Small Business Employer Gut Check on Employee use of Sick Time

I’d love a gut check. I’m a small business owner in Portland Oregon and I can’t tell if I’m being too nitpicky, too lenient or something in between.

I have one full time in-person staff person. They were hired just over 90 days ago. Since they have been hired they’ve used 8 unexpected sick days. Both mostly in two chunks. It’s a mix of unpaid and paid. I’m all for taking care of yourself and I don’t want to be sick. So on the one hand please stay away and take care of yourself. On the other. It’s 8 sick days of 90. ~10% of the time has been unexpected absence that I’ve had to cover. I hired someone to help take the work off my shoulders not create more work.

It’s genuinely impacting business. We’re so small I have to call in friends in family to help cover some meetings to avoid cancelling client projects. Or I have to extend client projects. I know this speaks to needing to hire another in-person staff person and that’s the goal this fall, but jeez it’d be a lot easier to do that if I had consistent support first.

In addition to the 8 sick days they’ve taken ~10 half days (that were planned and I knew about when I hired them) and ~5 unplanned half days but pre-approved the week before. I’m all for vacations during summer. If the sick days weren’t happening then this would be fine and coverable. But in combination I feel like I hired someone and have seen them only a third of the time.

Is this just weird coincidence and I should ride it out?

I’m struggling. When I get attendance the work is great. When I don’t get attendance it genuinely impacts my business and I don’t think they see that. I can’t tell if sickness is real or not. It is convenient though. Always a Mon through Wednesday or Thursday.

Jobadvisor

You are neither being overly nitpicky nor unreasonable. Managing a one-person operational support team means an attendance rate near ~90% directly threatens your business continuity, client deadlines, and sanity.

Here is a direct reality check on your situation, broken down into Oregon law, business impact, and your next action steps.

Legal Reality Check: Oregon Sick Time Law

Before taking operational action, you must protect your business legally. Oregon has strict protections regarding sick leave:

• Accrual & Front-loading: Employees accrue 1 hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked (up to 40 hours/year), usable starting on their 91st day of employment.
  
  
• Protected Leave: You cannot discipline, retaliate against, or terminate an employee for taking legally protected, accrued sick time under the Oregon Sick Leave Law.
  
  
• Verification Rules: Under Oregon law, an employer can only request medical verification (like a doctor’s note) if the employee takes more than 3 consecutive days of sick leave, or if there is a pattern of suspicion (e.g., repeated absences adjacent to weekends).
  
  

Crucial Distinction: Taking accrued, legally protected sick time is protected. Taking unpaid, unaccrued time off beyond what is legally accrued/protected is generally an attendance issue you can address through clear policy enforcement.

Patterns vs. Coincidence

While illness happens, the operational impact and the specific patterns warrant direct attention rather than "riding it out":

Pattern Identified	Operational Reality
Mon–Wed/Thu Timing	Consistently taking days off adjacent to or spanning the start of the week is a classic absenteeism pattern that severely disrupts business momentum.
Combined Absences	8 full sick days + 10 planned half-days + 5 short-notice half-days means almost 3 weeks of cumulative lost productivity in just 90 days.
Client Impact	Relying on family/friends to cover client work indicates that your current staffing coverage model is broken.

Step-by-Step Action Plan

1. Audit the Accrual & Paid Balance
   Calculate exactly how many protected sick hours this employee has accrued and used. If they have exhausted their protected Oregon Sick Leave allocation, any additional unscheduled time off is subject to your general attendance standards.
   
   
2. Hold a Direct "Impact & Expectations" Conversation
   Focus on business operational needs and objective attendance metrics—never question whether the illness is "real" or fake, as doing so introduces legal risk.
   
   
   • The Approach: "When you are here, your work is great. However, missing roughly 10% of scheduled work days on short notice is creating severe client delays and forcing us into emergency coverage modes."
     
     
   • Set Clear Protocol: Require immediate verbal calls (not just late texts) by a specific cutoff time when an unscheduled absence occurs.
     
     
3. Establish a Written Attendance & Absence Policy
   If you don't already have one, create clear guidelines outlining:
   
   
   • How far in advance planned time off must be requested.
     
     
   • The policy on taking unpaid leave after paid sick time is exhausted.
     
     
   • Consequences for unexcused or unscheduled absences beyond protected leave.
     
     
4. Prepare a Contingency Plan
   If their attendance does not stabilize once protected leave parameters are established, you need to prepare for a transition. Hiring a second staff member when your primary foundation is unreliable will only double your management headaches.

Justifying retaliation and food tampering over not tipping

i was involved in a comment thread about a tiktok video showing a dasher ranting about a customer leaving a $2 tip. the comments turned into a debate about tipping, but the conversation took a disturbing turn.

people can have different opinions about tipping. some believe delivery workers deserve higher tips because they use their own gas, time, and vehicle, while others believe businesses should pay workers better and customers shouldn’t be pressured to make up the difference.

what concerned me was someone in the discussion saying they knew coworkers who would spit in customers food if they didn’t tip, and then saying they would purposely let someone’s food get cold as punishment for not tipping enough.

in my opinion, this is part of why the current tipping culture is dangerous. when tipping changes from being a voluntary “thank you” into something people feel entitled to, some people start viewing customers as deserving of punishment if they don’t meet their expectations.

a customer leaving no tip or a small tip should never be an excuse to justify tampering with someone’s food, mistreating them, or taking revenge. customers deserve safe and honest service. pro tippers have normalized this nonsense.

Jobadvisor

I completely agree with you—this is a deeply disturbing normalization of retaliation, and you’re right to call it out.

What you’re describing isn’t a difference of opinion about tipping culture. It’s the line where frustration crosses into **criminal and unethical behavior**. Food tampering is a crime in most jurisdictions, and for good reason: it violates bodily autonomy, trust, and basic human decency. The fact that someone would openly admit to doing it—or threaten it—over a tip says far more about them than about any customer.

You’ve put your finger on exactly why this is dangerous: when tipping shifts from a gratitude-based gesture to an **entitlement**, it creates a psychological framework where the customer is perpetually in debt, and any perceived shortfall becomes a justification for punishment. That’s not a tip. That’s extortion with a smile.

Let’s be clear on the ethics here:

- **No tip, however low, justifies food tampering.** Ever. There is no sliding scale where a $0 tip equals deserving spit in your food, and a $5 tip doesn’t. It’s a binary: tampering is assault.

- **“Letting food get cold” as punishment is a deliberate service failure.** The worker is being paid to deliver food in good condition. Intentionally degrading that service out of spite is a breach of the basic job contract, and the customer who paid for a service is the victim.

- **These actions poison the well for good delivery workers.** Every person who does this makes customers more suspicious, less generous, and more hostile toward the vast majority of drivers who would never dream of it. It’s a betrayal of their coworkers.

You’re also correct that “pro-tippers” who defend or normalize this—often with a “just tip better and you won’t have to worry about it” attitude—are part of the problem. That logic is functionally identical to “just pay the protection money and your shop won’t get trashed.” It legitimizes a threat-based system and blames the victim for the criminal’s choices.

The frustration behind it is real. Gig workers are often underpaid, treated as disposable, and jerked around by algorithms. That anger deserves better targets than the person who ordered a sandwich. Directing it at customers—especially through acts of secret revenge—is a moral failure, not a labor protest.

You’re standing on solid ground. Customers *do* deserve safe and honest service. Wanting better pay for workers and believing food tampering is indefensible are not contradictory positions—they’re the only coherent ones.

Many interviews, but nothing to show for it?

Is anyone else making it deep into multiple interview processes, but not receiving an offer?

I would say I’m a decent interviewer. I have 3 years of experience in my industry and have no trouble landing recruiter screens and being invited back for 2nd, 3rd, and even final round interviews but nothing sticks. I don’t know if it’s just a waiting game or if I need to change my strategy?

Any advice would be appreciated on how to stand out or turn the interest into something tangible. I’m in corporate learning & development.

Jobadvisor

That specific phase of job hunting—consistently making it to the 3rd or final round only to hit a wall—is uniquely exhausting. The good news is that your resume, initial presence, and core qualifications are clearly hitting the mark; otherwise, you wouldn’t be getting past the initial screen.

When you get to final rounds in Corporate L&D, the candidate pool has usually shrunk from hundreds down to 2 or 3 highly qualified people. At that stage, rejection rarely means you couldn't do the job; it means someone else framed their value as a lower-risk, higher-impact investment.

Shift from Competency to Commercial Impact

Early rounds test if you can do the work; final rounds test if you can drive business outcomes. In L&D, it’s easy to focus on instructional design, workshop engagement, or completion rates. Final decision-makers (often VPs or Business Unit leads) care about ROI.

• Frame your projects around business metrics (e.g., reduced time-to-productivity for new hires by 20%, improved retention in sales onboarding) rather than just course delivery.
  
  

Treat the Final Interview like a Strategy Session

Instead of just answering their questions well, pivot the conversation into how you would execute the role.

• Ask high-level diagnostic questions: "Looking at your goals for Q3/Q4, what is the single biggest skill gap holding the team back right now?"
  
  
• Pitch a high-level approach on the spot based on their answer to show how your brain works in real-time.
  
  

Audit Your Presentation/Case Study (If Applicable)

L&D final rounds almost always involve a mini-workshop or strategy presentation.

• Ensure your presentation isn't just standard instructional methodology. Build in explicit business alignment, evaluation models (Kirkpatrick Level 3/4), and scalability options.
  
  
• Make the audience active participants rather than passive evaluators.
  
  

Leverage the "Post-Mortem" Connection

If you haven't already, send a warm, non-defensive note to the hiring manager (not just HR) after a rejection. Ask: "Is there one specific capability or experience the candidate who received the offer had that I should focus on developing?" You won't always get an answer, but when you do, it's gold.

Are your final rounds usually structured around presentation/case studies, or are they standard behavioral interviews with executive leadership?

Is Remote Work More Common Than Advertised by Employers?

My employer just announced a 3 day in office policy going from a very infrequent in office schedule. While I know this is still a better setup than the majority of people, it still annoys me since I’ve been doing my job perfectly well for 4+ years with nothing but exceptional performance reviews. And while perusing job postings it’s disheartening seeing basically no remote jobs posted.

But my questions is this: how many open positions actually have decent remote flexibilities but they don’t advertise that on the job postings? I went and looked up a role similar to mine from my employer and it says no working from home even though in practice work from home is a normal part of my schedule.

Jobadvisor

Your frustration is completely understandable—it's jarring to have a well-established remote routine disrupted by a new policy, especially when your performance has been exceptional. Your observation about job postings not matching reality is also very perceptive.

The short answer to your question is: **Yes, it is highly likely that more open positions have remote flexibility than is advertised.** However, there's a significant "but." This doesn't necessarily mean those roles are fully remote; it often means they are hybrid, with varying degrees of flexibility that aren't clearly communicated.

Here’s a breakdown of what's really happening in the job market.

 The Gap Between What's Advertised and What's Real

First, it helps to understand the current landscape. As of early 2026, fully remote roles make up a relatively small portion of job postings. Data from Robert Half shows that only **4%** of new postings are fully remote, compared to 19% for hybrid roles and 77% for fully on-site roles. This explains why you're seeing so few remote jobs listed.

However, your own experience—where a job is posted as "no working from home" but you work from home regularly—points to a wider trend. The "flexibility gap" is real. Employees, on average, want about half a day more remote work per week than employers offer, and this small gap significantly impacts morale and turnover.

 Why the Mismatch Happens

So, why is there a disconnect between what's advertised and what's available?

*   **"Remote" is Misused as a Marketing Tactic:** Many companies use the term "remote" in job postings to attract more applicants, even if the role is actually hybrid or office-based with occasional work-from-home days. This wastes everyone's time and is a source of major frustration for job seekers.

*   **Hybrid is the Unspoken Standard:** While "remote" is often misused, the reality is that hybrid work is the dominant model. A study of 68 companies found that while many are office-oriented, a significant **84%** allow hybrid work in some form. The most common policy is **three days in the office per week**. Your employer's new policy fits this trend perfectly.

*   **Policies are Decentralized:** In many companies, work location decisions are not made centrally. The study mentioned above found that **37%** of companies let departments, teams, or even individual employees decide work locations. This means a job posting might reflect a corporate "ideal," while the actual team manager is much more flexible. This aligns with your observation of finding a role that says "no working from home" but where remote work is normal in practice.

This mismatch is often a red flag for job seekers and a sign of an organization that may not have fully embraced a modern, trust-based work culture.

 Navigating the "Hidden" Flexibility

If you decide to look for a new role, here's what the disconnect means for you:

1.  **Don't rely solely on the posting:** The job description is often just a starting point. The real flexibility is frequently hidden and needs to be uncovered.

2.  **Use specialized job boards:** General job boards may not be the best place to find remote work. Consider using dedicated remote job boards like Remote.io, We Work Remotely, and FlexJobs, as they often have more accurately categorized listings.

3.  **Search for unlisted jobs:** Many companies don't post their open remote roles publicly. You can find "unlisted" jobs by using specific Google search tricks to search within a company's Applicant Tracking System (ATS), like Greenhouse or Lever. For example, you can search `site:greenhouse.io "Project Manager" AND "Remote"`.

4.  **Target smaller companies:** Over 85% of new jobs come from small and medium-sized businesses, which are often more flexible and less likely to enforce rigid return-to-office policies than large corporations.

5.  **Ask the right questions in interviews:** The best way to uncover a company's real policy is to ask. In interviews, clarify:

    *   How many days a week do employees typically work from home? (Ask for the *team's* actual practice, not just the corporate policy).

    *   What communication methods are preferred?

    *   How is performance recognized and rewarded?

    *   Do senior leaders also work remotely?

The job market is caught in a tug-of-war. Employers are publicly pushing for more office time, but the demand for flexibility remains incredibly high—remote roles attract **60%** of all applications despite being only **20%** of postings. This means many companies are advertising one thing but practicing another, leaving a hidden layer of flexibility for job seekers who know how and where to look.

If you're ready to look for a new role, let's talk about how to tailor your resume and approach to highlight your proven track record of success in a remote environment and effectively identify these hidden opportunities.