BBC Breakfast - time off to care for sick pets

[Daydream]

Your company sounds like my old one. I worked hard and over my hours to bring the accounts department into the twentith century. When my dog (Benson) got run over they were total out of order.

I had the morning off to go to the vets, i was also in shock as the car nearly hit me so was not in the right frame of mind to go in. I was ordered to come back in by my boss. When i said no and that i was not coming in the next day as he could not be left. I did ask to bring him in and he said no!! So i was off unpaid for two days........... This was a solicitors firm. As you can guess i left shortly after...

My currect boss is great i pre-book all know appointments and book the time off as you should..

In emergencies you are allowed the time you need and are not expected to make it up........ yet you do as they are so great about it you don't mind putting in a bit extra. When you got a give and take relationship.

 

[burrows]

I think it is quite a sensitive subject but my opnion is that a lot of people love their animals as much as children espcially people that cant have children often they will get an animal. If people have time off for looking after sick people why shouldnt they get time off to look after their sick pets. My biggest worry is if something happened to my animals god forbid and they passed away I would be distrot in no fit way to go to work, my old employer would have in no way understood and I would have had to take it as holiday or not even get the time off. I am lucky enough now to work somewhere that they I can take time to go to vets, farriers, saddler etc. I do think there should be some allowance for sick animals

 

[Tia]

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I do think there should be some allowance for sick animals


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I totally agree.....however the employer should not have to pay for that time off. It is not his fault that one of his employees animals is unwell.....same goes for kids in my opinion....if you take any time off for anything it should either be holiday time or unpaid.

 

[smallbutgreat]

I find my employer's policies very fair.

We are on flexitime, with the requirement that we are all present during certain quite short core hours, and arrange at least one person within our teams to cover a rather longer working day. But it's quite easy for individuals to arrange time off at ANY time ... as long as we record it, and make up our weekly total to 37 1/2 hours (averaged over the month).

We don't have to go into detail about why we take time off, and taking a child to the doctor or an animal to the vet would carry equal weight, because we pay back the time. However, a colleague has a child with a chronic long-term condition, and now that this has been documented these medical appointments come out of company time rather than hers with all of our blessing. Don't know if it would be the same for a horse!

Glad I'm not a teacher though ... I suppose you can always pray that your animals fall ill during the school holidays. Won't the vet take your special job a little bit into account?

 

[magic104]

As a parent if I had to take time off because my daughter was unwell then I had to take leave. I also think no matter how much your animal means to you, it still is not the same as a human child. Most employers dont just give you time, it has to be made up or taken as leave.

 

[piebaldsparkle]

Wouldn't think twice about going 'sick' if I couldn't make any other arrangements and one of my pets needed emergency care. No one thinks twice is someone goes sick to look after their child, which are much easier to dump on the grandparents than a horse with colic!!! (can you tell I don't have kids!!!).

 

[alsxx]

Lol I had an old employer who allowed 2 people in the department time off for their animals 'as dependants' as they didnt have kids and they were their 'substitute'!!

 

[tabithakat64]

My boss lets me make the hours up if i take time off for rountine vets appointments or the farrier. When either of mine have been really ill she's been really good, about letting me have time off with no notice, working different hours etc
But working flexible hours or provision for time off because of my animals is something I asked about before I took the job.