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A just released CareerBuilder/Harris Poll of 3,321 full-time non-government employees found, “38 percent of employees have called in to work sick when feeling well in the past year, up from 28 percent in 2014.”
Can calling in sick when you're well be justified? Here’s an internal debate.
PERSON: If my kid is sick, I’m taking the day off.
ALTER-EGO: No one's arguing about that. You use all your paid-time off (PTO) for that stuff and on top of that, take not-sick days for other things---just like they said in that CareerBuilder survey: Fridays so you can have a three-day weekend, December days to catch up on your Christmas shopping, even days off when you get up feeling particularly upbeat---“It’s a shame to waste that at work!”
PERSON: The workplace is so stressful, life is so stressful! We need more time for work-life balance.
ALTER-EGO: More B.S. With all those days off you take, you end up working a total of only about 1,100 hours a year. There are 8,760 hours in a year.
PERSON: For what I get paid, I deserve more time off. The media constantly reports the big gap between the income of executives and us peons.
ALTER EGO: You know as well as I do, you’re not smart enough, assertive enough, skilled enough, and motivated enough to be an executive. You were glad when they offered you the job at $60,000 plus benefits plus two weeks vacation plus holidays plus PTO. You can’t now decide it’s not enough and steal for more. And that’s what taking sick days when you’re not sick really is: stealing. If you really think you deserve more money, you could ask for a raise or look for another job but don’t steal.
PERSON: My employer steals from me every time she asks me to stay late or do something on the weekend. I’m an exempt employee so I don’t get overtime.
ALTER EGO: To compensate for that, your salary is higher per hour than hourly workers'. If you really feel you're asked to work too many hours, ask for comp time but you know as well as I do, you spend plenty of your "work time" doing personal googling, on Facebook, and shopping on the Internet. You can’t pull that BS on me.
PERSON: You’re trying to turn me into a machine. I’m human and I’m far from alone in taking little breaks and playing on the computer. Surveys by Microsoft, AOL, and Salary.com found that, on average, people are unproductive during 16 of their claimed 45-hour work week. The Salary.com survey found that 24% said Googling is their biggest time-waster, 23% said Facebook, 13% said LinkedIn. Other time-wasters included Yahoo, Amazon, YouTube, ESPN, Pinterst, Twitter and Craigslist.
ALTER-EGO: Just because some people are unethical doesn’t mean you should be.
PERSON: I’m sick of your preaching. I need a sick day.
Marty Nemko’s bio is in Wikipedia.
