Where did it go? Since when did I feel so guilty about calling in to work when I’m not really sick? Lately I’ve wanted to take a random day off from work just to be with my husband and do stuff we don’t normally have time to do anymore…like go bike-riding in Cameron park.
One morning last week I woke up and decided I didn’t really want to work that day. I asked Sheldon if he wanted to call-in and we could play hooky all day. We could go to the movies, take the dogs for a walk, we could actually cook a good dinner - not just frozen meatloaf and ready-to-eat mashed potatoes. After lying in bed discussing our schedules with each other for ten minutes, I decided the moment was gone and if it was going to take this much effort to get him to agree, I might as well just go to work. I would feel guilty all day anyway.
The way I see it, most employers don’t pay their employees for the sick time they don’t use. I have plenty saved up. It wouldn’t hurt to take one day every now and then. So why the guilt-fest? Today for instance would have been a perfect day to skip work. It’s raining! I could have laid in bed in my jammies watching the rain fall. But no, I have a meeting this morning I would feel guilty missing and I have to get several items in motion for the rest of the week. Not to mention I’ll be out of town next week for a conference, so I should probably make sure I don’t have anything due next week.
At least I was able to spontaneously decide to write a blog post before beginning my week. Hopefully all is not lost and I’m not completely an adult yet. I’d like to enjoy a few more years of spontaneous activities I can blame on being young.
6 comments:
This is one good thing about having a PTO pool of days instead of separate days for "health" and "vacation." That way, I don't feel guilty when I take a day off. I think if it were called a "sick" day, I wouldn't ever do it.
Yes, but if I had just PTO, I'd be more protective of it. I'm hardly ever sick, so I've been annoyed by having all those sick days that I don't get to use. (I left with about 3.5 weeks of sick leave at the bank.)
But even the times that I WAS sick and took a sick day, I still felt guilty sitting at home when there was work to be done.
Didn't we call these "mental health" days? Shouldn't that justify it?
It should justify it if we call it a "mental health" day, but it's hard to explain that to a boss, so I have to fake being sick on the phone and that still makes me feel guilty. I wonder what she'd do if I actually told her I needed a mental health day?
Oh, and Sheldon has PTO and he does the same thing. He saves it all up for vacation and never takes sick time.
For teachers, it is more work to be absent than to just get yourself through a blah day.
The upside is, at many schools, all you have to do to get a sub is submit a request to a computer program, so there's no face-to-face lying. And you can select "personal" as a category for your absence. That is a nice flexible term.
Nice! I can't wait for those days. :)
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