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Comment by arnejenssen | Hacker News Reader

I'm Norwegian. I have not taken a single day of sick leave (M51). I believe that if I get sick, it is my fault and responsibility, and I should not burden the employer or public sector with that.

In 2009 i fell off a bike and hurt a knee. My fault. So I took 5 days of my vacation to stay home.

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I can relate to the attitude, but I also suspect it's a lot easier to live like this in one of the two richest countries in the world with the least stressful labor markets (going by the experience of my friends who emigrated there).

What’s the insurance setup like in norway? In germany at least, your insurance pays for (at least part) of this time, and since its mandatory to pay it and hundreds of euros a month, I’m not in any way inclined to give up my precious family time (holidays) to save my insurer money. I have a hard time understanding how one would feel otherwise.

Also, generally, I can’t think of a time i had off work where something ultimately failed to be delivered because of it, I’ll typically put in some extra time etc when i’m back if a deadline is looming.

So who really loses?

So you go to work sick ?

I work even if I have a cold. Luckily I never had symptoms of flue.

I was down with Epstein-Barr/mononucleosis for 12-14 days in 2004, and then I stayed home (home from PhD studies).

Should you not then take responsibility for the additional sick leave taken by your colleagues as a result of you exposing them to your infectious diseases?

It's quite possible that the total sick leave you've caused is substantially higher than it would have been had you simply stayed home when ill.

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