Me: I’m not feeling well. Going to take a sick day.
Boss: Ok, feel better.
HR: You need a doctor’s note for the sick time to be approved.
Me: I just feel “blech” and need to rest.
HR: Doesn’t matter. We need a doctor’s note.
Me: [Slugs to urgent care, waits 3 hours to see a doctor]
Doctor: Just go home and rest.
Receptionist: That’ll be $35 for the co-pay.
Me: (twitch)
Maybe scan the doctor’s note, and edit it using photopea in the future. This requirement is dumb.
Wow that’s crazy. One sick day should not require a doctor’s note. I question the legality of that requirement.
I question the legality of that requirement.
Really?
It’s totally legal because workers have surprisingly few rights in the US today. You can still find good companies that will treat you with dignity but it’s not because they’re required to.
Yeah our healthcare sucks, but what’s worse is HR demanding a doctor note for one missed day. Yeah. That’s the infuriating part.
Get some rest op. Hope you feel better tomorrow.
I have to do that, otherwise I won’t get paid those days.
This conversation would lead to me being “sick” for a week.
Nothing promotes healing quite like having to trek out, expose yourself to more germs and stress over a f@&!ing piece of paper. /s
Glad your boss is chill at least. Hope you feel better!
“Now I need two sick days off…”
There was a post some time ago where someone mentioned going to the doctor for an employer-mandated sick note and the doctor was so irritated by it, that they wrote the note demanding 3 days of bed rest, rather than the 1 that had originally been requested. Thought that was pretty classy.
That’s how it should be. When I was asked to get a doctor’s note FROM MY SURGEON, the entire surgical team laughed because it’s such an outrageous request.
And it’s insulting to even be asked when you almost never take sick days off.
I’m taking a sick day too. Except for the first time in nearly a decade, my current employer doesn’t require a doctor’s note for anything less than 3 days.
Honestly, most doctors just give you a note if you go in no matter what anyway, so I’ve always felt that it’s more about your workplace tracking you than trying to make sure you’re alright. The need for a doctor’s note doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Sucky, relatable situation, you got my sympathy
Honestly, most doctors just give you a note if you go in no matter what anyway, so I’ve always felt that it’s more about your workplace tracking you than trying to make sure you’re alright.
It has always been about discouraging people from taking sick time by making it sound like they might not be able to get a doctor to justify them being out sick. All my low paying jobs enforced it because we didn’t have sick leave and they didn’t hire enough coverage for people to be out sick.
My current job has it in the handbook that if you are out more than 2 days that you might need a note to return to work, is phrased as existing to ensure people who were out sick are actually well enough to return. I took a note in once after being out for 3 days and they said I only needed it if there was a chance I might still be contagious or have something that would make it dangerous to work for liability reasons. Haven’t bothered with one since!
In Germany you can just call your general practitioner for the sick note, which will be sent digitally to your employer. Though you have go to them once a quarter to show them your insurance card. Cost = 0. Also you generally only need to when you’re sick more than 2 days.
Also you generally only need to when you’re sick more than 2 days.
This, of course, depends on the contract you have with your employer.
There are contracts that require you to present a sick note on your first sick day and contracts that require it on third or even fourth day and anything between…
This is employer dependent in the US, too. I can Slack my boss and say “I’m feeling under the weather, going to unplug and rest today,” and she’ll say “Okay, no problem, feel better!”, and that’s the end of the conversation. Definitely the exception to the rule, though; I think OP’s situation is much more common.
Don’t forget to file an expense report for the co-pay. It’s a business expense that was required by company policy, as communicated by HR, and is therefore the company’s responsibility to cover.
That’s also 3 hours of time spent on work related requirements!
Good point!
If OP is hourly, those 3 hours should be billed as work - probably under a generic HR-related category if one is available.
If OP is salaried exempt, then this would fall under “doing any work at all” (all that’s needed to be paid for the day) and if sick time is tracked by day and not by hour, then OP doesn’t need to use one. If it’s tracked hourly then OP should make sure to only use 5 sick hours (or less, depending on how long the work-related conversations took) and depending on employer policies may not need to use any sick time at all.
This also cut into the time OP could have been using to rest. It would be very reasonable for OP to need an extra day to recover, as a result.
