Well, definitely DO NOT try any homeopathic or alternative medical treatments for your cold; you might get well.

I very unfortunately stumbled upon this insane site and joined just to give you my reaction, which no doubt you will delete.  Good.  To the point, from what I have reviewed on this site, the only evil stupid bastard that I find here is YOU; the ULTIMATE in ignorance and profane babblings.  You violate your own terms of service.  Your face, your eyes, and your words eminate PURE EVIL.  I will pray that God shuts you down and judges you.

Cheers.

P.S.  No, I won’t be back, and you won’t be able to email me.  YOU are insane.

I feel like I’m getting germs through the screen, so I’m glad you cannot breathe on me!
Here’s hopin’ you get to feeling better soon.

Perhaps Incredulous is one of those louts who rings the doorbell then takes off running.  Just as well, he wouldn’t be welcome with open arms, and you’re too tired to fend off any real pests.

VPNs rule, when done properly. I’ve been designing and deploying them for the last six years or so

Ohhh! Poor you! It took me a week to get over one. Stay inside, stay warm and I recommend a good Scotch.
Maybe Incredulous’ attempts to spell the word “emanate” will put a smile on your face!

Sadly, workers in the U.S. often feel or factually are compelled to drag themselves to work; not infrequently their personal and their employer’s interests would be better served if they would just stay at home. Then again, there are plenty of people barely earning a living wage and it’s not like they have much of a choice.

Incredulous spaeketh: YOU are insane.

Well, you DID go in sick when you could’ve VPN’d. 
Hope you get better.

Elwed, I had an employer who wouldn’t let you take Mon or Fri as sick days.  You had to use vacation.  Two sick days in a row req’d a signed doctor’s excuse. I think some employers get so obsessed with sick day abuse that they end up making things worse for those that are sick.

Ragman, anything that can be abused will. In Europe, this is generally addressed by initially tolerating the abuse, then going after the abusers, then changing the system to make it harder to abuse. In the U.S., the kneejerk reaction is to rig the game to prevent abuse from anybody not wealthy or connected enough to work around the restraints placed on the common folk.

In Germany, some companies didn’t allow vacation days on Friday when Thursday was a holiday. WTF?

In the U.S., the kneejerk reaction is to rig the game to prevent abuse from anybody not wealthy or connected enough to work around the restraints placed on the common folk.

Oh my.  Where to begin?  How bout’ I just surprise ya and let it alone.

As to sick days, you will find the more intelligent managers doing the following:  Everybdoy has X number of sick days.  Sick days do not rollover from year to year.  Unused sick days will be paid out in a check cut two weeks before Christmas. 

It prevents sick day abuse and benefits both the company and the employee.

Yeah, that employer did the same around holidays too.  Personally, I prefer PTO (personal time off) like my last job had - basically time off I can use in 1 hour increments for personal things (illness of anyone, personal errands, additional vacation, etc), which was in addition to vacation(taken in 1 day increments).  We could carry over so many hours to the next year, and could cash in some part of it a year.  My illnesses for the most part weren’t the death-warmed-over stuff (I’d use PTO and stay home), but annoying sinus infections that necessitated a doc visit.  Between PTO and flextime, I’d hit the Primacare clinic at 7:30 in the morning, get a scrip, fill it, and be at work by 10 am and get my day in.  And if I started feeling bad, use PTO and cut out early.  At the employer who made it harder, I’d go to work sick on Monday, take Tues sick, go to the doctor and go home.  Took a day off instead of getting shit for coming in late. 

Granted PTO would have sick people coming in to work of their own will, it does give the employee more incintive to come in on a “not so sick” day.  For better or worse, but I’d rather 6 days of PTO versus 10 allowed sick days that I may or may not use(and not get comp’d for).  Not to mention getting near the end of the year w/o using a sick day makes “getting sick” look enticing.  PTO made me a happier employee.  Especially when I could bank up a year’s worth, so I had a “sick time” cushion and some extra vacation.

I like Consi’s idea, too, but critics of it would argue that you’re punishing the sick.  Or something about paying someone for more days than they worked for you.  It’s like the argument against letting employees accumulate unused vacation and taking it when they retire/quit. 

Ragman, anything that can be abused will.

You are right about that Elwed.  My wife’s firm used to have unlimited sick days.  Basically, since they’re responisible for getting their work done, and it shows if you aren’t, the partners figured that would keep abuse down.  Apparently it worked for years.  Then one of her coworkers abused the shit out of the system so they limited the sick days.  I don’t remember the number, but I want to say it was over 20 days that he took one year (spread out), no doctor’s excuses.  Sadly, he still works there, consequences of being competent at his job in an in demand profession.

Apologies for double dipping…

the more intelligent managers

Problem being there’s too many UNintelligent managers who haven’t a clue when it comes to employee morale.

Odd that Incredulous claims that he won’t be back and he can’t be emailed, yet he bothered to register as a member.

Consi,

How bout’ I just surprise ya and let it alone.

Why didn’t you?

you will find the more intelligent managers

Find them where? Or do you mean the managers that are so concerned about their employees having enough time off that they ship their jobs overseas?

there are plenty of people barely earning a living wage and it’s not like they have much of a choice.

Years ago I was supporting myself on a part-time job with no benefits (incl sick days), so I had no choice but to work when I was sick (I didn’t have a car either, so I had to bicycle across town).  A customer (I was at the register) took one look at me (I looked like death warmed over) and said, “Oh my, you should be at home in bed!” I wanted to say, “Sure, you wanna pay my rent?” but she was genuinely concerned so I just bit my tongue.

This is the same job where the boss got drunk one day at a picnic and somehow stepped barefoot on a hot charcoal--guess who had to fill in?  Worst job I ever had. 

At another job where I did have sick days, the boss dropped not so subtle hints that you’d better not call in sick unless blood was pouring out of your ears.  One day I had an allergic reaction to some antibiotics--it looked much worse than it felt (basically, I was one solid rash).  I stopped by work on my way home from the doc’s and marched into my boss’ office and cheerily said, “Is it okay if I don’t work today?  I don’t feel too well.” He practically jumped up on his desk and shoo’ed me out of his office.  He didn’t bug me any more after that when I called in sick. 

Elwed:

Why didn’t you?

And not feed your need for attention? Or is that my need?  One of the two I’m sure.  I’ll defer to a liberal for the psychoanalysis.

Find them where?

Everywhere you look.  You need to get your eyes checked ASAP.

Incredulous shows up and spews the following…

Well, definitely DO NOT try any homeopathic or alternative medical treatments for your cold; you might get well.

Don’t worry, I won’t be trying any homeopathic snake oil anytime soon. I prefer to use tried and tested methods of recovering from a cold. Plenty of bed rest and lots of warm liquids. Though I have to admit that your hilarious comment has done much to make me feel much better.

As to the rest of you and the issue of sick days. Being part-time and hourly I don’t have sick days to spend. If I don’t work I don’t get paid, but the option of using a VPN to work from home kind of makes up for that. Alas, for the past three days I’ve spent most of my time sleeping (I didn’t even turn on my computer at all yesterday) so I’m down by three days. I’ll probably stay home again tomorrow, but I’ll be making use of the VPN to get a little time in.

Consi, bad form.

Why is it that whenever someone posts something contrary to a site owner’s belief (whether on a blog or forums) they feel the need to add some comment about their post getting deleted? Is it to feel better about themselves? Do they think to themselves “ha, he/she is gonna delete my post and that will prove me point.” Why don’t they realize it’s more fun to leave the post up, debunk everything they said, then laugh.

On a side note, VPN has gotten mentioned and it’s something I’m try to get working… My school gives students the ability to VPN to access applications on the school computers. Well, I can get the VPN to connect, but I have no idea how to actually access the programs? Can anyone help? I guess leave a comment here or email me at .

Les, hope you get to feeling better =)

Chief, you probably won’t be able to access installed applications like Microsoft Office - the VPN will most likely allow you only to access things like campus registration, network drives, email, a portal application, stuff like that.

At our campus we have a help desk that maintains a web page all about what our VPN can do.  You probably have something similar on your campus.

Les, hope you feel better already.  Hope Incredulous stops by again to brighten your day.

Just curious Mr. Les, to whom or what would you ‘pray’ for a nuclear war? Sounds like an atheist who’s let the cat out of the bag that he’s not really an atheist, or can’t get that pesky subconscious ‘feeling’ out of his mind (that there must someone or something to pray to) so he, subconsciously, uses words like “pray” not realizing the dire implications for his own ‘religion’.

...or if not Incredulous, then John Ramos will do. 

Sounds like an atheist who’s let the cat out of the bag that he’s not really an atheist, or can’t get that pesky subconscious ‘feeling’ out of his mind (that there must someone or something to pray to) so he, subconsciously, uses words like “pray�? not realizing the dire implications for his own ‘religion’.

Thank you, Dr. Freud. 

John, are you familiar with the concept of “figure of speech?” What about “hyperbolic language?” Either could explain Les’ phrasing, I believe.

You see, I often utter the words “Jesus Christ!” when I am angry, frustrated, or incredulous (no pun intended), even though I in no way believe in Jesus Christ or his sanctity. I similarly say “what the hell?” or “the hell with it!” even though I do not believe in any concept of hell. Nothing “subconscious” is occurring in my mind; I simply engage in this sort of language because, well, who doesn’t?

Les-

I don’t know if you care, but your rss feed isn’t working in Bloglines anymore. Just a heads up.

Known issue, under investigation.