Sykes, sick days and "human nature"

Is anyone more responsible for dumbing down the debate about the sick day mandate than Charlie Sykes? Obviously not.

Take, for instance, his periodic wheedling that "I've got 9 sick days now." The Brawler would be shocked if Charlie's contract didn't call for at least 10 sick days during any  given year. Shoot, Gene Mueller took five sick days in less than two weeks. Still, Charlie simply cannot resist the temptation to act like a tool.

Which takes us to the fundamental way in which he dumbs down the debate about the sick day mandate. And that is by repeating ad nausem that Milwaukee workers will automatically take all 9 sick days. On yesterday's show he made sure to include a caller who said he might take all nine if he worked in Milwaukee (the guy who didn't sound in the best of health, Charlie naturally didn't get into that and rushed the call off after the made that statement about taking off 9 days); a guy who said he would take sick days to screw off if he could; and a business owner who says giving  all her workers sick days would cost her $20,000.

All of which is interesting. But as they say, anecdotes ain't data. And the data shows that half of all employees don't take a sick day in a single year. In all, employees take an average of 1.8 sick days a year. Hardly a crippling cost. But it's difficult for Charlie to whip people in a frenzy about something without distorting the truth.

Charlie asserts that it would be "human nature" for someone to abuse the sick day policy and take 9 a year. Charlie could assert that, I don't know,screwing around on the mother of your children is human nature as well. But I don't think most people would buy that. Nor should they buy his arguments against the sick-day mandate.

Comments

[dad29]

Interesting.

The ACTUAL "human nature" reaction is more likely to run along the lines of 'Since SuzyQ took a fake sickday, I'm taking one, too,' which is what employers fear.

What you'll have is one or two actual slaggards, whose actions will influence some multiple of 1 or 2. Problem is, both the "one or two" and "multiple" quantities above are purely speculative.

I agree with you that most people will not run out their sickday allotment for no good reason whatever.

But there are quite a few variables which won't clarify until several years into the program (as it were.)

Remember that businessmen like the "Holiday Inn" model: no surprises.