It's As Though They All Have Something In Common

Money quote:

"The public service is heading into uncertain times. Speculation is rife that the public service will be the first place the Harper government turns for spending cuts when wrestling with its mounting deficit. There are rumblings of changing or cutting public servants' generous pension and benefits plans."

Poor babies, they found a crack in their iron rice bowl. My heart bleeds for them.

This is laughable. The simple reason so much time is lost is that the system is designed to encourage workers to take the paid time off. The union promotes it at every opportunity and management jumps on the bandwaggon for their own benefit. If you can't cut it then get someone in there that can! Example: A couple working for the federal government in Ottawa. The wife supervised a dept of +40 people but only goes in 2 days a week. Does the rest of her work by internet. The husband spends most of his day trying to work only 4 hours for 8 hours pay. He takes pride in doing as little as possible!

The classic was exposed during the Ottawa transit strike when union members disclosed that the 'exhanged' sick days with their buddies. This allowed them to work double time 2 to 3 shifts a month. What the hey, it is only the taxpayer who pays and what do they know?

To borrow a phrase: "Fire. Them. All."

The hire back just those who are there to do the job, and not there for the benefits and pension.

Humph.

In the public service, mental health claims doubled between 1991 and 2007 and now account for 45% of all claims. Meanwhile, the number of other health claims has dropped.

I'd also like to see the bureaucrats' figures separated from the people with active, dangerous jobs who just happen to be paid with tax money (like military, police and nurses). One of these things is not alike. One of these things is different from the others.

BTW, an acquaintance recently left his banking computer programming job and got a public sector job. He couldn't understand it at first that in the office he never heard any keyboard typing. Then he figured it out--everyone was surfing the Net all day and not using their keyboards. So maybe the repetitive stress injuries are piling up too, causing mental anguish?

"Stress, burnout and depression is evident in all workplaces, especially in times of economic turmoil."

You have to have some sympathy for people in the public sector. It can't be easy going to work every day not knowing whether today's the day your job gets axed. Oh, wait.

When the primary motivation of one's life's work consists of minimizing productivity in favour of an institutionalized focus on entitlements, why should we be surprised that so many are demoralized?
The most disappointing facet of this is the demoralization of military people who happen to be warming chairs in the same sour environment.

Maybe there will be some small good come out of the big bad of economic collapse...

BTW, an acquaintance recently left his banking computer programming job and got a public sector job. He couldn't understand it at first that in the office he never heard any keyboard typing. . .

Posted by: andycanuck at January 12, 2010 9:56 AM

-------------------------------

That’s eerie. I spent a 6 month stint at a public agency overseen by one of Ontario’s Ministries, and that’s precisely how I remember it.

I was coming to the end of an easy assignment so I asked my supervisor for more work. She replied that she hadn’t anything for me at that moment but there’d some stuff for me to do in the new year(!).

I went back to my desk and noticed how quiet it was, and it dawned on me that no one was doing anything, aside from sitting there waiting for quitting time.

I tried a few days of it and it drove me crazy. In the end I jumped ship – now I’m overworked and stressed out, but as bad as that is it sure beats the hell of watching the seconds tick off the clock each and every working day of your life.

The place was crazy anyway. During orientation on my first day a dumpy corpulent hippie union chick enlightened us on our alleged rights to do as little as possible. She showed up late, naturally.

My area had more technology than could be justified. I’ve spent the balance of my career with some of Canada’s largest financial institutions and they would never throw around money the way that this place did: they doubled up on machines just because they could, and bought software simply because they wanted to try it out.

Half of the workforce was unionized, so for the only time in my white collar career I was exposed to union elections and all the campaigning and pamphleteering that go along with it. I worked with a guy – nice guy otherwise – who did no work during business hours. He frequently showed up super late because he had to drive his daughter here or there. Then he’d do some work at night and charge overtime for it.

And woe be the person waiting for the elevator on the ground floor at 10 am; that was coffee break time, when the whole building would empty and nothing would get done for the next half hour or so.

This is funny.

A few years ago the local hospital board hired a refrigeration mechanic to do their maintenance work. We tried to get some work from them, but they had their own.

Then summer would hit. We would be crazy busy, then all of a sudden get calls from the hospital board to fix this or that.

Their guy was on 'stress leave'. For 6 weeks during the summer.

I almost blew a gasket.

Derek

Snivel servants. All that has changed over the years is that there are more of them. Far too many in fact. How many people does it take to do nothing.

I would guess only one in ten of those jobs are needed, but every asshole with a BA followed Trudeau's suggested career path and threw their lives away.

They are still doing it in great numbers, because a BA in Canada means you are qualified to fill out an application form and nothing else.

What Phantom and Lickmuffin said.

We get moved around quite a bit where I work and jump from project to project and sometimes get some downtime. I can concur wholeheartedly that the most stressful time at work for me is when I'm not busy. "Pile it on" is what I say. I guess that’s why I’m a conservative.

Well, yes, I like paid sick leave. One earns it as one works, in lieu of wages, and one uses it as he/she or he/her doctor see fit. Broken leg? Stressed right out? Both recognized illnesses. Both require rest for what ails you. What's the difference other than jealousy from those who don't get it?
If part of being a conservative means you have to hate all things union, you're being stupid. We still need to improve the lot of workers. Managers get taken pretty good care of too, in case you didn't know. They can go sick and no one even counts the days. MP's don't even have to report for work, apparently. What have you got against ordinary people getting treated well?

Possibly another unintended consequence of no-smoking policies?

Why do all the Federal Office buildings have a yellow line painted down the middle of the hallways?

That’s so the people arriving late don’t bump into the ones leaving early.

I watched this progress in the workplace. When selection for positions took place, mental stability was not something you could rate. Nor is medical. I do not disagree with this but the pressures must be explained. I knew more than one that was not happy at their level of incompetance. Others did not realize they had arrived at that point and were having trouble convincing others.
As a result of so many miserable people, medical certification of mental leave was no longer required. If you had sick leave you just took it. Mental health day became mental health summer.
When I retired I had about 290 sick days. I could have worked 3 months and take 3 months off until that was gone. My pension would have increased 14% during that time. Cancellation of a 5% a year penalty for early retirement and the loss of 2% a year of pension increase. Wasn't worth it.

The classic line for me was "The public service is heading into uncertain times." etc. Hello, just what do they think the rest of us have been living in, especially the last 2 years?

We run a forestry equipment company and have been forced by the downturn to lay off 1/2 our people, and we're not really sure we will survive. Everyone here is on shortened workweeks and we've cut all the perks to deal with the down markets. No newspapers. Less frequent office cleaning. No magazines. No raises the last 2 years. Despite that, our staff is relatively upbeat and working to try to get through this. When I read stories like this it raises my ire.

I'm so proud of our people who ask "what can we do to help out" - and we haven't had a single employee seek stress leave. It irritates me to know that our hardworking staff, a group that is already been asked to give up to help get through this, is being taxed to pay for that waste.

To the PM I say - cut.

If you offer it, they will take it.

Began working in the school system as secretary in 1967. Few benefits and very few staff were sick. Large classes, low pay, but there were always the long holidays.

Then the beginning of the end: area school board meant more benefits, more stress, more sick leave, more long-term disabilities, more early retirements.

Human nature. If it's available, they'll take advantage of it. It's their right.

Unions teach that you're due everything you can screw out of your employer.

reminds me of a story I heard about 20 years ago , in the National Parks department in Calgary, a woman there had a condition that allowed her to lay down for 15 minutes of every hour. of course it disrupted the entire department,but what the hay , they were just yakking and drinking coffee the other 45 minutes.

the source was first hand.

Stress leave is the sign of workplace with a too powerful union. Two reasons.

First, a shop where the union dominates creates a terrible workplace. Everything is a grievance, a cause, a political statement. Laziness is encouraged while over-performance will get you a firm talking to. And the union mentality is swiftly adopted. At first new workers are somewhat disgusted by the whining and back-stabbing of the well paid, guaranteed job-for-life employees. A co-worker and I would assure them that they would be exactly the same within two years. We were rarely wrong. The toxic environment will drive even the best workers mad.

Secondly, the strong union negotiates excessive benefits (employers like them because they disguise raises). Family days, banking sick days, free mental health services, generous disability programs etc. These are then misused by both the lazy and the frustrated.

I think that making union voluntary would help. Just like any socialist program, the union system would collapses if people are not forced to contribute dues and rewarded for individual initiative. There are enough other protection, from labor boards to health and safety commissions, to ensure basic worker protection.

There are so many skilled men/women out of work. How can any organization have any difficulty with any employee in a position where a new recruit can be found and trained within a month to replace this difficult employee?

Cry me a river - The teacher's unions are one of the most militant, and think nothing of obtaining an abortion for your pregnant daughter w/o telling you, and they are great promoters of abortion-on-demand, smaller families etc. then cry they are stressed out dealing with English as a second language. Now schools are beginning to close down for want of students, and they cry for smaller class sizes ... well they would, wouldn't they? As for nurses, just try getting them to give up their stressful 12 hour shifts; not bloody likely! And out here in Lala Land, the Insurance Corporation of B.C. is in charge of licensing, Driver's tests and making whatever money they may off your poorly paid-off wreck, or taking bribes from hopelessly incapable drivers.
Long Story Short? They are all overpaid and under-worked, and there is no competition allowed for government services.

I had never heard of "stress leave" before moving to Canada. Ever. I had also never heard of "earned days off" which are a complete joke. Hospital employees are supposedly working extra time each day to "earn" every third Friday off but that can't possibly be happening based on how fast the parking empties between 4 and 4:30.

Dave,
Because we live in a world where employer-employee contracts are defined by convoluted nonsense like Thomas L typed above. Inability or unwillingness to produce is not a firing offence.

...the union system would collapses if people are not forced to contribute dues and are, instead, rewarded for individual initiative.

When in doubt , I always wonder WWHD ? What would Hugo do ?

I retired from teaching 3 years ago. When I compare my lot with the folks I know who worked their entire lives outside the safety umbrella of pensions, health plans and protected working conditions, I cringe with embarrassment when I read such articles. Yes I was stressed and yes there were things about my job that I wish could be improved. Yes, not having any professional autonomy reduced the pride and pleasure I took in my work (at some point the bean counters took over). I just chose to focus on the main purpose of my career--working with kids--and that made it bearable and even enjoyable. I think the main source of public service stress is the lack of a feeling of purpose and importance in what you do. It's not just being recognized if you do a good job (though that would be nice), it's that many such jobs serve no purpose at all. They grow from unpruned bureaucratic excess. Look at the fuss that was made recently over closing just one office of learning--The Canadian Council of Learning. No report ever mentioned what they DID. Just that they were closed and obviously, the future of education was forever blighted.

It must be insulting for anyone who tries to carve out a living as an entrepreneur or in the private sector to read about this epidemic of depression in the public sector. I think it would be very stressful if your company shut down and the pension plan (if there is one) is bankrupt. No stress leave for you. How many public servants go on stress leave because they are in trouble or incompetent. Sometimes it's easier to negotiate a stress leave than get rid of them.

I feel deeply for folks who truly suffer from depression but clinical depression is quite a different horse than generally just "feeling bad". We use the word depression to cover so many degrees of feeling bad it has almost lost all meaning. For many folks, what would be so terrible about just working through a bad time in your life (yes and feeling really bad through it all)? It's called resilience. The ability to take the rough with the smooth and the more you work at it, the better you get at it.

So if the public service needs a tonic or whatever, it's certainly not more benefits or sick leave. Those are already plenty generous. Perhaps it's time to overhaul the whole works and look at introducing purpose and meaning to the work as well as according autonomy with corresponding responsibility and accountability. If there was a way to recognize when you do a good job rather than just fill a slot, I think many of these malaises would disappear.

andycanuk @ 9:57AM
In the public service, mental health claims doubled between 1991 and 2007 and now account for 45% of all claims. Meanwhile, the number of other health claims has dropped.
I would have thought that if genuine mental health claims were rising, that physical health claims would also be rising.

As a former petty little bureacrat with the Federal Public Service, I can guarantee you that
the vast majority of these "mental health claims" are bogus. They are a no-fail way of getting time off, usually with full pay, depending on how much sick-time the person has accumulated.
To add to the insult, many times these people blame the workplace for their "condition", file a grievence against the Employer and get a handsome settlement as well. Harassement is usually the charge.

First of all, mental illness is as real as any other malady. The public service of Canada has it's fair share of suicide's from depression. That is truly a sad situation.

One of the easiest ways to reduce time off for any illness is to have a waiting period or penalty period of 1 to 3 days before an individual is paid for leave. Another feature of this simple fix is that it get around debate about malingering.

I think we all need to realize that the labour movement in the various public service areas has become a large part of the problem. We have reached the point at which an employee needs a Union to deal with management and another Union to deal with the Union.

No single employee creates the culture of an organization, but both Union and management together do set the stage. Therein lays the problem.

One fact I do know is that mental illness is a terrible malady which requires everyone's understanding and compassion. From my vantage point that understanding is a beacon or benchmark
of how civilized our nation has become.

The fact is: government cannot do anything very well.

So why does our conservative government grow the government by 7% a year for the first three years in power, leading up to last year - which created the largest single expansion of government in the history of this nation...

Politicians and political parties are the enemy of the citizen. They only seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the treasury.

The unions and low skill 'civil servants' are only a symptom of larger malaise.

Military #'s for stress leave were on the rise when I got out in 2005, those I knew details on were certainly not gaming the system. I know a former military lady, 3rd generation Canadian Military, who was running an office in a smaller headquarters unit of 90 people, the job belonged to someone 2 ranks higher, but they were away and she was it, manning shortages.

During that time she found 2 folks senior to her in the unit that were abusing the military flight system, taking flights they were not entitled too, she turned them in. After she turned them in, but before any charges were laid, they selected one of those she turned in to be her boss for an upcoming deployment to Bosnia. As she and her new boss were the only 2 females in training for this deployment, they were required to train together, work together and share living quarters. All this while the investigation was going on.

Oh, and yes her boss knew who had turned her in, no stress there, eh?

The boss was removed 2 weeks prior to the deployment, as the charges were finally laid. Both of those she turned in were found guilty, but both stayed inside the small unit while she was deployed to Bosnia.

When she got back, 7 months later, she was essentially ostracized within the unit, people would not talk to her, would not return even a civil good morning, and the new person who had come in to be her boss told her that he felt sorry for the guilty folks, and that she should not have turned them in. She asked to be moved out to any other unit in the area, and was told she could not go.

To say that she had a breakdown shortly thereafter is putting it mildly, she tried to hurt herself, saw enough mental health folks to fill a hospital department and watched her career spiral down the tubes, lost a promotion that she had earned and became a different person. Discharged as "medically unfit", from an outfit that she served proudly and well for 17 years, she has never recovered.

It's been 10 years since then, she still sees a shrink on a regular basis, still has nightmares, still questions if she did things "right" and takes enough anti-depressants and mood stabilizers to choke a horse.

She was on stress leave for a while during this, don't know that it helped all that much, but it certainly was not some union derived freebie.

Vaguely related (for your lunatic union file).

Claremont Review of Books (latest edition).
Big piece on the "failed state of California".
Section: Unionocracy.

Fact: the corrections workers union which receives pay fully 50% above other states is now pushing for, prepare to laugh:
Donning and Doffing pay. Special pay for the time needed to get into and out of uniform.

For the record, I work for a private company and we are allotted "sick days"(80 hrs/yr). When I chose my job, I considered it and other benefits as tangible remuneration. That said, I finished 09' with a "sick day" surplus. When I was hired I asked if it was ethical to use "sick days" for personal time. I was told if is “frowned upon” but you can do it. It was explained to me that you shouldn't do that because there is a 2 week lay-off between when you'd last get paid and when long-term disability kicks in; therefore, you shouldn't waste "sick days" to cover your butt.

All of that said, I believe that it is fair to offer "sick days" as a benefit. I've earned it regardless of what it is called or how it is paid-out. JMO

What's a sick day? I haven't missed a days work in over 5 years. And believe me I face 10 times the stress that these folks do.

When I think of civil servants I think of the hatchet faced, miserable b*tches that work the front lines of government offices. You walk in and they look at you like they just bit into a lemon, continue on with their personnel conversation, look at you again, talk a little longer then drag their fat ass out of the chair to talk to you. I've seen them refuse to speak.

As someone pointed out earlier, there are lot of qualified unemployed people out there who would love these jobs and would work 10 times as hard.

I have nothing against unions in general but I hate the government unions.

I believe that if after 20 years my house hasn't burned down I should be able to go to the insurance company and DEMAND a refund of premiums. I earned this refund by not allowing my house to burn down.

The 'rats: the natural end result of socialism and its maze of 'rats.
...-

"None of these deaths would be recorded as victims of bureaucracy."

Get ready to be shocked. This is an moving example of why “policy by accident” is a dangerous way to govern. In this case, innocuous feel-good laws end up crushing upstanding citizens. Peter Spencer is still alive (though he may only have 12 – 20 days to go) but how many other farming men were put through the environmental-ringer, and drowned themselves in brandy, picked up a gun, or crashed the car into the only tree near the road? None of these deaths would be recorded as victims of bureaucracy."
...-

"Australia’s retarded Rudd government about to claim its first carbon bureaucracy victim
12 01 2010

Wholesale theft in the name of carbon

By Jo Nova

Imagine a third world nation was mired in corruption so deeply that the ruling class were able to stealthily steal the rights to vast acreage of private property from landowners without paying any compensation."

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/12/australias-retarded-rudd-government-about-to-claim-its-first-carbon-bureaucracy-victim/#more-15163

You don't get it MND.

I could have taken another job at the time with less "benefits" and a higher salary.

Sick days? Whazzat?

Seriously, my employer has a policy:

If you are too sick to work, or contagious, stay away.

If you do not exaggerate or obviously malinger, no one quibbles.

Works so far.

Indiana said "All of that said, I believe that it is fair to offer "sick days" as a benefit. I've earned it regardless of what it is called or how it is paid-out."

I would take exception to the "how it's paid out" part of your statement. I'm all for sick days but when companies budget these things they budget for the month/year. They don't budget sick days in 1998 for the year 2010. People shouldn't be allowed to take 10 years of sick days all at once just because they saved them up. It's unfair to the employer and one of the reasons companies contract out labour now. If you get greedy with the sick days you may end up losing the pension plan.

Use up your sick days by all means. But to save them up is just wrong to me. It goes against the spirit of the agreement.

Burnout, fatigue, stress and depression are not diseases, these are conditions. There is such thing as clinical depression but it is (for most part) not related to the "tsunami of distractions" and "burnout". What our public servants have now is not a mental health epidemic of major proportion but the epidemic of lazy people who thought that the ridiculously large salary and their job is for life and finding out that it is not.

Holy hell. They want uncertain working conditions? Try being self-employed! I've had a hell of a year, and all without paid sick days or benefits of any sort. Job security? Whuzzat?

The cherry on the cake is that I'm a diagnosed schizophrenic. Have had ongoing symptoms for a decade and a half. Take meds for them, and depression as well. Also got a heart condition. None of this stops me from dragging my ass into work every day and supporting myself.

I actually was on permanent disability at one point, but my self-esteem couldn't take it. I'd sooner die trying than live on handouts. I tried and I succeeded. Don't have a lot of sympathy for people who need "stress leave". F@#$%ing pussies.

A few examples from the other side:

Buddy of mine attends capsized vessel, with 5 people trapped, he has no dive gear, finally borrows some, pulls people out, proceeds to do CPR on the kid, sadly no one makes it. Radar operator that watched the blips come together, takes stress leave, my buddy has to comes back to work after only a couple days off.

Fishery guy loves his job, DFO made them work overtime, they signed a timesheet, but DFO would only pay them if there was money left over. This was typical of DFO in the 90’s and early 00’s

I did rescue diving, we volunteered to do it on top of our other duties, all of the divers did not get paid extra for years, when we did, it was an extra $700 a year before taxes. That’s for zero-vis diving.

I know lot’s of people that come in on their time off to catch up on files with no pay. Quite a few of the operational and regulatory end of things are under resourced for the regulatory requirement. Governments often cut the staff but forget to cut the requirements or if they do Canadians complain, because they want their cake and eat it to. Less government also means less people to complain to when the guy next door does something you don’t like.

There are useless people in the government, but there are lots that want to work and make a difference, but the system is great at stifling change. I refuse to be a middle manager for that reason, no ability to change things. Hiring new staff by the rules takes a year, to jump through the contracting stuff takes 3-4 months to prepare a simple contract, just when your done, they tell you it has to be in French, for BC.

I get people calling my office to complain about someone, purely to screw them over. I get lots of complaints saying, such and such is a significant safety or environmental issue, when all they really mean is it might spoil their view. It costs time and money to deal with these, even more so when they write to the Minister. I saw one letter recently that was so blatantly wrong on their facts, that they either had never been to the site or they were pathology lairs. Canadians phone everyday complaining about a law effecting them and how we have to many laws. Then they start saying there should be a law about this and that. You wonder why we have so many laws? Because Canadian’s keep asking for them and the politicians keep giving them to the public so they can be seen to be doing something.

I work a lot with private industry, I have met some truly useless people there as well, as for mistakes, well the difference is that private industry generally does not have to tell anyone they screwed up.

If you want to improve the Civil service, give Middle mangers more authority, toss most of the staffing rules, limit people to 2 power point presentations a year. make people presenting the “latest and greatest idea” responsible from beginning to end of the program. Hold them responsible, ever heard of the UCS? Universal Classification System, a huge likely billion dollar boondoggle that was doomed from the start. But saying the idea sucks means your not a team player.

Ok, rant mode off……..

MND

Agreed.

I can see how my statement is confusing; the surplus I spoke of is gone as of Jan 2010. That said, I will admit to hoping that if I did/do get the H1N1 it was before the new year. Oh well too late now.

"When we started this process with the Department of Transportation, it had 5,600
employees. When we finished, it had 53. When we started with the Forest Service, it had
17,000 employees. When we finished, it had 17. When we applied it to the Ministry of
Works, it had 28,000 employees. I used to be Minister of Works, and ended up being the
only employee."
http://www.waynedaniel.net/images/Document1.pdf

It's no wonder public servants are stressed out.
I have first hand experience with how the "system" works and belive me it's set up to be a meat grinder. It Started with Trudeau and his dam biligulaism policy. That policy has resulted in people beinng hired for positions not because they know anything about their job but because they speak a language deemed special. There is no merit pricipal in the federal PS. You are hired not becuse you are qualified but becasue you are the righ gender or colour or speak the special language. Trust me it gets old really fast whne you have to keep propping up your boss because becuase they haven;t the foggiest idea of what they are doing.

In the 90's Chretien cut the public service bu instead of cutting middle management they cut the pee ons doubling hte workload of the lower ranks while maanagement continued on making horrible decisoins and not being held to account for them.

Under Martin and endorsed by Harper the language commission decreeed that all sneior managers must be bilingual or loose your job. That forced hundreds of seneior managers some good some bad to take intesive language trainineg. How the hell is a depearment supposed to run and it's monions get anything done when all the managers are off for 6 months or more on taxpayer funded language training?

If anything the entire public service needs an overhaul and the stupid bilingualisim requirements dropped for all but front line workers in areas where numbers warrant. The unions need to have their wings clipped and hiring int he PS should be on the merit prinicipal not on who you know, what colour you are or what language you speak.

"PS should be on the merit prinicipal not on who you know, what colour you are or what language you speak."

Exactly. There are people doing these jobs that shouldn't be on the workforce at all and there are unemployed people with skills that are being turned away from jobs because of their race/gender.

I'm hoping for some serious pushback one day.

I think Kate is just gaming us, wants pi$$ us off with this topic:-))))

as to the stress problem, just fire employees until all the remaining ones are actually working 8 hours a day, and they won't have time to be stressed out, and the unemployed ones will learn what real stress is as they try to cobble together a living, and will WORK once they find a new job

NO SYMPATHY HERE!!!!!

The big lie: "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you"

Nothing that has been said here is new.

Colin said that private industry didn't have to tell anyone they scrfewed up! They don't have to - their refererence for their next job will say it for them.

Except when it's the boss or one of the bosses favorites. There is a reason why there are Dilbert cartoons.

At the company where I work, they got rid of sick days years ago.

The system used to be, you get your vacation time (lets say two weeks per year) and two weeks of sick time per year.

Of course, 80% of the employees never used significant amounts of the sick time. 20% managed to use every single hour of it.

So they got rid of vacation and sick days, and replaced it with 14 days of "time off". This could be used for illnesses, personal days, vacation, or the waiting periosd until disability kicked in.

The only grumblers were the folks who regularily abused the sick days. Everyone else loved it, it was 4 extra days of time off.

As a side benefit...many of us who were raised to never take a day off unless you are so ill you can't get out of bed started to take sick days. After all, it was an earned benefit, that would simply get cashed out when we left the company anyway. That resulted than less of us sicker-than-a-dog types hanging around the office and spending some time off resting when we needed it.

Had to be better for the company in the long run.

One of the most frustrating things I have to deal with as a physician is patients coming in and asking for "stress leave". This is much less common in the interior of BC than it was in Vancouver. Teachers appeared to be the worst offenders and I've lost patients because I refused to medically endorse their "stress related" leave. Usually this was a relief and the hardest part was not appearing too happy when they told me they were leaving my practice.

There are also legitimate cases and these are the most frustrating to deal with as the insurance companies seem to work under the assumption that everyone is trying to milk the system. Insurance companies don't seem to believe GP's psychiatric diagnoses and demand that the patient see a psychiatrist even though where I practice seeing a psychiatrist on an outpatient basis takes about 9 months if one is lucky. One patient that I diagnosed with bipolar disorder who was extremely productive at work while hypomanic and then unable to manage when she went into a depressive episode. I got the very strong impression that the insurance company didn't believe me and they finally arranged to fly the patient to Vancouver, have her seen by an independant psychiatrist (who probably billed the insurance company for far more than I've been paid in total for seeing the patient for the last 2 years), who confirmed my diagnosis.

The least trouble I had with patients wanting "stress leave" was when I injured my knee rather badly and showed up at work in a knee brace for a month after surgery. I was off work for a week which I thought was too long as if I don't work I don't get paid.

Medically supporting a patient taking months off work to deal with "stress" is the worst thing one can do for them. About 50% of the patients who come in to see me regarding workplace "stress" end up taking no time off work. Usually they are mildly depressed and this is easy to treat. Some people do need a short period of time off work and I've shocked a lot of patients when I tell them they get a week off work while we adjust their medications and then I'll see them again. They seem to have the expectation that they'll have 2-3 months of "stress leave". The predominant feature in most of these people are sleep disturbances that are usually very easy to treat. The exceptions to this are people who work absolutely idiotic shift schedules likely designed by people who have no idea about human circadian rhythms.

I'd estimate that 90% of the patients I see who come in wanting time off work are off for less than 2 weeks. The very depressed, out of control bipolars and the psychotic may be off work a lot longer. Another thing I tell people is if they don't like their job then get into some other line of work. Depression is common and easily treatable, especially if one screens every depressed patient for bipolar disorder (5% of the population has bipolar 2).

There is probably a self-selection mechanism at work here as the self-reliant are more likely to be self-employed and the dependant chose jobs with "security". I know that I would go nuts working in a bureaucracy or get fired so I am my own boss.

Hey Colin...I too am a middle manager in the Public Service...and to your post...Amen brother.