h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've found that chocolate with bourbon is quite delicious.

Today, a newscaster refused to read the lead story about Paris Hilton getting out of jail. She tore up one, then when it was handed to her again, shredded it. I call that a victory for real news.

As for the rain, it's not global warming, no not at all, and pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It's finally dry today for the first time in a couple of weeks, but the earth is still quite soggy.

Oh, and Ag, eventually you're going to have to tell somebody! If you're too embarrassed, tell them you have a back injury or something. (I ended up telling my supervisor, only because it's difficult to explain why I keep taking sick time... Now I'm running out of sick time!)

we only get 2 sick days and 2 personal days where i work - i long ago ran out of those and am now well on my way to having a full week's worth of vacation being used just for sick days.

(and this is since may)

We get a certain number of sick days for every day worked... Right now I have four sick days left, and I hate to use them in case I'm *really* sick, unlike today, when I just don't feel very good. Of course, this should be a lesson to me - I can't drink the way I used to. Three beers and a whiskey-and-coke is too much, evidently.

We don't have a set amount of sick days. Full wages during illness.

A couple of years ago the public employers could sack a person when he or she had been sick for half to three quarters of a year. Now the elected union representative and the employer/nearest leader are obliged to be in contact with the sick person and figure out how he or she can come back to the workplace - maybe in a less physically hard or psychologically stressing position. Or maybe they have to improve the physical and psychological work milieu (sp?) alltogether.

If a Dane is unemployed and get sick he or she get money from the county. All basic health care is free (GP and hospital) or subsidised (dentist, fysio therapy, alternative methods and psychological help). Pensioneers get extra economical help for glasses, dentist, feet theraphy etc.

.. oh, and free home care. Now my mother is visited twice a day by a nurse and/or a social/health assistant. A cleaning assistant comes and does the stuff my mother cannot manage every second week. For the time being, as she has problems with her artificial teeth, she also gets food - two meals a day. All for free.

Gosh, I think I have two or three weeks worth of sick leave stored up. Saving it up for something nasty, I suppose?

> If a Dane is unemployed and get sick he or she get money from the county.

This is why the movie SiCKO is getting so much press in this country. Our healthcare system sucks, and the way we deal with sick time also sucks. I may take my parents to see it this weekend - they're going to be in town.

I guess the library's sick leave policy is in the acceptable but not fabulous category. We get 4 hours each pay period, which is bimonthly, so 8 hours a month. We can accumulate up to 480 hours if we're full time and 240 hours if we're part time. I have beeen at the maximum for years. I've taken less than 40 hours of sick leave in 12 years.

I also get 160 hours a year of paid vacation and can accumulate 240 hours. The hours are added on the anniversary of our employment. I started work there in May, so I take a vacation in the spring if I am about to lose hours. Which is what happened this year. I took enough to only leave 80 hours in my account. now I'm back up to 240 hours.

And of course we can take paid family/emergency leave whenever we need it within reason. There really isn't a schedule for it. And no one has ever tried to abuse it as long as I've been there.

The library also pays 100% of employee's health, dental and life insurance and 100% of our contribution into our pension plan. I think they treat us pretty well.

Working for the public sector, we don't get Christmas bonuses and that sort of thing, so the board always authorizes me to use a special fund containing donated money rather than tax money for our Christmas party. Last year I took everyone out to a nice restaurant and picked up the tab, for which I was reimbursed out of the special fund. I also bought gift certificates for each staff member out of the fund. And I use it for things like birthday cakes, flowers, wedding presents, etc.

*rustle clank rustle*

Found my contract and Employee Handbook. Apparently I have to work there for 2 years before I get any sick pay.

for Amy. It's amazing how companies can miss doing those little things, like telling their customers anything.

More for Lentilla's newsreader.

Good Lord. In Blighty, we're allowed, I think, depending on work-place, several MONTHS off sick before anyone can get all sacky on yo' aiss. As long as you have a good doctor's note, and keep in touch with everyone at work so they can plan around your absence and return. Well, we're allowed it in Academia and in the public sector. I have no idea what the private sector gets.

On the other hand, if you are taking lots of days off sick, you WILL be interviewed by HR and your manager, and if your excuse is feeble, or diagnosis dubious, then it's not as if you can carry on regardless. There are punitive measures for people who are thought to be skiving. But it is illegal to take someone's job away just because they have a serious illness.

Lentilla, I have told my line-manager, and a few other 'need to know' staff, that I am unwell. I just don't really want to share with the entire office unless it becomes totally necessary, partly because I have Embarrassing Complaints and partly because I simply cannot bear the idea of Certain Coworkers opining on my innards. Also, you know how people act weird around you when they know you're ill? Already the HR lady makes a point of asking me how I am in an extra friendly way every time I go past her desk. She'll be patting my hands next.

I do go ON, don't I? Sorry.

Oh, and Teuchter? Harrumph to mucking about in Seville instead of honouring Commitment to your hair as well. I'm glad you had a nice day anyway.

And newsreader who shredded the PH story? I could kiss her. Yes!

I'd like to know what newscaster that was, and send her flowers!

Ag, we wouldn't fire someone for having a serious illness. But they would only get paid for the 480 hours and after that they would be at home without pay. How can a company afford to pay a person's salary for months on end? Especially since they are also having to pay a substitute to do the person's job.

Of course, I have a bit of a different slant on things probably since I'm the one who has to bring the budget in on line every year. I only have so much money to work with. The well does run dry.

Indeed, Teuchter. We are all indignant on your behalf. I'm glad you had a pleasant day in spite of it. And I'm glad they rescheduled your appointment.

In the corporate world we have insurance plans that will pay for long (and often short term) disabilities. That annoying commercial with the duck is a prime example.

Well, after being rather indignant all day yesterday, I probably really should at least take the clothing out of the bags and put it back in the dressers The one time I actually unpack my dresser instead of just expecting too pull the drawers out and help carry the empty chest...

Looks like I fanned a bit indicriminately--when I headed out to get my paystub, the clouds that had cleared from above were on the entire horizon, not just the southern one

The newscaster is Zbigniew Brzezinski's daughter!

Thank you Missouri. When I got home from work and shopping, there had been a full-bore thunderstorm with big drifts of hail (some of it an inch in diameter), an an amazing ground fog that reached right up to my headlights. The temperature is said to have dropped 40 degrees in minutes. We also have a fine display of plaits of mammatus clouds. The smell of juniper is just a-wunnerful, a-wunnerful.

> Also, you know how people act weird around you when they know you're ill?

Yes... My mother in law seems to have told everybody in Ft. Worth, so wherever I go, I'm told that 'they're praying for me.' Which is all well and good, but it's not as if this is life-threatening, just inconvenient. And I especially don't want to talk to people about the pink squishy inside bits, because all my life, my relatives have found really inappropriate moments to talk about theirs. Like at the dinner table.

Ah, you see, we in Blighty get statutory sick pay for however long we're sick and still employed. The company can claim it back off the government. Admittedly, it's not very much money compared to one's actual wages, but it's better than nothing. I think I can go sick on full pay for at least a month (S gets three months!) (with doctor's note), and then on sick pay for up to six months before we get into the whole will I be coming back to work thing. A colleague has been off sick for several months, come back for a month, gone off sick for several more months and only then resigned and taken to incapacity benefit. Not that we got a substitute in for said colleague. No, the rest of us worked slightly harder instead. Yea, verily, it is The British Way. But then, a huge public institution like a university has more slack to fund these things than most.

And the traffic wardens have amused everyone in London by towing a second car-bomb away from Piccadilly and sticking it in the pound for the afternoon without realising, natch, that it was a car bomb. Have spent entire day at work trying to feel jolly and sanguine and unimpressed by double-car-bombage. Was hugely cheered on hearing on the news that They, whoever They are, failed to fit proper detonators. Also, wanted to scream at news : 'Don't TELL them they messed up! Don't give them ideas!'