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this morning
E-mail from Immediate Superior: "I will be out this a.m. to look after my wife, who is sick." So, memo to me: yes, people are sometimes not well, and taking time away from work in these instances is -- surprise! -- not inherently irresponsible.
There are a number of factors contributing to the fact that I suspect I will never, ever be really comfortable with this.
On the one hand, there have been a couple of times -- ninth grade was one; my second year in my first job was another -- when, for reasons absolutely having to do with my health, I missed enough days of school or work to do pretty genuine damage. In high school, I fell behind in at least one class and had serious trouble catching up; at work, I spent all my leave and had to take a couple days here and there of leave without pay. I wasn't wrong to stay home when I did, but if I'd got what was going on sorted out sooner, I wouldn't have been in that fix, and of course I'm not eager to be in such a fix again, despite the fact that I haven't been fourteen in more than half a lifetime and I'm in a job now where (a) vacation and sick time don't come out of the same balance, (b) there is plenty of each, and (c) I'm not paid by the hour, so LWOP is not really in the cards anyway. Doesn't matter: the once-bitten, twice-shy hindbrain is nervous.
On the other hand, my parents were public school teachers who, once we were old enough to be left alone, had to be really sick before they stayed home from work, because it was so often so much easier to just go in and suffer than it would have been to arrange for someone to cover for them.
So my sense of the standards of illness sufficient (I started with "necessary", so you see) to keep a person at home and of the consequences of staying away from work are probably skewed.
None of which really makes me feel any better.
In any event, here I am at work today, not dead. Huzzah.
[eta: Of course, the boss's e-mail rather highlights another facet of the whole sick-day thing, which is that I am single and live alone and therefore have nobody taking care of me when I am sick, which is normally no big deal but a serious deficiency when it would be helpful to have someone taking care of me. On the other hand, this may drive a person back to work sooner. Who knows.]
There are a number of factors contributing to the fact that I suspect I will never, ever be really comfortable with this.
On the one hand, there have been a couple of times -- ninth grade was one; my second year in my first job was another -- when, for reasons absolutely having to do with my health, I missed enough days of school or work to do pretty genuine damage. In high school, I fell behind in at least one class and had serious trouble catching up; at work, I spent all my leave and had to take a couple days here and there of leave without pay. I wasn't wrong to stay home when I did, but if I'd got what was going on sorted out sooner, I wouldn't have been in that fix, and of course I'm not eager to be in such a fix again, despite the fact that I haven't been fourteen in more than half a lifetime and I'm in a job now where (a) vacation and sick time don't come out of the same balance, (b) there is plenty of each, and (c) I'm not paid by the hour, so LWOP is not really in the cards anyway. Doesn't matter: the once-bitten, twice-shy hindbrain is nervous.
On the other hand, my parents were public school teachers who, once we were old enough to be left alone, had to be really sick before they stayed home from work, because it was so often so much easier to just go in and suffer than it would have been to arrange for someone to cover for them.
So my sense of the standards of illness sufficient (I started with "necessary", so you see) to keep a person at home and of the consequences of staying away from work are probably skewed.
None of which really makes me feel any better.
In any event, here I am at work today, not dead. Huzzah.
[eta: Of course, the boss's e-mail rather highlights another facet of the whole sick-day thing, which is that I am single and live alone and therefore have nobody taking care of me when I am sick, which is normally no big deal but a serious deficiency when it would be helpful to have someone taking care of me. On the other hand, this may drive a person back to work sooner. Who knows.]
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