Dealing with illness

I'm back at work today after a couple of days off sick. Oddly enough, not everyone seems to have missed me. I tend to stress a bit about work when I'm not there, which I guess defeats the purpose of being off sick in the first place. This time is wasn't really anything major. I've previously written about a stomach upset condition which has become a lot more pronounced since living in Sweden. Symptoms of nausea, bloating, and generally feeling like crap which seem to be associated with various different food groups. Despite having more tests than a NASA astronaut, no one seems to have come up with a suitable explanation nor with a workable solution. Anyway, things had been pretty good over the past few months, but I had been starting to feel a bit dodgy during the past couple of weeks. I suspect it's Julbord related and I simply have to wait until whatever it is gets flushed completely out. That's the theory anyway. I have discovered my own remedies which do work, but they take a bit of time.

Sick leave in Sweden is unlimited. There is a point during a period of absence when the employer stops paying, and insurance companies pick up the slack, but there's no limit to the number of times that you can be sick. That is different to conditions with many employers in New Zealand. In NZ I were allocated 5 days sick leave per year. I was also allocated 5 days "domestic leave", which allowed me to take up to 5 days to care for a sick child or family member. A couple of my employers allowed me to use that domestic leave as sick leave, if I had already used up my 5 days sick leave allocation.

As I said, there is no annual sick leave cap in Sweden. At least, not with my employer. I can be at home sick as often as I like. It has taken some getting used to, but I'm starting to feel a bit better about not dragging myself into the office when I'm full of the cold and infecting all my fellow workmates. Which of course ultimately ends up costing my employer more because of my misplaced bravery. So staying at home until you're properly productive again, and not a risk to other employees, isn't such a dumb idea.

The average Swedish employer isn't quite as dumb as one might think. You can take all the sick days you like, BUT. And there's a but. Every time that you are away from work sick, the first day is taken without pay. A scheme known as Karensdag. I think that's a brilliant idea. It's a pisser if you really are sick and you lose a day's pay. But it solves a couple of problems. First up, as with me, as I had already lost one day's pay, I might as well stay home until I'm properly well again. No point crawling back to work for a week, only to be sick again, and have the whole process start over. It's not totally without feeling, mind. If you come back to work after a couple of days, decide it was too soon and go home again, the first Karensdag day still applies. So you don't lose another day's pay. But the big positive, as I see it, is that it stops the Friday and Monday "illnesses". If you have drunk yourself into a stupor watching the football over the weekend, and can't face Monday morning, you lose a day's pay. If you want to sneak off early for the weekend, you lose a day's pay. Those two cases cost NZ employers so much money and lost productivity. Doesn't seem to be an issue here in Sweden.