I've told the people that work for me to call in if they are not coming in or going to be late. If they only text me I will ignore it and they get written up, company policy says to call, not text or e-mail.
I have the absolute opposite reaction to texting and hate it with a passion. On the very rare time when I have phone service, I have texting disabled so I can neither send nor recieve them (except ones directly fro the phone company, like account balance, etc.). And so many people are showing they don't know how to do it responsibly or politely. Case-in-point, if you've ever used Craigalist to sell or communicate with people, whether it be a seller, somebody interested in purchasing something, or even an potential employer, they want to text with you. Hey, remember those days when you wajnted to talk with somebody to make sure you are dealing with a trustworthy honest person who isn't caught up in lies and not given time to think about their reply? There is, to me, a supreme lack of professionalism of any employer who can't talk to you in person or at the very least, over the phone; I'm not a 13 year old girl and neither are you -- let's act like adults, meet in person, shakes hands, show communicating with you isn't a throw-away electronic moment that, for some people, actually costs money to recieve. For me, texting is a joke and the few times I did it, I did it as a joke. Like my sister told me it costs her something like 15¢ to recieve a text message, so I sent her a text telling her I just cost her 15¢. Before I had texting disabled, I wouldn't even acknowledge them, I instead called back. If I were an employer, that's what I'd do, too: disable texting (or only offer a landline which has not texting options on the phone, for employees to call) and demand a call be made. Even worse if other forms of social media, like Facebook or what have you. It reminds me of a few years ago here in my county where a company (I dont' recall their name), was going to open up a business creating over 200 jobs and even had gotten some funding assistance from the county. But the company ended up not doing any of this and we found out, along with county officials, by the company making a post on Facebook or Twitter (I forget which) that they had changed their minds. [Nostalgia Critic]Fuck you, company![/Nostalgia Critic]
^ So here we've got "old man yells at cloud" levels of technophobia, and then a totally unnecessary dig at adolescent girls. Chill out, dude. Said as a regular poster, not as a mod (I don't mod this forum.)
Oh, you'd so be eating those words if I was a 13 year-old girl. But hey, if you'd like to to take a swipe at 14 year-old boys and video games, I got that handy, too (sadly, it doubles as a comment for guys twice that age today). Dislike of certain useless or even needless technological abilities isn't the same as having a phobia of technology as a whole. Otherwise, how in the world could I be using a comptuer eto even post.
Just because you don't find text messaging useful doesn't mean it's not useful. There are plenty of things I have no use for, but I'm not self-centered enough to believe they're actually useless.
Well, just somebody can't find a good use for my sneezes doesn't mean ... no, actually, this is a really WEAK argument. It would have been better had actualy uses been listed and a debate been made about the practability and usefulness of texting.
If I'm ill and on the 8am shift it is OK for me to text my team leader as the warehouse does not open till 8am and the office at 9am. So we text so not to interrupt him at home.
For us, it's a phone call by you to the HR department and your line manager. (Technically someone calling for you is only acceptable if you're incapable of making a phone call, but mileage varies there) Self certification sick note for one to five days (including weekends even though no-one works weekends) Doctors sick note thereafter. If you're off too long (though I'm not sure how long) you also undergo an interview when you get back.
I work in an office, so I email and text in sick because it's acceptable by management. However, when I worked in a non-office environment, I always called.
Sneezes are useful for clearing irritants from one's airways. You were saying? Text messages: useful for sending small chunks of information to another party that don't necessarily require immediate consumption or acknowledgment. Also useful for communicating information that one may wish to have on hand in a future conversation. Text messages have plenty of use cases that go well beyond the needs of adolescent girls. I suppose they're also useful for trading photos of one's intimate body parts.
That's ridiculous. If you're sick enough that you'd have trouble doing your job or aren't even up to going out and making your way to work, but it's say, a simple head cold or the flu (which also means you're contagious, so maybe coming into work isn't such a great idea from that standpoint either, yeah?), you're supposed to get a doctor's appointment (which as Serial points out, is a huge waste of everyone's time) just so you can get a note saying "Yeah, he had the flu", otherwise you get dinged for being "absent without reason"? But yeah, as to the issue at hand: gotta be firm with people. If you REALLY want to get it into their heads, when you're not at the store yourself, you could just ignore texts or facebook posts or what have you "alerting" you to their absence. Then when they get no response, they'll either figure it out and call the store, or suffer the consequences. In addition to what Robert listed: talking on the phone often isn't possible/practical if I'm on the subway or a bus during rush hour, yet I might need to contact my roommate to ask him if he wants me to pick him up something for dinner or some such. Texting is extremely useful for that sort of thing.
I don't know... that sounds a bit strict. At my job, we don't get many vacation days (I think only 3), but we sure as heck don't need to bring in evidence.
When I've called in sick, I've generally had to have someone do it for me. My voice is usually gone. -_-
As RoJoHen indicated, in the US there is zero legal guarantee for vacation time. Most low-paid, low-skill jobs offer no vacation time at all--any time off is unpaid.
The only "vacation" I got in 2014 was a 3-day weekend for the 4th of July. I did not get paid for it. The last real vacation I took was in March of 2013, but even that was only for 5 days, and again, I didn't get paid for it.
What is your companies policy? Mine is that you must ring a certain number at least an hour before you start your shift. You can text, email or facebook your department manager after doing that to give a heads up on the situation. You can also self certify for the first seven days and then afterwards you have got to get a "fit" note from your doctor.
I have never been sick enough to require a day off in the 10 years at this job, so my boss knows I have never pulled a sicky. Some people seem to get ill all the time, I don't believe it for a moment though. How many times can one person get food poisoning or the vomiting bug? Some people must have exceptionally filthy kitchens. My excellent record in this regard allows me some leeway with regards to calling up and saying I really can't be bothered today, which I have done a couple of times. Everybody here is expected to call, not text. The bad offenders in sicktime taking are expected to get a doctors note if they are off for 3 days straight, and quite right too, since I expect anybody needing 3 days off work to be on their deathbed at a minimum.
Sounds like they don't want to deal with the on-duty manager by calling in sick (which texting bypasses), so they're hoping you'll take care of it for them. It's passive-aggressive BS.