Responsibility falls upon the individual aircraft maintenance engineer to determine whether he is not well enough to work on a particular day. Alternatively, his colleagues or supervisor may persuade or advise him to absent himself until he feels better. An engineer may feel that he is letting down his colleagues by not working when he is ill, especially if there are ongoing manpower shortages. However, he should remind himself that it is the job of the managers to allow for contingency of illness. Hence the burden should not be placed upon an individual to come to work when unfit if no such contingency is available. Also, if the individual comes to work with a contagious illness, he may pass this on to his colleagues, thus worsening the manpower problem in the long run.