If you’ve got a sick kid at home, you gotta do what you gotta do…

And that includes missing time from work, if necessary.

Check out what this dad did in this story from Reddit’s “Malicious Compliance” page!

HR doesn’t want to deal with too many “child sick pay” requests … no problem!

“My wife and I are both working and our two kids are in day care, if they are not sick.

Our agreement was that if a child is sick, one stays home the first day, the other one the next day and so on until the child is fit again or one of us catches it too.

On the one hand that way care work is split evenly amongst us, and on the other hand nobody misses suddenly work for an extended time.

There are rules about this kind of stuff.

We are entitled to 30 days of “child sick pay” per child and per parent. It doesn’t cover everything but IIRC about 85-90%.

Because we are alternating each day we get one doctor’s notice per day and split them accordingly among us; instead of one notice for a week, we would have five which we submit to our employers and health insurance to deal with each other and get paid.

HR (coincidentally the wife of my manager) told me that it is too much hassle to deal with a few papers instead of a single one, and that one of us should stay at home, implying my wife, as it’s sadly still pretty normal for the mother to deal with care work.

We did comply, but I will take my paid child sick days until I run out and then my wife will start to cover it.

Since then our children were sick twice and I stayed home the whole time (3 days and a week).

My manager asked why I wasn’t coming in as I used to and that some orders nearly missed their deadlines.

Well, this is your policy!

I said HR (his wife) wanted it that way, and I still have around 50 days of child sick pay left. I really enjoyed the look on his face.

Before anyone assumes anything: My employer is great, and I have a good relationship with my manager and the owner.”

Reddit users shared their thoughts.

This person weighed in.

Another individual shared their thoughts.

This Reddit user didn’t hold back.

Another reader spoke up.

And this individual had a lot to say.

When HR tells you not to come work, you might as well listen to them!

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.