I’d love to see some comparable stats from other countries as well.
That's just people with access to paid time off, too. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that in the US hourly workers are the majority, which means a large percentage of them simply don't get paid if they don't work, and they often can't afford to not get paid.
In a very controversial move they changed policy to pool them together in just "PTO" of two weeks. Probably a pretty common story. Lot of people were mad at losing the dedicated sick time because they would cash out their unused vacation at the end of the year.
https://www.ny.gov/new-york-paid-sick-leave/new-york-paid-si...
The only exception is for employers with 4 or fewer employees and net income less than $1 million (but they must still provide 40 hours of unpaid sick leave).
You do not need be sick, you can just take a break when you feel like it, so sick day really should be called "wellness day" instead.
If we rename 'sick day' to 'wellness day', I'm sure more people will take it.
People don't want to take a "sick day" if they don't feel debilitatingly sick because they might feel like they're cheating.
People don't want to take a "wellness day" because their work environment makes them feel pressured to not throw a whole work day away just because they "feel like it". I.e. they feel that one should consolidate those into longer planned-well-ahead vacations, otherwise they may feel some judgement from employers/coworkers whose work is affected by their absence.
It is of course a sign of our great cultural sickness that either of these psychological problems are even prevalent (and from my experience, they are prevalent - majority even).
And for people who do have some flexibility about coming into an office, it seems very common in my experience that they may do a little work and maybe drag themselves to dial into a meeting that would be hard to reschedule, but generally take the day easy if they're not feeling well.
Aside from maybe one or two medical things that really did take up a full day, I haven't formally taken a sick day/PTO because I was sick in years.
We did that in spite of the fact that one of the two guiding teachers more or less started haranguing us to put pressure on that teammate to "get back to the group work", with such charming questions being asked to the non-sick teammates (ie. Me and three others) as "how many sick days do you think are acceptable" and repeated anecdotes from the guiding teacher about how "he had taken exactly one sick day in five years". (He didn't mention that he'd also been working as a freelancer for five years so "a sick day" meant absolutely nothing to him).
In our case, the team as a whole decided that as long as we could get the work done, the teammates absence wasn't too big of a deal. This didn't make the guiding teacher happy to say the least, and I could totally have seen another team break under that kinda pressure/not have the spirit to stick up for their own beliefs in that thing.
We did end up passing the project because the result was more than acceptable at least, but it's something worth mentioning in terms of how early it starts.
Q: Where in the world are (non-emergency) dentists open at weekends?
Umm, OK. Not everywhere, apparently, hence my question.
> Why would that be a surprise?
For reference:
My dentist works a four day week (Monday-Thursday).
My local doctor's practice is open a whopping 23 hours per week - four mornings plus a handful of late afternoon sessions. Less than handy if you or your relatives are taken ill between noon on Friday and Monday morning.
Tons of hourly jobs make you work a weekend shift as well so you end up with a weekday off that you have to use for that kind of thing.
so glad to know that you know the health status of everyone on the internet, and what is best for them - must be nice to be omnipotent.