LogFAQs > #971537244

lifespeedrunner posted...

in Europe if youre sick youre sick, just stay home

That's not true in every country. Here in Spain you need to get a 'baja' (sick note, basically) from the doctor even to take a day off sick.

However, the reason for that is that all sick days have to be paid at 100% of your usual salary by law and I think in many cases social security will reimburse the employer. Seeing the doctor is also completely free and I think these days getting a baja for a couple of days because you have the shits or something is just done by phone call and the doctor takes your word for it.

There's also none of that bollocks you hear about in the US where employers grill you about taking a sick day or anything like that. If a manager even joked about being displeased at you being off sick here then HR would be all over them. I remember in my company apparently one of the VPs - who is American - joked (genuinely joking) about a guy going on paternity leave for two months saying "man, if we can go without you for that long then I start to wonder if we really need you ha ha ha!". Apparently HR heard about this somehow and made it v v clear to him that even vaguely joking about letting an employee go because they took paternity leave is a big no no.

tl;dr: You do need a doctor's note to go sick here but you have legally guaranteed pay and the culture/legal protections around taking sick leave is far less oppressive than it sounds in the US.