Abusing Sick Days

Let's review our vocabulary for a minute here. Don't worry, nothing too difficult.... Define the word, "sick." Done? OK, now define "sick days." The answer's pretty obvious, right? It's your basic kindergarten vocabulary. Sick means: "stay the hell away from me when you're coughing, wheezing, sniffling, blowing your nose, running a fever or sweating cold sweats - OR all of the above."

I have an issue with people abusing their sick days. Everyone does it, I know I have in the past... but excessively calling in sick and using up your sick days for when you are actually well is just plain stupid. And I'll tell you why.

There are two people that I know (who will remain nameless for obvious reasons) who have used up all their sick days for the year already - and they used it all up a long time ago. One used it to take an extended vacation for spring break - taking 3 days off right before Spring Break. I'm not going to list all the reasons why they used up all their sick days. Some were valid and some were simply "because I didn't feel like working." They were given 10 paid sick days. With all the school holidays, spring break and summer break - is there really a need to take an additional 10 days off - some of which because you didn't feel like working?

Because they have used up all their sick days, they have go to work when they're sick. When they work while they're sick, they expose their germs to other people - forcing them to take their sick days off work if they ever caught the germs. Here's a tip from Social Decorum 101: It's RUDE!

One of them came down with a very minor strain of "Influenza" (his words) which is just a fancy name for the flu. Is a very "minor" flu any better than THE flu? I think not. He was pretty sick. I did my very best to distance myself from him. His co-worker (who also used all her sick days) got sick, maybe from him, and continued to pass on the germs. Needless to say, I avoided her like the plague.

What's even worse - using up all your sick days will cause some people to act immorally (for lack of better word). Because her sick days were all gone, someone snuck out of work for 3 hours (during lunch and her free period) without signing in or out (because she couldn't afford to) to go to a doctor's appointment. For lunch - you're allowed to leave campus but during your free periods, you're required to stay on campus. Just her luck, the principal came around looking for her. This forced the other teachers to lie and cover up for her - telling the principal that she was in the bathroom, in the library, etc, etc. The principal was pretty pissed off - but I didn't hear anything about the teacher getting in trouble. I guess maybe because the principal couldn't really prove that the teacher stepped off campus.


My point is simple and my point is this: If you're sick - PLEASE take the day off and stay away from me. If you're NOT sick and it's NOT a life/death situation - drag your ass to work. IF and only IF you have lots of sick days left towards the end of the year and there's a VERY good chance you will not be sick (hey, you never know), then do whatever you please. If your job doesn't carry your sick days onto the next year then go ahead - use it all up and take an extra vacation. But for your sake AND mine, don't be stupid and spend it all on frivolous frolics at the beach. Comprende?