unwittynamehere

As for the loss of job, in the US something like this and taking a week off could be a job ender for many. Especially those that are prone to getting sick (of any kind) or have family that they are responsible for (kids).

I worked in a call center for 10 years and we had a point based attendance system. This isn't uncommon in many jobs, but obviously career path and what not probably means a bit more.

In any case, basically if you had 8 points. Every time you called out, it cost you a point. Points would be earned back after a year of the incident (Got sick on June 5th, 2015, you'd earn it back June 5th, 2016). If you had to leave early, you'd lose half a point if it was half of your shift or less, but a full point if it was more than that.

Now, you could stay out a lot of time on 1 point (they don't want you coming back sick, just to go home 2 days later). So if you were sick on Monday, came back Tuesday because you were feeling better, and went home Wednesday because you felt sick again, that would be 2 points.

If you have kids and you had to call out be cause your kids were sick, there's a point. Maybe you had the flu, got sick, felt better, came back, then your kids got sick 3 days later... etc.

Hospital stays and such like this, would still likely get you only 1 point, but maybe you're already prone or have situations in which you're just having a bad time... Doesn't matter. Your time with the company didn't matter either. Being there for 10 years did not give me any better chances in keeping my job than someone that just started, it probably gave me less of a chance.

Yes, if you had sick time, you would still get the points. Sick time was only to cover your pay for when you were sick, not the actual point system.

There are certain laws that would allow you to get around these kinds of systems. One is called FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act), which can be obtained by some forms, doctors recommendations, and other such things. However, it's use was highly discouraged and strenuous at best. You're given so many hours a year and they could only be used under specific conditions related to what it's assigned for. Also, if you used it too frequently, your employer may find another reason to release you from your job. Generally there are so many rules and metrics that if they want to fire you for something, it won't be long before they do.

Source: I worked in an HR like department that set up new hires in the system and remove them when they were terminated including payroll. The only process I didn't handle of an individual was the interview and promotion, but I saw their day to day everything else in terms of performance and health.

Yep, I knew several people that abused the system. One friend of mine would do this fairly often, the call volume would get bad or she just wouldn't want to be there for whatever reason and couldn't get a legitimate reason to leave. All of a sudden "FMLA!" and off she'd go.

The time does run out, it's not like a complete free pass, but it's a LOT of time that you're granted.

Exactly, I didn't really fault her for it too much. Certainly I got annoyed because I'd rather go home too, but at the end, I've got bills to pay and the money's nice. When I was on the phones, I'd work all the OT I could. You can only handle 1 call at a time, so it doesn't really matter how backed up you are. Though I did prefer the times I could get paid to just sit there and read. I got so much reading done when I was on the phones, it was nice.

I'll say there are some exceptions. The call center I worked at was one of the major 3rd party processing centers out there and our IT department (when it wasn't outsourced) was held by these same regulations. Pretty much the whole of the grunt work was held to this same point based system as long as you worked for the company, salary or not. Of course, it was certainly up to specific managers on how strictly to enforce it. If your boss doesn't report something they don't see as a problem, then it's not a problem.