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Sample Sick
Time Abuser's List
Sick Time Abusers List
Each
September, or thereabout, the Departments frequently
issue a list of
"Sick Time Abusers" with the warning that any time taken off from now
until the end of the year will not be excused without a doctor's
note.
The Departments justification for the creation of this list is that
frequent calling out by officers causes the Department to incur
unwarranted overtime.
This all sounds good on the surface, but deeper inspections into the Departments have revealed information to the contrary. To understand the discrepancy, one needs to understand how he finds himself on the list in the first place.
It's
easy. The Department picks a number, usually around 20, and
every
member that has used more than 20 sick days in a calendar year gets
placed on the list. Here is the first problem;
using sick days in and
of itself does not qualify for placement on the list. Only
officers
who have 20 or more "unexcused" days are eligible to be placed on the
list. Make sure that days off where you have supplied a
doctor's note
are not factored in as part of your "20 days". Secondly,
"calendar
year", find out what the "calendar year" is, from (date) to
(date).
The Database has revealed that most officers on the "Sick Time Abusers" list are the officers that take the least amount of time off in a calendar year and generate the least amount of overtime. This information is revealed when all of the time off, for all of the members of the Department is entered into the Database and calculated for the year. This includes, vacation, sick and comp time. The total amount of time off used is then calculated for the entire year for the Department and divided by the number of Department members to arrive at an "average" number of time-off that is taken per officer per year. Almost every officer on the "Sick Time Abuser" list comes in under this average number. The "secret" to avoid being placed on the "Sick Time Abusers" list is to use time off other than "sick time". Statistics reveal that comp time is the number one abused time off. Has anyone been placed on the "Comp Time Abusers" list?