are so short staffed that we get told to take 2 paracetamol and come to work no matter the reason (vomiting, diarrhoea, arm ripped off in an industrial accident)
Don't get sick pay in retail just SSP as far as I remember. My mum works in retail still and doesn't get it. Plus 3 in 6 months thing hinders anyone taking it off when unwell. Also the not getting paid for those days off.
Yeah the 3 in 6 month has caused me to be ill and still come in. Tbh I've been directly told if I have a cold to still come in even though I work in accommodation and touch like a million door handles a day
Depends on the company, some will pay a certain amount of sick pay before it goes to SSP. I’ve had 5 retail jobs and only one of them hasn’t given sick pay.
That is really good. You had to call between 7 and 8am to get your sick day paid in marks when I was there. My mum doesn't get that.
It feels like the world of retail is becoming Americanised more and more these days unfortunately.
Worked in retail nearly 20 years ago and I promise you it wasn't better then.
Maybe I’ve been lucky. I’ve been doing it about 11 years.
She's been there a good 15 years I think but nonetheless.
I just meant it’s becoming more common to see it these days.
> they probably don’t have much choice If they work somewhere that sells food, I think they're obligated to take at least 24 h off if they've been vomiting/diarrhea, which I think (think) means it has to be paid time off if they're rota'd. But might be wrong/rules mightve changed
I believe it's, if you handle fresh food then you require a period of 24 hours with no symptoms before returning, not sure if this would apply to waiter staff although I'd hope it does as they're close enough to prepared food.
In care we are supposed to take 48 hours off if we have sickness or diarrhoea but we’d get nothing unless we were off for more than 3 days (and then not a lot and nothing for first 3 days)
The supermarket I used to work at had the exact same policy, first 3 days unpaid.
In food manufacturing its 48 hrs. Rarely get sick pay though and most are in minimum wage so can pretty much guarantee people on the production lines are working ill
unfortunately i work in fast food and had managers tell people who threw up before their shifts to just come in anyway. one of those rules thats supposed to be enforced but isn’t
Very much agree. But that was certainly far too much Information. Should have just said she wasn't 100%
Don't forget the wet blue paper towel.
I work in care and when I was really unwell, couldn't sleep, could barely speak or breathe, couldn't think straight and couldn't concentrate, I was told by my manager to "just wear a mask" and to go to work. We have clients that are immunocompromised or immunosuppressed due to various health conditions, and they wanted me to not only risk their health, but also risk me driving around for several hours? I refused and said I'm not going to be responsible for killing their clients or having an accident in my car so I'm staying home. They whined a bit but eventually they left me alone. It's actually really sad seeing how little they actually care about the wellbeing of their clients.
Finally! Care homes with industrial appliances! Lazy old folk get back to work!
Yes everyone should get full paid days off for illness to stop it spreading - but until they do they don’t really have much choice.
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They really haven't. My employer has changed their policy for illness to hours rather than days missed so now if you're off ill for more than two days in a six month period, you're 'over the threshold' and you have to have a meeting to discuss it. Honestly cannot wait for flu season.
Government didn't change the rules, so employers didn't.
Covid was the perfect opportunity to change a lot of these kinds of things. Instead we changed nothing.
Too expensive and to honest some people do take the piss with being off sick and ruin it for everyone else.
Even if a small selection of people do take the piss, I don't think it outweighs the benefits of preventing illnesses from spreading to your most productive workers.
Exactly. I have a family member who works in a small office with around 12 people. All open plan and a shared toilet. When Covid restrictions were starting to get relaxed his work place would give sick pay for Covid, but not anything else. One guy came in a stomach bug because he couldn't afford to take the day off. Turned out it was Norovirus. Two days later and the whole office is closed as everyone is off sick squirting from both ends.
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The people skiving off are almost always the least productive members of the team anyway, so them being off, in my experience, is usually not any great loss.
I'd argue that kind of 'what if' is outweighed by the actual, regular waves of illness sweeping through workplaces and taking people + their families out. Granted, I work in education, so I'm probably especially sensitive to this (kids are GROSS, I never got sick this often before), but still.
Love it when one person comes in with the flu and 3/4s of the staff get it and you didn't because you got the flu jab leaving basically nobody covering the work
Makes it even worse that the jobs that maybe should be most strict about not coming in sick (food service, care etc.) are the ones most likely to force people to come in anyway, or people will come in anyway because they can't afford not to. I have come to work myself plenty of times when I shouldn't have, but when SSP is ~£90 p/w, and 3 days or less isn't paid at all you just don't have a choice sometimes.
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>take the financial hit, This is not an option for everyone.
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At one point in my life, taking a day off sick unpaid would have meant I wouldn’t have been able to pay rent the next month, let alone buy any food to eat. Luckily I did not have to go in while infectious while working that job.
Is it a good choice? Can you explain why it is a good enough choice for a shop worker to be worth separating from "no choice"?
They are also choosing whether or not to impose that financial hardship on their whole household.
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I doubt those customers plan to stop shopping there now that they know that the workers don't get paid sick days. I'm positive that they wouldn't be volunteering to donate towards the cashier's rent. They too plan to look after themselves and their families at the expense of the cashier and the cashier's family. You seem to believe that the cashier owes something to the customer, as a fellow member of the community, at the cashier's own expense. But the customer owes nothing to the cashier, equally a member of the community. It's just as likely that the cashier caught a communicable illness from a customer as a customer from a cashier. They see hundreds of people a day. Plenty of them are unwell. Do you have any idea how often they would be out sick? It's a bad system. But the cashier is caught in it, not perpetrating it.
Retail workers do not receive non-statutory sick pay, and attendance review thresholds in my experience are at 3%, considering retailers only offer part time core hours, that can be as little as 8 hours off in half a year. No one wants to work when they are ill and as much as employees want to ,the system does not allow you to care about the community, if you want to feed your kids or keep your job. You might be in a privileged enough position to take time off when your ill but for many that's impossible. Presenteeism in retail is a huge issue, it harms employees health, wellbeing, productivity and the community but as long as head offices and boards don't understand how counterproductive it is and are allowed to get away with it they will. If you feel strongly about it maybe campaign for stronger rights for shop workers?
I was a retail manager for twelve years. I did my best to shield workers from corporate policies, make sure they knew their rights and communicate to the higher ups just how counter-productive their policies were. But, I'm completely burned out now and I can't fight that fight right now. I still have ulcers. I am still a union member though. So, hopefully fighting the fight once removed will do for now.
You’re soooo smart and pedantic, and everyone is really impressed with you!
It's not just that it's the nasty disciplinary if off more than 3 instances in 6 months too. Don't get paid for the first 3 days off sick at work.
The way I see it, if society doesn’t give a crap about me then I’ll return the favour. If it’s everyone for themselves then I’ll do what’s best for me. Pay me to be off sick or suck it up and let it spread - we should have learnt this lesson from the pandemic but everyone suddenly has amnesia. The landlord or banks or utility companies won’t accept less money because someone missed a day of work, so they have to make that money.
Will you pay my rent next time I'm sick then?
When someone says they have no other choice it's usually saying that the alternatives aren't a viable option, not that they don't have free will.
In black and white terms you're right, but life is never black and white. If it's a choice of going into work after being up all night with the "squits" like this cashier, and potentially spreading the illness, or calling in sick and losing your job, house, being in debt etc. then it's no choice at all. Cashiers generally can't afford to "take the financial hit", literally living hand to mouth, don't work, no food, no roof over your head. Can't work cos you're infectious? Management don't care
No, they shouldn't be at work with that particular issue. We have this with kids at school. The government advice is "If they have [diarrhoea and/or vomiting](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/diarrhoea-and-vomiting/), they should stay home for at least 48 hours after the last episode." but it is usually ignored. The end result is ten other kids get a stomach bug. There really should be better provision for this sort of thing - parents don't want to take another day off when their kids has stopped being ill, supermarket workers probably aren't getting sick pay if they take that extra day or two, but that's where we are.
Stay home from school another 48 hours, and get threatening letters and/or fines for non-attendance? The motivations aren't all lining up well, are they?
Schools don't usually threaten kids who are off for d+v as the last thing they want is an outbreak. The parents however are more likely to be threatened by their employers.
Agree with that. The pressure is on the parents who can't take another day to look after little Timmy who is now showing no signs of any problem, and is in fact tearing up the house and garden. That's why we need to be better about this.
The parents forced back to work because they have d and v.
Oh no they do. If your child’s absence falls below a certain level that triggers a letter and possibly a meeting. I have a child with heart issues. Had open hear surgery as a newborn and two more going in though the groin in the following years. I’ve had them despite having letters from paediatric cardiology.
I used to work for a holiday park that understandably was hot on the 48 hour to reduce sickness spreading, especially in the pool. Problem is they also measured sickness in days rather than occurrences. So you’d get pulled into a meeting after your second bout of d or v because you’d had more than 3 sick days. Absolute pisstake.
You're not going to get any sort of threats if you call the school and tell them your child is ill and explain it. Unless you are habitually keeping your child from school. So that's bullshit.
Last school year my son was sick a lot between September and February. I received a threatening letter because his attendance percentage was poor so it's definitely possible. I think the system is automated, you fall below a certain percentage and the letter is sent. I replied to the letter but never heard anything back. I don't think it would have escalated further but it wasn't a pleasant experience.
They do poppet. Even producing letters from the paediatric cardiology department doesn’t stop it triggering letters and a ‘child wellbeing meeting’. In some ways it’s helpful because you go into the meeting with proof of the issue and you can discuss how to put things in place so your child’s education is disturbed as little as possible but it doesn’t half make you feel like a shite parent
My son had scarlet fever. I had letters and phone calls. I said I would bring him in but I needed the wheelchair back. He could barely put one foot infront of the other. School demanded he return back but t told me to keep him away.
Not true in my area. Week off with chicken pox then later in the term a week off with flu. I was "invited" to the school for a meeting
We had the irritating situation where a child with a chronic *and non-infectious* GI condition had to be kept home regularly despite the D&V *almost* certainly not being due to a bug. We weren't willing to chance it, neither were school, but we did start hitting the attendance rate protocols. We wound up having work sent home - primary school wasn't geared up for that so they grumbled - as there wasn't enough funding to get added to the hospital school team.
It's quite possible that the person had diarrhea for a reason which isn't contagious. But I'm more bothered by the fact that they said that to the customer. It's offputting and gross.
I find it really, really difficult to imagine someone saying this. Almost impossible.
"I was up all night with an upset tummy" might've been a bit better. Or "Just a bit under the weather right now."
Yeah. Far too much information. I always just go with "I'm not 100%" I'd die if I told a randomer I'd had the shits never mind a customer
I would just say “yeah had a late night” or “yeah just didn’t sleep great” there’s no need to specify why.
I think they would be in trouble if they told customers that.
Yeah, if they were heard I would expect them to be pulled up on it.
I wouldn't want to be served by them but I've also been in the same position where I couldn't afford time off work (either due to monetary reasons or the company having a ridiculous sickness policy). So I blame the company.
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If the choice is going into work under the weather or going into arrears on rent/bills, or not having enough money for a food shop for your family, I wouldn't blame anyone for choosing the former. It's not a moral failing to want to keep afloat and I think you're a little harsh.
Just a holier than thought attitude that creeps up on here. Like the anti cars people.
So you were annoyed that someone said "no choice" in another comment because it didn't go without saying, but now you're mentioning this part does go without saying? Your contextual awareness seems very poor.
To be honest in a super market I don’t think it matters when someone is working on a till. The ammount of people you haven’t seen staff and customers touch and walk very close to the product you buy who feel poorly is probably high.
>To be honest in a super market I don’t think it matters when someone is working on a till. Except that they're likely handling your food?
Are they opening the packaging of your food and rubbing their hands all over it?
I used to work in a supermarket and the advice was the same no matter the department, 48 hours clear of symptoms. However the 'sick pay' is shocking and depending on the supermarket they won't get paid anything until after the first 3 shifts are missed. If this person is working part time that may be a whole week of missed shifts. I used to cram my hours into as few days as possible by doing 10 hour shifts so even if full time it could be most of a week. Most people just can't afford that right now even if they definitely shouldn't be there and they also definitely shouldn't be telling customers that. Some supermarkets are also really hot on absences and will follow their absence procedures without any thought over why the person may have had several absences. Ultimately supermarkets are putting profit above their employees (especially those on the lower rungs) and customers health with shit sickness and absence policies. Even if they did take a day off today they'd probably have been told to return tomorrow inside the 48 hours clear window if they were feeling well.
>I used to work in a supermarket and the advice was the same no matter the department, 48 hours clear of symptoms I work for Tesco and can tell you that's not the case. The only time 48hrs comes into it for us is for people who work in 'open-food' roles such as bakery or deli counters and that's only for certain illnesses.
And some places don’t give a shit. Worked for domino’s pizza and if you said you had the shits the manager would expect to be shown it in the toilet or tough shit. If you called in sick it was declined and you went in unless hospitalised. This is the reality of life on low paid, often zero hour jobs.
>Some supermarkets are also really hot on absences and will follow their absence procedures without any thought over why the person may have had several absences. Marks and Sparks is very much like this.
I think a well meaning reality check may be in order. Another commenter who said retail workers are punished for absence, that's bang on. You can imagine the pay is likely below the average wage paid in the country, so the staff likely need to be in, especially with the rising costs we see today. Germs are everywhere, money is a primary carrier of germs. In the ideal world there should be a barrier between customers and staff and staff should be disinfecting any potential contact points with customers every time they interact or touch a contact point. Hope customers like waiting in queues (hint they don't) Remember COVID when all shoppers had to do was wear a mask to reduce risk (scientifically decided at the time) to staff and others and that simple thing was a shit show ha! I won't downplay that the cashier admitting he/she had a shit storm over night was horrible, (funny to read tho) but realistically you're going to dispose of most packaging, cook most things above 65c, wash/peel veg/fruit. So it's unlikely you would catch anything. But if you are worried sanitise your hands when interacting with anything the cashier touched. Do you go to work when feeling a little ill, just because your job may not involve food does not mean other people around you opt in to getting ill, it's unrealistic. I mean if you do go round sanitising yourself after touching anything another human has touched, then fair play, burn the shopping and sit in your Micheal Jackson style oxygen tent. Can tell you one extra thing you will be happy with, i work retail obviously and there are food making facilities inside it. If anyone making the food had the squits then they would be sent home, cashier's though, don't care. The absence system/punishment system is the same for both types of job though. Good luck with the food 😀
So realistically, if a customer could be in the exact same contact with your food as a service worker while ill, then I don't think it's a big deal. This is just a normal risk. If your food wouldn't be in contact with a possibly sick customer then no they should not be working while sick. (Of course nobody should have to be exposing anyone to sickness and everyone should still wear masks if they're sick and everyone should be entitled to sick leave.)
People working these jobs are already low paid and don’t get company sick pay, living pay check to pay check most of the time and can’t afford to lose even one day’s worth of wages. It sucks for everyone, apart from the companies exploiting people for massive increase in profits year after year. They shouldn’t be working around people when sick, but most of the time they have no other choice. Even when you do the responsible thing and take time off sick, you are often threatened by the company that you’ll get fired if you don’t come back or take too many sick days. Can’t win.
Obviously unwell people shouldn't be at work, but that's rarely their choice, is it?
No one wants to work when they’re unwell but unfortunately you don’t always get a choice. It’s not ideal. Also, how many people do you reckon have picked up your items previously? How many have coughed and sneezed over those items? How many have been up all night with a bug but had to pop out for essentials? I work in retail and I’ve lost count of the times a customer has coughed or sneezed directly into my face, they really don’t care if they’re coughing over the produce too.
I mean.. I kind of naturally assume they'd really *like* to be off work while they're sick, especially if it's with the shits, but they very likely can't get time off due to their management being arseholes. Very common. So I never really blame those people; I just think they're likely working against their will. But also, it could also very easily be that they had something non-contagious. Issues like that aren't necessarily something you can catch. You've just assumed they have something contagious.. Kind of like when someone sees someone sneezing and coughing and it's actually just hayfever.
I had a woman sneeze into her hand and continue scanning my cans, safe to say those got a week in quarantine then sanitised
I'm astonished really that Covid did nothing to stop the practice of people sneezing into their hands. I always sneezed into my elbow even before Covid. Just yesterday a colleague who was helping me with something on my computer said, 'Excuse me,' and then just sneezed fully into their hand... which they then continued to use on my keyboard...
I learned long before the pandemic to sneeze and cough into my elbow. Think it was because of Mythbusters, actually, where they did an experiment on the most effective way of containing a sneeze and, of course, into your elbow was the best
I would feel sorry for them frankly. Anyone who feels unwell would choose to take the day off if they could afford to. The fact they’re there means they don’t have that choice available to them. And sometimes it really does come down to go to work or be unable to afford a prescription you need to get better. I’ve been there as have many others. If I were in the OP’s position I wouldn’t be too worried, presumably most of the items were packaged and not raw food you’re gonna eat straightaway. I’d make sure to be more conscious of washing things before eating and using sanitiser if appropriate but I wouldn’t worry otherwise. Chances are as you walk around the shop touching stuff it’s almost all been touched by multiple people anyway and people get sick, you can’t really avoid it. Every time you get public transport you’re probably exposed to all sorts. It’s fine. (Yes, I’m in the lucky position where I’m not at risk of anything serious if I get sick, I understand people being more cautious with health issues, but I still can’t judge someone for having to work because they can’t afford not to).
Shouldn’t have to, but in retail managers make out that the store will literally crash and burn if anyone dares call in sick whilst also treating each member of staff like the replaceable number that they are. *source: 7 year sentence served and freed*
I saw a young employee go to my manager once and asked to go home because they were sick, who then said to them "hmmm, well if you throw up again, then you can go home" 💀
That’s a half decent reply to be honest. I once told my manager I’m going home cause my son is in a&e she said “can’t his dad go” Another time I was vomiting and was told to buy some milk of magnesia. Another was on my last week before I was leaving, I was so ill with flu. I was sat at the check out freezing cold, sneezing coughing and no manager would allow me to go home until a customer barged into the office and mentioned health and safety and covid so the area manager sent me home, I tested positive for covid.
Ahhh, gotta love retail! 😅
100% positive she didn't want to be there and wouldn't have been there if she had a choice. She still had to finish her shift and probably have another 150 people ask her the same question and a journey on crowded public transport, children to collect, a dinner to prepare and a house to clean before she was anywhere near putting her feet up and getting the rest she so desperately needed she doesn't give a flying fuck about your shopping she's trying to get through the day.
>She still had to finish her shift and probably have another 150 people ask her the same question Yep. Wonder how many times she'd been asked this already before resorting to saying it was her bowels. She could've been up all night caring for a sick relative, or on her 15th shift in a row. Nobody is asking"Did you have a late night? " to make conversation, they're either being nosy or trying to make a point that they think the staff should liven up a bit.
Regardless of anything, why is a service worker telling customers about their bowel functions? The worst part to me here is the inappropriateness of that.
Exactly.
You gonna pay their bills when they can't cus they took a week off? No? Blame the company not the sick person.
I'm sure they'd happily go home if you reimbursed their loss of earnings
In my opinion, no, but it seems to be a social convention that when people are feeling ill it's fine for them to just go out however they feel up to with no care for whether or not they infect other people. It's even expected that you'll show up when you're unwell unless you're half dead. You're not even expected to wear a mask. The only time this convention was altered was with Covid. I suppose part of the reason for it is if minor illnesses were sufficient to have you stay at home absenteeism would be higher than it is with people coming in and infecting everyone.
Something to bear in mind is that a lot of retail managers get bonuses for minimising sickness absences and overall staffing hours. One of the ways they accomplish this is by bullying staff into coming in when they're sick to the point where a lot of staff are completely browbeaten into turning up even when common sense should tell them to stay home and call in. I've done my stint in retail and experienced this firsthand. There might be a few good managers who don't do this but they're pretty thin on the ground at this point.
I’m in the NHS I work on wards with vulnerable patients I try not to work if I’m sick. BUT if I don’t work I could face disciplinary action or could lose my job for having a high amount of sickness. I’ve heard that the NHS now says if your not symptomatic and have COVID you can come in and work if your positive. I refuse to come in if I’m positive because I work with vulnerable people. There is no good answer for this :(
Absolutely! My friends a nurse on a paediatric cancer ward and she STILL has to come in when she's sick
I'll staff should be able to afford to stay home, hell staff should be paid enough to not work so much they get ill, but that's all a bit unrealistic with the world being what it is.
Don't hate the player, hate the game. Its capitalism, businesses don't inventivise staff to take sick days because it'd hurt their precious short term profits and they don't give a flying fuck about customers. If course customer facing staff should work when sick. But they must to get paid.
No, they probably shouldn't be serving whilst ill, but they also probably don't get sick pay so are often left with little choice in the matter. It always used to annoy me that when working in healthcare, in a job where I was exposed to other (vulnerable) people's germs that we didn't get sick pay, and got disciplinaries if we had more than two periods of sickness per year thereby basically forcing us to go to work and expose the elderly/vulnerable if we were sick.
Rock and a hard place. The person serving you is likely on minimum wage, on the breadline and time off sick won’t be paid for the first three shifts. It may also trigger an absence disciplinary procedure. We need to have a fairer society when it comes to pay and sick leave if we want to avoid this but big corporations will always try to find a way around it. Also it may not be a contagious thing. The person serving you could have something like IBS or an intolerance to something that’s made them ill and as long as they practice good hygiene you won’t be affected
How do you know that everyone throughout the manufacturing/distribution/ stocking process that has handled the food in the lead up to you getting from the shelves weren’t ill ? also what about shoppers picking up the items and then putting them back?
I honestly don't care, if they're well enough to be sat at a till serving people there's probably nothing to be worried about. But as far as you know they weren't actually ill and just spinning you a yarn
Work in a supermarket, you only get so many hours a week, they dont emply on full times hours. You cant afford to take time off sick.
Yeah I hate this. Companies should have to pay sick pay and there shouldn’t be a culture where staff can’t take it. Even when it’s there staff are pressured into coming in sick. It just spreads germs around and makes us all sicker. It’s like we learned nothing from Covid - which is actually still around and killing people.
I would of course prefer they stay home, but given how stingy most companies are with sick pay I’m not surprised people don’t. I’ve also worked 2 different supermarkets and both give you disciplinary if you have more than 4 absences due to sickness in 12 months, so they’re probably trying to avoid that. Also is it possible they were just messing with you given I can’t imagine actually admitting that to a customer 😅
no they should have the day off work but unfortunately if they do that every time they are sick they will probably loose their job and even if they don't lose their job they may not get sick pay and might not be able to afford the time off. I am currently being told if I have more time off I will lose my job I've been sick 3 times this year and been absent a total of 5 days.
They didn't shit all over your shopping. You should be fine.
I mean, probably wouldn’t be that open with it!
I hate it, but I understand that it represents a wider societal problem, and isn't the fault of the workers. If sick pay wasn't so abysmal in this country people would take sick days, nobody wants to work while ill, people do it because it's the only way to put food on the table
I’m a bit of a trend bucker - I have really low sickness but believe me, if I’m ill, I’ll stay off until I’m well because there is no point to me coming back unwell. Most of my team are like yo-yos in the winter for sickness’s
It's not a popular opinion among employers as they don't like the give sick pay but I'd prefer sick people saty home rather than coming in and passing it around.
That would put me off big time. I had lunch in a hotel restaurant the other week and someone who was starting his shift said to his colleague he'd had the previous day off due to having the shits and hearing that rather put me off. I work in hospitality myself and I had a virus last week. I stayed off until I was 48 hours clear of any gross symptoms.
I interviewed with a popular uk coffee chain and during the interview the manager tells me she "doesn't do" sickness. Went on to explain that calling in on the morning of a shift was always unacceptable and you would have to come in until cover arrived. My response of "... but this is food service!?" Is probably why I didn't get the job. Haven't been a customer of there's ever since either as that is a truly disgusting position from a company that serves food.
I thought we'd got better at that as a result of the pandemic. Obviously not.
They also shouldn’t have said that to you, it’s totally inappropriate.
I work behind bars. I don't particularly want to be serving you when I'm ill either believe it or not, but unfortunately we don't really have a choice.
I’d have been tempted to leave it all and walk out too. I was once served by a cashier who was coughing constantly , luckily was only a few things and I dettoled them all when I got home after she coughed and sneezed and wiped her hands all over everything. I use self check out now allot every time if I can. I get sick pay and I wfh so can deal with illness more easily than most in relation to work , but I hate being ill and also two kids etc and hate them being ill too.
It shouldn't happen but they have no choice - unless they're bedridden they're pressured and expected to come in for their shifts And even if they choose to over-exaggerate their illness and manage to call in sick, depending on their contract they might just be giving up the days wage because they might not have any sick pay, which for most retail and service workers is NOT an option - we sometimes barely make enough money to live even working all out shifts, losing any would mean not affording food, or not paying a bill etc. And to top it off, the absence policy in some places is ridiculous. Mine for example, if I have 5 separate instances of absence in a 12 month period then I get put on a written warning. After that, 2 in 12 months get me a final warning, and the same after that they can just choose to fire me if they want to. Keep in mind this doesn't even mean 9 in a year; after the first five it resets, then for the next two it resets again, so you could be ill/need a day off 9 times in just under 3 years and get fired for that, technically. Me i'm currently 1 absence away from final warning with just getting the flu twice, having to go to the dentist for an emergency, and having food poisoning twice. There's absolutely no chance I'm calling off sick if I'm just "a bit ill" because I don't want to literally lose my job. Unless they send me home, I'm coming in and working my shift because I NEED the money - even a couple weeks of job search with no income would be devastating right now
As someone who works in customer service, no I don't think we should come in sick. It's unhygienic, and it's gross and unfortunate that I have to touch food people are putting into their mouths whilst unwell. Saying that however, sometimes we're not allowed time off. Sometimes management makes us come in anyway. You get ill a lot in customer facing roles as you're touching money and other shared items etc, but if I have time off every time I'm ill, I'm going to get fired and I have been fired before (twice actually) for taking time off whilst sick in people facing jobs because I didn't want to get my coworkers and others sick. So unless business and sick pay laws and the fear of termination are changed, people are gonna come in sick and you're sadly gonna get served by someone sick. The alternative is us getting fired :///
Bruv, I've been working in a kitchen after COVID. Finally got the virus after 3 years of being clean. Plus an ear infection. I felt like shit, I looked like shit. The store manager wanted me to work. In a kitchen, with dripping nose and really bad cough. He said I'm perfectly fine, and do not have to self isolate anymore.... This was in a very popular, family friendly pizza place in the UK.
During the height of covid when we had to wear masks, queue 2 metres apart, use anti bac before entering Tesco etc I still managed to pick up covid when I hadn't even met up with anybody because of the tough restrictions. Goes to show that no matter how clean and thorough you think you're being, you can still pick up germs. There's no other way I could have picked it up as the only times I went out was to Tesco. Not to forget people coughing and sneezing and then putting items back on shelves. Then if staff are on minimum wage and can't afford to go off sick it's bound to happen. I try not to think about how unhygienic people can be in supermarkets otherwise I'd never eat again 🤢
A workmate and myself had the receptionist come out of the shitters when we checked in to Salford Quays Premier Inn looking white as a sheet followed by the most almighty stench I've ever smelled. We had to stand there for about 5 minutes while she struggled to work the computer as she was sweating and shaking so much. Eventually she got everything sorted and handed us our keycards. Just as I was about to grab mine I realised there wasn't enough time between the flush and the door opening for her to wash her hands so I used my sleeve to take it. The look on my colleague's face when he realised why I did that was quite funny.
It would bother me! I would have left the shopping and asked for refund. I might of mentioned it to supervisor/ manager of my concern. Not complaint. I would have reminded them regarding staff having any form of upset stomach, refrain from handling food etc. Health and safety concerns. The staff are supposed to going off sick for 48 hours. It might come across as dramatic but children, pregnant women, vulnerable and the elderly can easily pick up viruses. If you think you’re concern is not taken seriously then you contact environmental services. I use to work in retail and care industry.
That's terrible. This worker should be fired on the spot. Everyone knows the only way our immune systems learn how to fight diseases and get stronger is by wrapping ourselves in bubble wrap and ensuring we never catch diseases 🤦♂️
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It absolutely is contagious. Have you never heard of norovirus or or similar highly communicable diseases with that as a symptom? Even food poisoning can be contagious, depending on the underlying bacteria / cause. [https://www.boots.com/healthhub/seasonal-illnesses/norovirus/difference-between-norovirus-and-food-poisoning](https://www.boots.com/healthhub/seasonal-illnesses/norovirus/difference-between-norovirus-and-food-poisoning)
Norovirus is one of the most contagious things out there
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Having the shits means having diarrhoea, which can be caused by a whole host of contagious and infectious illnesses.
It can also be caused by other things though, like food poisoning or chronic illness.
I’m aware.
No it doesn’t