6 unbelievable stories about bosses not giving employees a sick day and regretting it.

Everyone should have paid sick leave regardless of their job type. If there's one thing we should have learned from the pandemic is that when you're sick, you need to stay home, and your finances shouldn't suffer because of it. Unfortunately, it seems like not all businesses have learned that lesson.

On a popular Reddit thread in the Antiwork Subreddit, people shared some stories about their bosses refusing to give them sick time.

They write:

1. AccomplishedLaw49 says:

As the title says. I’m sick and have been all week. I’ll get fired if I don’t show up for my scheduled shifts, and my boss will try and force me to work more hours this week, too, because I dared to take off a day for being sick as a dog.

I have a fever and a severe cough and passed out once today. It was not going great so far. I just threw up, too, almost in front of patrons, and I can feel it returning. I told my boss I might need to leave, so can she please find someone to cover for me?

She smacked her lips and gave me a sassy remark about how this generation won’t work and always wants to leave and stay home, and apparently, this is a habit for me now. Yikes, big yikes.

2. QueenMotherOfSneezes says:

During the swine flu, we had a manager persuade a busboy to come in while he was sick (he lived with his parents, so she threatened to strangle his shifts hard. Unfortunately, his parents were of the thems-the-breaks attitude). Not only did every employee get sick, but most of our regulars also did. It impacted our sales for over a month.

I also worked at a diner with the men's washroom exhaust plumbing spring a leak above the kitchen. It was dripping through the paneling onto the flat grill, so they nixed fried eggs and a couple of other things from the menu (it was a Sunday breakfast special day), but despite the splashing from the flat grill into the deep fryer and onto the pots and pans on the range, we kept cooking sh*t on there.

Employees weren't allowed to order anything from that area of the kitchen at all for their discounted staff meal. Most of us (including me) just skipped eating altogether. There were seven servers on shift at once, but ten total during mine, and three servers and two cooks got sick before me.

Because too many had already had to leave, when I started puking and sh*tting a lot (the staff bathroom was downstairs from the kitchen and dining floor, so extra fun for staff to make it there), I was told I had to stay because we were too short-staffed.

That was my last shift. At least three of us called the health department and the city, but it was a Sunday, so nothing happened.

3. mikemojc says:

I've puked on a boss's desk while she scolded me for cr*ppy productivity and deflected my statements that I felt like crap and needed to go home. I didn't TRY to puke, but I allowed it to happen at that moment.

She wrote me up for it, but HR never scheduled the meeting. She was gone a month or so after the write-up. I don't think that was the only reason but s a contribution to the pile.

4. Ambitious-Mark-557 says:

Years ago, I worked in retail. I was the opener, so it was just the manager and me. Unfortunately, I had made a wrong decision on a date Saturday night, and the buffet chicken was undercooked. By that Monday morning, I was in a bad place.

I tried to call in, letting them know I had food poisoning; the manager assumed I had a hangover and told me to come in or be fired. I couldn't risk the job; I had escaped an abusive relationship a few months prior and was re-establishing myself. So I went to work.

Shortly after opening, I started vomiting. I ran to the back to avoid vomiting in front of anyone, but the manager started screaming about my leaving the sales floor unattended.

The next time I needed to vomit, I went to the register station and puked in the trashcan in front of customers. Those customers became quite upset. I explained that I had food poisoning, nothing contagious, etc., but they still demanded to speak with the manager.

After several minutes of listening to their complaints, the manager agreed that I was likely too ill to remain at work. She tried to play it off as 'I thought being up and around would help her get over the hangover.' I explained again that I DON'T DRINK, but then she said, 'Well, are you pregnant?' in front of customers.

I had to pull over on the drive home to puke again, and a highway patrol officer pulled up to see what was happening. When he saw me puke, he returned to his car and left. That was probably the illest I have ever felt.

5. AliciaKills says:

I once got fired for attendance because I was in the ICU for 5/7 absences. (f*cking call centers). When I returned from my approved leave, I thought everything was cool, but they fired me on the spot, even though I had hospital documentation.

My emotions and medications (plus, I was gassy*) erupted simultaneously, so I roar-puked all over the side of my boss' face and the phone as she picked up the handpiece to call security to walk me out.

It was the most guttural, just loud and proud, but somethings coming up quick burp, then I just blasted this chick. I got it on the ear-end of the receiver, I know it, so she got it down her cheek, in her eyebrow, and in her ear, plus all over her desk and phone.

*It's only worse because I was eating spicy pork rinds and drinking dr pepper on the bus, so I was getting all bounced around, which, I'm sure, helped.

6. Leoriste says:

TW miscarriage.

When I was 25, I was at work and began having a miscarriage - on Black Friday. I was having contractions so painful I fell to my knees at the register. Customers went to find help, and my boss came and told me to suck it up.

Eventually, I was sent home when the sanitary napkin I borrowed didn’t hold up, and I was visibly bleeding. My boss was annoyed. I was faint and could barely drive myself home. I had to go to the hospital that night.

I lost so much blood, and I had to cope with not just the savage grief of losing a child I’d wanted but also the complexity of not being allowed to care for myself while it was happening. My situation being minimized made it harder for me to heal. I was unwell for months afterward and mentally fragile for years.