No, you cannot call out sick for drill. Id either lean into something genuine and chronic (back pain? Youve already got a serious medical condition, and now you get to worry that if your blood sugar plummets or your pump fails during an active shooter situation that it will get all your friends killed. Im sure that wont hurt kids mental health at all. I ended up going through orientation like four times, and in later ones I just stepped out of the room for that part. Doesnt matter that the only reason that day is the only day available is because you told the office to schedule it only on that day. Id almost respect that he said the quiet part out loud, except that the quiet part is so thoroughly and totally repellent. I know many of them are probably fine, but many are also horror themed. Its much, much better. Also, we do have accommodations for those who cant watch the video. Fast forward to this current moment in your life, (whereveryou may be) and youve found that youve hit a certain point where things have taken a massive swing. Not a lot you can say to that. Professor at a college that had a mass shooting. Another employee came in and joked that with the door wide open, she could have killed them all if she was a shooter and didnt they learn anything about locking doors from our recent drill? There isnt a traditional HR department here, and this is an office where were really subject to the dictates of our boss. Calm is author Fearne Cotton's mission to find the simple things that can inch us away from stress and over to the good stuff. But more than that, your boss thinks it would be funny to direct a terrorist or mass murderer to go kill someone younger? if your boss asks, just say you woke up feeling too sick to work that day. Plus employers (not mine, fortunately) discourage/forbid their employees from reporting assaults on their person and tell them thats part of the job. Most of the others sat around, out in the open, chatting quietly. and if i got any pushback id say it was a mental health day. Fast forward to this current moment in your life, (. Two toddlers during Sandy Hook. I hope LW is able to realize his insensitivity is plenty of cause for reconsidering her stance on him and using all her effort to pushback on such terrible behavior from him. With a subscription you get 24/7, unlimited access to over 13,000 business, design & tech online courses and with a free month. Exactly. In cases like your school its more important that the adults know what to do than showing kids what to do/where to go. Ive never been through an active shooter drill. The premise is that if all these relevant gov/emergency services drill together that theyll be better prepared to work together even if the true emergency isnt an exact match to the drill. I didnt know any of this when I went to school that day and it was one of the worst days I can recall (my friends accident hadnt involved alcohol, but the response was almost identical). He may appear to be superficially nice but he is not kind. And its so much worse now than it was then. Everyone is tired of climbing down multiple floors of stairs to stand outside in the cold in their pajamas. Burying your head in the sand wont change reality. The Drill Army Reserves are a great way to get training and experience in the Army, but there are some things to keep in mind before you join. My university installed Bleeding Control Kits on *every* floor of *every* building a couple years ago. Instead of a drill, why not just some quick tips on what to do and not do? At their large school, the directive is that 3rd+ need to get off campus and run out to the neighborhood by any means possible. If you do not own a car, you might be thinking that you got to pass all the car excuses. As everything that could go wrong did go wrong, they ended up doing a whole a lot more than IT as it basically became an all hands on deck situation. Yes, such a good suggestion to take 2 days off. Can I Refuse To Work Weekends? 6 Ways To Get Out of Working Weekends These are typically held one weekend per month, and they can last anywhere from 8 to 12 hours. If you look at the links other commenters have posted, theres actually little evidence that making people go through traumatic active shooter drills teaches them anything that they can put in practice if it really happens, so the usefulness of these drills is questionable at best. Its not necessarily as private or discrete as you may prefer, and youll still see whats going on in the simulation. We were there for hours, literally, while they searched for the possible gunman, then after they caught him, clearing the university to be sure he didnt have an accomplice. he is not a nice guy. I really dont know what to say to that. Edit: please understand I am NOT a highly motivated soldier. Im gobsmacked. I will have to miss 1.5 days of the conference to make it to drill on time. 10 Good Excuses for Not Working on Weekends 1. Its not as full on as what the OP saying, theres no law enforcement or reenactment. I would not talk to your boss in your shoes. https://www.everytown.org/solutions/active-shooter-drills/. Be sure to provide your commanding officer with the note as soon as possible. 7 hours is ridiculous Id definitely call in sick. My workplace had an active shooter training session prior to COVID that included several drills. A book that finally understands introverts! First thought was to call in sick. First responders and EM do exercises to improve our side of it. Hes a nice person but has very deeply entrenched ideas about mental health, anxiety, young people, and triggers, and I dont want to have to disclose my own mental health diagnoses to him, make him think Im simply not tough enough to handle it, or come across like a millennial snowflake, etc.. no one is going to know that you are bluffing. When he said the whole team was going and I needed to go to, I told him, I hoped they had a great time, but I would be at my desk that day and not participating. Because then a bad guy could find them. related excuse is only going to work if its not a work gathering. I am well into Gen X and we did an active shooter training and I hated every moment of it. Or deliberately schedule a doctor/dental appointment that day and say sorry it was the only time they could get you in. But the elderly retired people didnt evacuate, even the ones who can do stairs. Also on the 7th floor so its not like we could break a window. Everytown has some resources regarding that as well. Exactly. However, there will be times when we would rather not work weekends and have the weekend free to pursue other interests. Either way, Im very sorry youre dealing with this horrific BS. 1) Wont happen herewe are nowhere near the big city where these things happen. This one will go prettywell,butwait! Have you been complaining about work lately? It turned out nobody really cared that I wasnt able to make it to the training and nobody mentioned it ever again so hopefully your absence will be a non-issue. My Dad was a St. John Ambulance volunteer when he was younger, and was a casualty in drills more than once. In the meantime, read through these comments and know we are all standing with you. Some people believe working on the weekends is bad for your productivity. Also, your boss is a horses ass. How to Get Out of Drill Weekend - icci.science One of each type of emergency drill a year is plenty. I work in a large hospital. After much hand-wringing, the law enforcement liaison finally convinced this person not to develop such training. Not sure if this is the case for the OP, but when my previous employer planned a mandatory active shooter drill, they sent a liability release/waiver that we were expected to sign. We no longer politely hold the door open to let a stranger into our secure building. There is zero reason to be doing this training. and it will be late till you reach there. We were located in an area where street violence was a significant risk. I havent read all the comments, but this makes me truly ill. To be fair, I was already angry on your behalf before reading this letter. But its hard, if not impossible to learn anything when in the throes of a panic attack or PTSD symptoms. as a manager, should I not wear a childless shirt in my off-hours? If you have a family or work obligations that conflict with your drill weekend, there are a few ways that you can get out of it. I would say that the same principles apply as the LW. So,I am going out on dinner with him. For example, Jewish people have the Shabbat, the Jewish Day of Rest, which occurs each week from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. Id call in sick the day before as well better cover story. Hi there! Ive been participating in active shooter drills since high school, know about run-hide-fight, and have friends who have lost siblings to gun violence. How is including that supposed to change the behavior or perception of the students during an actual event in any way? My daughters friend since pre-school was killed in a mass shooting during her freshman year in college. Balance this wisely. (And as a 6th grader at the time of Columbineoooof I am so sorry for all of us that literally nothing has changed since then). In banks they often hold robbery simulations that range from a silent note passed to a teller to a full blown takeover with machine guns. The key to success is planning and communication. And if that fool makes another joke, look him in the face and say Did you just try to joke about me being murdered to save yourself? There is no generational excuse. The next year they just showed a video, called Run, Hide, Fight. We started calling it Run, Hide, Die as a joke, if only because if we didnt laugh at it we would all have gone insane. Its almost perfect. Seven hours of active shooter training for ordinary office employees? I am not sure I would have managed to remain calm if I hadnt already considered what would likely be going on, if there was a robbery. Do they work in a higher-risk area or industry? Take care of yourself! Even though technically I graduated from HS pre-Columbine, guess what? Worst case, they might show up to work armed, and their colleagues would assume its all part of the training.. Your boss is being waaaay too cavalier, he should recognize the possibility of one of his employees having already lived through a mass shooting, had family members affected in a mass shooting, or experienced shooting drills in school, even if hes not a huge mental health fanatic. #1 "I Have A Headache" A headache isn't severe enough to render you useless for a long period of time but it's bad enough that it'll get you out of a social engagement. Then you have a Soldier with real issues like a family member dealing with cancer and there is no allowance period. You've only watched 16 videos of veterans coming home to their dogs and you promised yourself you'd break 30 tonight. Who should I talk to for that?, If he mocks you or implies youre a delicate snowflake, consider saying: You and I are coming to this with a very different frame of reference. There Is Inclement Weather 9. You can approach the second-in-command, if you believe that person will be more receptive than your boss. Given the reaction youve gotten from trying to push back, I wouldnt bother trying to explain why this is a problem. Law enforcement starts working together on active shooter drillsmy organization does not add training. This boss is not ok, and you deserve better. 11. Id like to nominate this man for worst boss of the year for this sentence ALONE. I did see those and book.arked them all to read and to support my reasons for making the training optional. However, life happens and there may be times when you cannot attend. Plus,no one wants to hear the details. Look, Im a school employee, a military brat, and an LEO wife. Im worried that would get her fired. And because he isnt reasonable you cant reason with him. We finally did get robbed. Intruding boss never asked detailed questions again. Read More 7 Common Types of Spam Emails and How to IdentifyContinue. Between 2014 and 2015, about 62.6 million people volunteered through an official organization, and many more did so privately. No job is worth your life. Im a little bit too old to really be a member of the school-shooting-generation (in that I was in undergrad by the time Sandy Hook happened), and my impression when I hear my younger peers talking about it (and from some commenters in threads below) is that the pervasiveness (of both the drills and the threat) is what makes them so traumatizing for many people. Anyway Ive been thinking about it a lot recently because of the Oxford and MSU shootings. I am in my twenties, and I grew up in the modern era of mass shootings. Its not that he cant understand. This was not that, its just callous. In response, we offered one of the most common run/hide/fight trainings (via video). Literally had preschool orientation for the older one the month after to the day. Just call in sick. Because Labor Day is around the corner and we're all thinking about that coveted three-day weekend, we thought we'd come up with a list of the Top 10 Excuses to Get Out of Work, brought to you by Bloodsucking Bastards, a comedy/horror film featuring the one office you'd like to work in even less than your own. How do you say no to working on a weekend?. My administrations seem to recognize that they dont actually work. The answer is maybe. There were two separate school shootings in my district in the time frame that I was middle school through high school. Learn how your comment data is processed. I will never, ever attend one of these againit is worth *any* political or professional price I might pay. No sense in reminding them of the futility of it all on a monthly basis as well. A few months later, my school staged this surprise mock car accident to discourage people from drinking and driving. Here are some tips to help you make the most of your experience in the Drill Army Reserves: This LW has done THIS TYPE of drill so has met her obligation and should have no guilt or issue dropping out of this particular drill. The babysitter just called and told me she couldnt make it today Thats all you need to say to them. Yup I was going to do this pre-pandemic to get out of a (much more minor) mandatory fun activity that happened to involve one of my anxiety triggers because I knew trying to explain why something most people think is at worst annoying makes me shake with nerves was just not worth spending political capital on. Someone (I think it was Maya Angelou) said that when somebody shows you who they are, you should believe them. Thankfully events like this are never mandatory at my job, so its unlikely to come up. About 12 years ago I was medical director of an inpatient facility and we had a family member come in with a holstered gun visible. In some cases, you may be able to do individual training on your own time instead of attending the full weekend drill. The active shooter training was performative and to tick off an insurance requirement. We managed to cover fire, health emergencies, active shooters, bomb threats, weather evacuations, you name it, all in the span of a couple hours. This individual lived through a civil war in their country of origin and understandably was not keen on the idea of triggering difficult memories in a professional setting. I am fairly traumatized by all this, because what if it IS a fire and/or flood this time and not just a glitch in the system? -You have a family emergency (documentation may be required) Maybe Congress should have active shooter drills, too. These drills get elaborate heck, the one at the middle school in my town a few weeks ago had a police helicopter overhead so that the kids knew thatd be a standard thing in the event of a real shooter. Often, the employees are the main reason why employees quiet quit their job. Excuse 2 | You Punctured Your Tire. I had a med student with me and I took her into my office afterwards to check in. 30 Good Reasons To Call Out Of Work - Rigorous Themes Is there something about your workplace that makes this a particular concern? and stick to your story. Editor-in-Chief & Career Development Expert. You Had Other Car Issues 11. One of the most popular WordPress themes in the world. I also doesn't hurt that our founder has a little store on there Donating to Never the Right Word willhelp us produce more free content. Democrats Use Every Excuse to Disarm the Good Guys. This excuse is exclusively for ladies and its fantastic because nobody asks questions. Thankfully my boss was fantastic and made sure I didnt have to attend an actual training. The lights were on a timer. And then you can tell your boss in advance that ou have an appointment you just cannot move that day is the ONLY day available. She knows what to do. We had a few students around our county die in drunk driving accidents that year, and I imagine it was very upsetting for the parents, but there was clearly NO understanding that these were our friends and peers and maybe making grieving teenagers sit through this wasnt as helpful as they wanted it to be? Here are some valid excuses for missing drill: I wish very much I had opted out. I have ptsd. I hope it goes well, and click send. CLICK HERE to get your copy. However, if the OP schedules an appointment with their GP in advance for the day of the training they can use that appointment to discuss anything theyre dealing with. Copyright 2007 - 2023 Ask A Manager. I didnt have notice of this one, and I think the most disturbing thing was that my kids have been conditioned to just accept that someone trying to kill you is a situation they should prepare for. We also dont call it an active shooter drilll, because wed have lockdown for any intruder. Agree late 40s without kids, and I can totally picture this being really hard. I do NOT want to LARP a shooting. excuses to get out of drill weekend - bbjtoysandbeauty.com The kids at that school KNEW A SHOOTING COULD HAPPEN. Again, lockdown, except for the three classrooms that were directly underneath this workplace grudge-match turned fatal, we scurried like hell into the hallway to the next wings classrooms. This is your time to show that you are the best and that you can definitely take the weekends off and enjoy the weekend. excuses to get out of drill weekend And it sure as hell wont take 7 hours. Have a great night. That means if you click and buy a product, we may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Ahh, thats the stuff. Make sure your office doesnt do retaliatory things like this. Because of course.). I think theyre useful, Ive seen them work. We have to let the videos play and take multiple quizzes to get a certificate, but Ive now done them enough that I can let the video play while not really paying attention, and my anxiety has disappeared over the trainings. But really, call in sick. Could you tell your boss that you already have expert-level knowledge on active shooter drills (and that goading the shooter to kill someone else constitutes a failing grade)? Just reading the stories in this letter and in the comments has given me nausea. Im looking around to get away cause Im scared of gun being pulled. I work in a hospital system. Between the GUN SHOTS outside the classroom, and the unbelievably unqualified instructor who gleefully talked about all the times his hyper-vigilance protected his girlfriend on the mean streets of our farm state, it was too much. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/workplace-shootings-research-.aspx, https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/436994-active-shooter-training-fails-because-it-relies-on-fear/, https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2019/05/23/teachers-active-shooter-trainings-ineffective-stressful-column/3754113002/, https://www.insider.com/young-school-shooters-grew-up-doing-active-shooter-drills-experts-2022-6, https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/blog/advocacy/active-shooter-drills-harmful-or-helpful/. Do I normally condone lying? Its probably an insurance thing. Therefore, an entire weekend can add up to four unexcused absences. This is typically one weekend a month, plus two weeks during the summer. SEVEN HOURS? His work has been featured in Medium, WikiHow and Chron and is currently authoring his new book on overcoming procrastination and achieving goals. Hey [Name] Im really sorry to leave you hanging, but my dad just got into to town and Ive got to be on good daughter/son duty. Why Quiet Quitting Your Job is Not All Wrong? What's not to love? Understanding how to tell your boss you are not working on weekends professionally can help you to say no, with confidence and courtesy. Before you comment: Please be kind, stay on-topic, and follow the site's commenting rules. When we had to do one I brought that up that statistically if theres a shooting theres a strong chance it will be by an employee or student and they just handwaved it off. No joke, they slipped and fell WHILE managing a video shoot for a safety video, resulting in yet another work comp claim.) And leaving them alone would be a big question mark to the whole face of humanity. Call in sick. You want to spend the time with your family and friends, It has a positive impact on your physical and mental health, You have the opportunity to develop networking opportunities, Yor provide a service or goods to the community. Soldiers who are problems are not put out the correct way because the paperwork takes to long. A colleague is American and was home over the Christmas holidays. No?). I think Alisons language about what to say to your boss is really useful. What I wonder is, if you all spend seven hours at work doing not-work, will you have a huge backlog of work the next day? I dont think this automatically makes them unfeeling people. They were clearly making an effort on all sides not to alarm the kids, and my own kids were totally oblivious that anything was amiss. The simple answer is that if you are ADMITTED to the hospital then it will probably be an acceptable excuse. The training process can take awhile, so dont expect to be an expert overnight. You have a work conflict . If you are in the National Guard or Reserves, you may be required to participate in drill weekends. Oh god. You should absolutely be able to opt out of the training. (gag). Want more Junkee in your life? Is there any way you could volunteer to assist the people running the drill? However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. We should be ashamed that we are teaching children to be prepared for violence, and to be prepared to commit violence from the time they are toddlers on. Want to write a professional email at work? I absolutely think you should absent yourself from these in future (regardless of how open to it the boss, is, call out sick if you need to). And thats not even including all the training around dealing with bomb threat callers, with angry patients/family members, with weapons, with baby/child abduction, etc. We dont need to be afraid, we need to be prepared. I could have written this post myself. have to leave your house if they say yes. Sotraveling, without one, is not a good option even if traveling means going across two blocks. My office recently did the same thing. So why not plan this up again someday?. 2) HIDE! Hey [Name], I think the snows probably going to ruin any chances of me being able to make tonight. Building layouts is easy and fast, making it ideal to create mockups and wireframes, prototyping a design, and creating the website itself. But that was just about 30 minutes, not anything we had to actually do. The half day will be for transportation. And where the training is done by people who are professionals *in the topic they are training*. Im not sure I agree with Hes a nice person.. I mean, there are so many reasonable and sensible and logical ways to respond to being told to toughen up, and theyre all better than this, but sometimes If youre making me do this I want it in writing that when I forget this is a drill and deck somebody you pay my legal bills and I dont face any disciplinary action whatsoever is the way to their dear little dinosaur brains. The vultures swoop in when a shooting takes place, pretending to offer support as they build their trauma resumes and then move on to profit from death, offering lockdown training and recovery services. Im so sorry to hear about the stomach bug you got the day of this drill. I have to do the Run, Hide, Fight video at work. Im mildly/moderately allergic to a common food that nobody else is allergic to. This will make the time go by faster and itll be more bearable. Im very sorry. To enhance the dramatic effect, you can fill up your voice with tears and can have a catharsis you were longing for. Any good boss and company should want you to stay home and recover if you're sick. If you do work full time or have family obligations and work part-time, you can only study in the evening and on weekends. It will not be possible for me to participate.. None of this is a joke, and Im so mad at this LWs boss because the drills are meant to protect people and theyre done out of fear but we cant have TOO MUCH FEAR, mind you, because thats negative somehow. I was out the day the training happened, but apparently it was just a cop lecture interspersed with scary videos. For many units, one of these traditions is Drill Weekend. Drill Weekend is a chance for soldiers to get away from the daily grind and focus on training. I was when I first went to this unit 5.5 years ago. Hey [Name] I think Ive got to stay in tonight and take care of [Insert Roomates Name]. I am not sure why the school wanted you to do this, but the drills are a regular thing for Emergency Services. Some of them can be a lot of fun if the team already works well together, but I dont think any of them are useful if the team dynamics are bad. Working from home have a lot of benefits that essentially make your work life happier and more enjoyable. 3) Find a friend to talk to during drill. I used to live in a country that had earthquake drills. Your boss sounds like a huge jerk. Elegant Themes have been building the world's most popular WordPress themes for the past 10 years, and rest assured their products will always be improved and maintained. Some say that it is helpful to have even a few seconds of warning, and that the sound should be loud and trigger serious caution. If its that sort of training day, it would be way more involved the typical quick drill or watch Run/Hide/Fight theyd be going over all the logistics, what processes to set up to prevent it, etc. Somebody is implementing this program, and is either intending it to be voluntary (and your boss is going rogue) or intending it to be mandatory and *really* not thinking it through, and either way I would think the CEO/Owner would want to know about it if you cant get anyone else to listen to you. A FULL DAY training is incredibly excessive and triggering, unless you think people dying is funny. A few days after the drill, I heard from a coworker that several faculty were sitting together in a conference room with the door open.