All that nice warm sunshine outside is making me come down with a temperature.

I think I'm going to be sick by the time this two week sickie thing starts up.

I may need some ice in my drink (As I sit in my lounger in the garden) to help bring my fever down.

Cheers!

Not much use for those of us paid on the clock. If I'm off for 7 days or 14 days, SSP still doesn't kick in until after 3 days and is even lower than the paltry wage I get when I am at work.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

That is all

And here's me wondering if I can make a killing out of investing in Lemsip Max futures.

... you really mean most of the public sector don't you?

I don't get paid per hour/day - I have a standard monthly wage from the company - They do not give any sick pay unless you have been off for the 7 days to self certify - in which case you get statutory sick pay....

I'm paying a lot of debts of each month - Basically if I have a day off I will go bankrupt...

I think what i'll do If I do get the swine flu is ensure that I go to work and cough in hope of infecting as many people as possible - then the company may realise that it's sick pay police is inhuman and royally sucks.

As someone who caught the strain going around Oz I can tell you it was a miserable experience. I felt like I had fever but the thermometer only registered a very small bit high. I felt the need to sleep in a few days. I had a bit of a sinus thing that involved something like post nasal drip and a slightly irritated throat. The worst was the occasional cough was was of an intensity somewhere between what you would hear from a librarian if you speak too loud and that cough after you hear the doc say "Turn your head and cough."

I don't know how I lived though it after hearing what the TV had to say. I must be lucky.

Just tried tried the online symptoms checker.

My wife is waiting to see whether the Primary Health Care Trust activates its full pandemic plan, in which case all leave is cancelled and the money paid on airline tickets for the family to see the folks in Australia go up in smoke. An expensive business.

The NHS 'round my way are now diagnosing Swine Flu' over the phone... the result being that my 2 year old was diagnosed with Hamthrax... for being a bit pukey, and possibly being in the same building once where some bloke saw a pig who looked a bit under the weather.

If anyone's interested, I have 4days worth of Tamiflu going spare now.

7 days is too long for anyone. if you're too ill to go to work for seven days you really should be seeing a doctor.

we don't get 7 days at my place of work, more like 2 or 3 but that's the private sector for you. but I know of civil servants who seem to spend half their working life on "sick" leave with no consequences what so ever.

I need to dial 999 immediately and ask for an ambulance.

Wah!

In our offices people usually feel very strongly compelled to work by the bosses, (not least as wages get cut after 5 days sick (per year)) and so ill people usually bring their colds into work with them, and then disrupt even more people by making them also ill and so also find it hard to work, so the company ends up loosing even more work time with more sick people here. So one person with a cold ends spreading to become loads of people with colds. Still the lack of empathy from our bosses does also mean their blissful ignorance keeps them happy as people are clocking in and out so it looks like the minions are working. They can't see time is lost and actually hold the idea of people coming in sick as a good example of such hard workers.

So much for stopping the spread of this flu.

What it is to be a wage slave. On the bright side, maybe future generations will look back at us and laugh.