<p>Or how will any category of boss learn about the needs of employees in different life situations?</p>
<p>In my last job, most of the managers were childless, and they couldn’t understand the needs of the parents on their staff – including such basic things as their inability to reschedule their kids’ graduations to meet the company’s needs. Now, in my current job, the young management people don’t understand the needs of the older employees.</p>
<p>But the problem is that managers who don’t share employees’ life situations may not think that the employees’ needs are legitimate. (Why would anyone want to attend their kid’s graduation?) In my case, I’m concerned that the managers may be thinking, “Anybody who has to go to the doctor that often is too sickly to be working,” even though I am actually reasonably healthy and have not missed a day for an illness in four years.</p>
<p>Marian, I know EXACTLY where you’re coming from! I work for a small technology-oriented company populated mostly by 30-somethings. I’m good at what I do, but I fear that if they need to lay someone off, they might decide it’s more cost effective to dump the old lady than one of the whippersnappers. </p>
<p>It’s not a matter of my rights as an employee, or getting into trouble for abusing sick time. Of course I have the right to take care of my medical needs – just as they have the right to decide I don’t get a promotion or a bonus. For me, it’s a matter of de-emphasizing my age. I don’t want to create the impression that I’m too old to fit in with the rest of the staff, or too old to be a valuable contributor, or too expensive in terms of health insurance costs. Old people go to the doctor a lot, and old people may become dispensible in this economy – that’s the perception. It’s not fair, but it’s the reality and we have to be aware of it. </p>
<p>My strategies (some of which mentioned above): </p>
<p>*If at all possible, I get the first or last appointment of the day. This isn’t as noticeable as leaving in the middle of the day and then coming back.
*I never schedule an appointment for first thing Monday, or last thing Friday. Such appointments create the impression that you just want to extend the weekend.
*My primary doctor works one Saturday a month, great for the annual exam, follow-ups, and non-urgent appointments.
*I sometimes take half a vacation day, and knock out several appointments. No need to tell the boss WHY I’m taking half a vacation day!
*My lab opens at 6:30 am, so I never have to take time off for that. BUT I have to arrive by 6:15 to beat the retirees (IMO labs should have an express line for people who have to get to work!). It’s also open Saturday morning.
*If I’m having multiple appointments for a single issue, I do tell my boss. Last year, I had several crowns, which of course involved a number of appointments. By telling her about it, she knew I wasn’t slacking/abusing and that there was an end in sight on this particular issue, which made it more palatable to her.</p>
<p>I agree that we are probably in the same situation. And I’m good at what I do, too.</p>
<p>I was taken by surprise by this situation because my last job was in a company dominated by people our age, where nobody questioned other people’s medical needs. Thanks for sharing your ideas – I needed them.</p>
<p>I hadn’t thought of the possibility that there might be concern that I’m too expensive in terms of health insurance costs. I’m not even covered by my employer’s insurance (because my husband’s employer offers better insurance, so we chose that plan). But my bosses don’t know that. It’s an additional thing to think about.</p>
<p>In most companies, doctor’s appts are covered under sick leave. My suggestion: group your appts as much as possible and take one or two sick days a year to get everything dealt with. My mother’s motto when calling in sick was always “never apologize, never explain.” I always called in with “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take a sick day, I think I’ll be in tomorrow” and was never asked to explain.</p>
<p>I adjust my work schedule as necessary and make up the time. I am PT (and don’t get sick leave or vacation) and while I generally try to make my appts on days when I’m not scheduled to work, sometimes there is an unavoidable conflict. I often leave the house at 6:30 am for a 7:30-8:00 appt.</p>
<p>Depending where one lives, 3-4 hrs. for a dr. appt may not be unreasonable. Figure in commute time, the time of day one is travelling, and the efficiency of the dr’s office, and most times my appts DO eat up 3-4 hours out of the office.</p>
<p>They may have heard about it from their parents.</p>
<p>Also, how many days off per year is everyone referring to? Lots of people (including younger ones, perhaps especially younger ones whose immune systems have not “seen” as much) seem to be out for a fair number of days with infectious diseases. It certainly does appear that, in some cases, the number of unscheduled sick days involved here is far greater than the number of scheduled doctor appointments that someone in his/her 50s might have.</p>
<p>^ Good point. I definitely get sicker much less frequently now than when I was in my 20s and 30s. Knock on wood, but I can’t remember the last time I had even a cold.</p>
<p>This is slightly off-topic, but makes me think about something that I found frustrating when my kid was still in K-12. The teachers who were still young enough not to have children of their own were sometimes amazingly clueless about some child-related issues. Like assuming that high school freshmen remember to bring home important papers and share info with the parents–not!</p>
<p>This approach has the advantage of using up sick days (which many of us have in abundance) rather than vacation days (which may be in shorter supply). But to do it, you have to pretend to be sick and take the time off without prior notice, which could create problems for your supervisor and colleagues. </p>
<p>I am taking a “vacation” day two weeks from now, for reasons that I vaguely implied were social, when I’m actually getting a mammogram in the morning and having a follow-up visit with a doctor about an entirely different matter in the afternoon. I have already requested the day off, and the request has been approved. So nobody’s going to schedule me into a meeting or training session or other event that day. But if I pretended to be sick that day, it could mess up a lot of plans.</p>
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<p>Pediatricians, too. I remember one young, childless pediatrician who told me that “practically all children are fully toilet-trained by age two and a half.” She was pregnant with her first child at the time. I had to struggle not to laugh.</p>
<p>In some companies, scheduled medical and dental appointments that require time off can have sick days used for them. I.e. you can give advance notice for the medical or dental appointment and use a sick day instead of a vacation day.</p>
<p>In some other companies, sick and vacation days are combined in one “paid time off” bucket (e.g. you have 15 paid time off days instead of 10 vacation days and 5 sick days).</p>
<p>Yes, and this applies to the company I work for.</p>
<p>But the catch is that if you do this, your supervisor knows you’re going to the doctor, thereby perpetuating the impression that you’re a feeble older person who can’t do the job anymore.</p>
<p>I think some of you are misunderstanding the question. I don’t think Marian is asking if it’s OK to use sick time to go to appointments. I think she’s saying that younger supervisors might see older employees who go to more appointments than they do as being decrepit, frail, “feeble” (good word), just plain OLD. Which may in turn lead to our being seen as less mentally agile, less resilient, less capable, less up-to-the-minute, less in-tune with today’s culture – in a word, less valuable. Which may in turn lead to unemployment if the boss needs to make layoffs.</p>
<p>That’s why we have to wow them (younger folks) with our experience.</p>
<p>It also helps to be in good shape. I was very overweight a few years ago but I worked out regularly. I’ve lost a ton of weight and most people know me as a runner or tennis player. I’m not a real runner in the sense of the 30 MPW folks but I do more than most people that run in the office. If you’re doing regular strength-training, some cardio or intervals, watching your nutrition and your waistline, then your health, at least from an appearance standpoint, shouldn’t be an issue.</p>
<p>Employability was one motivation for losing the weight though another one was that I didn’t want to be weak and feeble and in pain during my 50s and 60s.</p>
<p>One thing that DH and I learned many years ago (so we were young), is that if you work when you are not expected to do so, and find a way to do much more than is expected of you it goes a long, long way. As an example, DH had a project due and he wanted to get it done. DH and I went to his office on New Year’s Day. I did some collating for him while he was working. Well, his boss walked into the office and he saw us working on New Year’s Day (I was not being paid at all, but was just there to keep DH company). Well it stuck with DH’s boss that my husband was a worker that will go above and beyond. His daily work did not make the same impression, even when he stayed at work until 11 pm and arriving at 6 am quite often. Working on this one holiday was a feather in DH’s cap for years! If one can find a way to do this, it allows a boss to overlook a lot of other things, in my opinion. </p>
<p>Also, I have a friend who had cancer. He went for chemo treatments on Thursday afternoons, did not work on Fridays, and went back to work on Monday mornings. He spent Friday through Sunday sleeping. He kept his job. There were no issues with his treatment and staying employed. BTW, he is fine today (diagnosed about 15 years ago). Oh, at the time he was in his late 30s, or early 40s.</p>
<p>I know someone else who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer also about 15 years ago. Her boss was miserable to her. I don’t recall the specifics, but she tried to create all types of road blocks to get rid of this employee. This person needed her job and had insurance coverage through this employer. Her goal was to be done with treatment first, and then leave this job. I don’t recall what ended up happening,as I am not in touch. I do know that she is also fine, but had an excellent prognosis to begin with. She was in her mid 30s when going through treatment.</p>
<p>But if they are prone to age discrimination, would the occasional medical or dental appointment really be what induces actual age discriminatory actions?</p>
<p>Then again, there may be something else in play here: gender. Women in general (even when not pregnant) have more frequent medical appointments than men do, because women have more recommended screenings and the fact that men are often resistant to going to the doctor for medical problems. An older woman working with younger men may find that her medical appointments are much more frequent than those of the younger men; an older man may not see that so much, especially if the younger co-workers include women.</p>
<p>How about something like: “I’m going to be taking next Tuesday off to get my teeth cleaned and get some routine maintenance done, using my sick leave.”</p>
<p>^^ I can’t speak for Marian, but I don’t have a problem saying something like that. Occasional appointments that anyone of any age could have – those are easy to deal with. </p>
<p>It’s when I have repeated appointments for a particular issue – or appointments for an issue which may be associated with “old people” – that’s when I feel I have to camouflage them.</p>
<p>LasMa: I think “routine maintenance” can cover a lot of things. And if someone has the nerve to ask what’s being maintained, you can always say “oh, you really don’t need to know.”</p>
<p>Routine maintenance means getting Botox done, hair colored, facial, massage…I tell people that it takes work to look as good as I do, it doesn’t just happen you know.</p>