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[Chevy]

How many sick days do you get per year and how many do you use? Do you actually use them when you're sick or do you use them as vacation days?

There's a girl at work who seems to be "sick" any time a major project or workload comes up, so she's never around to carry her fair share. Just curious if anyone else uses up their "sick" days to get out of work. 

[Bob]

Do some people get a certain allocation of sick days then? I would've thought if you're ill you're ill. I don't get sick pay where I am as I'm a long term agency worker. Maybe somebody could explain this to me? Surely a boss wouldn't say, you get twenty days sick a year would they? I can't afford to be off ill whether I'm really ill or not but if I knew I had a quota of days to take and it was getting towards the end of the year I'd probably be tempted to pull a sickie.

[MaryG]

Well maybe it's just my area, but sick days are pretty standard for us. One place I worked had a setup so that you got a certain amount of paid sick days and if you didn't use them, they could be tacked onto your vacation days in future years (we could only take vacation time during certain times of the year, though).

Another place, sick days were unpaid, but there was a limit....and if you went over that limit, you were put on probation unless it was a serious illness and you brought proof from a physician.

[Bob]

The big factor here is the job you do and organisation you work for. Full time contracts come up from time to time here but there are so many agency workers it's hardly worth applying as so many people do. I don't know much about the full time workers except they get more holiday. The pay is exactly the same. I'm sure there are other benefits, pension scheme etc but a quota of sick days? I'm not sure.

[Gota]

I get an allocation of sick days but I've never come close to using them all. I think it's quite the norm in many organisations.