Playing hooky at work

[lynnerself]

Have you ever/ how often called in sick at work to do something fun?

Several years ago I called in sick on Valentine's Day to go skiing. It was a glorious day and I never regretted it.

Did you ever get caught?

Later policy changed so that your first day sick was PTO and then you got to use sick leave. Third day needed a doctor's note. (At this point I had hundreds of hours of sick time.) Whenever I was sick it always seemed to last 2 days

[Tennesseer]

I played hooky from work once back around 1980.  Did nothing special.  Manager tried to guilt trip me stating I would ruin my perfect attendance record.

Oh well.

[justme]

Ugh I hate sick leave policies. Presumably you're employing adults. Furthermore, that'd you'd prefer people stick to stay home and not infect others yet come back when possible. Yet policies like this encourage people to come in sick and stay out longer than needed.

Luckily my job is one where working from home is possible. While I may not be on the top of my game when sick I still make sure to do any must do items and keep on top of stuff as much as possible.

[wvugurl26]

I would like to take a mental health day now and then. I'm pretty burnt out at this point. There is a light at the end of the tunnel but April is a long way off.

I've basically worked at home when sick for the past few years. For 2020, there's been no one to back me up.

I've been slowly accruing my sick leave for the past 5 years in case I want to have a child. Now it seems we will get paid maternity leave so I might be able to use some leave.

I certainly wouldn't regret taking a day.

[giramomma]

I don't call in sick, I use vacation time.

But, I get 22 vacation days, 3 personal days, and then your standard holidays (New Years Day, MLK, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, and Christmas). If any of those fall on the weekend, then I also get floating holidays.

I don't burn through all my vacation for vacations. Vacation also only can be carried over for one year, and then it's lost. So, yes, I do use my vacation time for funsies. I'm taking a crochet class in a few weeks, actually...and work knows about it. I also try to go stitching when I can in town with others...or if I can squeeze a quilt retreat..I do that once a year..

I use sick leave for sick leave or paid maternity leave. My sick leave gets converted to pay for health care premiums when I retire...so I don't really want to waste them.

I'm fortunate in my dept work/life balance is encouraged.

[steph08]

We get five "sick" days but they are classified as personal leave. So I use them all for fun. I work from home most of the time, so unless I am puking and lying in a fetal position on the bathroom floor, I am getting my work done.

And also, my boss doesn't care. He encourages vacations and working a standard 8-hour day. I love my job.

[Deleted]

As a teacher, I had to take sick days because kids had to be supervised.  Even a two-hour doctor's appointment meant a day of sick leave because subs don't like half days.  The pay isn't worth it.

Our encouragement not to play hooky was being able to count sick leAve toward retirement.  I got to count 6+ months even after being out 20 days for DH that last year.

[lynnerself]

Back then I only got 2 weeks vacation and 2 weeks sick. I always used up all my vacation, but had many hours of sick time accumulated.

[thyme4change]

Earlier in my career I would use sick days for "mental health". One day a coworker came in, got a cup of coffee, looked at his desk and said to the boss "Can I take a vacation day?" Boss agreed, and he left. It changed how I handle days where I have some flexibility, but didn't ask ahead of time. I call in vacationing. Much easier with 4 weeks of vacation time. Harder when I only had 2 weeks.

[gs11rmb]

We have a system called "Wellness" which covers sick, vacation, and federal holidays.  It's a great system!  They tweaked it a couple of years ago for new hires and gave the option of transferring into the new system... I don't think anyone took up that offer!  The only negative that impacted me was that they stopped allowing accrual of more than your annual allotment.  Some people were leaving with hundreds and hundreds of hours that needed to be paid out.  Now I can't accrue more than 40 days.

[Tiny]

In the past,  I've always taken "sick of work days" where I'd call in sick - even though I wasn't really sick - usually 1 or 2 per year.  Never regretted to doing it.   An "excuse" was needed - so I'd call in and say I had beriberi or scurvy or pellagra. I was fond of deficiency diseases.   I may have even called in Dead once.   

About 10 years ago? maybe longer?  my employer switched over to PTO and was very open about how we were all adults and that manager's abusing their power/employees abusing their ability to take time off at will would be handled by upper management (HR). Also gave info on how employees should handle special cases (child/adult care, life happening, etc) and stressed management/HR would work with the employee.    Calling in sick for a day didn't require an excuse.  You just call in, say you won't be in that day, and you're good.   This was for the "everyday" kinds of sick -  Of course, if you were really sick/hospital/couldn't come to work for days there was protocol for that too.   

It took a lot of drama/stress out  calling in sick.   Currently,  my department/manager, my fellow employees are really good with getting/taking time off.  A "sick of work" day can pretty much be scheduled the day before - a quick chat with the Boss, making sure all the work bases are covered or notified, enter it into our time and attendance app... and you are good to go.  No drama at all.   I generally work my scheduled ahead of time vacation in dribs and drams  I rarely take 5 days in a row off... I usually take 3 days a month off (I accrue alot of time off).  I make it work around friends/family schedules so I can do fun things with them.  
I'm pretty sure my fellow workers aren't the kind who take a "sick of work day" to avoid an unpleasant thing happening at work (like meetings, or deadlines, or something else).  

The only time I can remember "scrambling" because a co-worker was out of the office unexpectedly  would be when they would be out for many days because they were in the hospital or had a family emergency.  
OK, that or they quit unexpectedly and left an unexpected work mess behind.      

[ohmomto2boys]

We get five "sick" days but they are classified as personal leave. So I use them all for fun

[Bonny]

Feb 19, 2020 20:54:11 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

I played hooky from work once back around 1980.  Did nothing special.  Manager tried to guilt trip me stating I would ruin my perfect attendance record.

Oh well.

HR scofflaw! You're supposed to lead by example.

For the record I never did. Last job was all PTO. I probably would have not burnt out so bad had I taken more time off. Like Southern Susana when I left the District after only 8 years of employment I had six months of PTO.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Our whole lab did this....from work, and we asked our boss if he wanted to come with us!

We had an absolutely gorgeous day, and no one had anything pressing to do so we decided to go waterskiing.  Stopped to ask the boss if he wanted to come too, but he had a bunch of meetings with the deans, so told us to go and enjoy. We did.

[Deleted]

The hoarder/saver in me would love to have months and months of time off squirreled away, which is why I'm sort of glad my company has an annual "use it or lose it" policy for sick time and vacation because that forces me to take time off.  I take off so much time for kid things, doctor/dentist appointments, sick kids, college visits and school related stuff that I don't get a lot of time for what I want to do.  Occasionally...maybe once or twice a year I will wake up, say "screw it", run the kids to school and take a "ME" day.

Starting this August I will finally start accruing at the 15 year rate (even though I've been here since 94) and will have 4 weeks of vacation and 6 days of sick time.  That will be nice. 

[Tennesseer]

Feb 20, 2020 15:13:28 GMT -5 Bonny said:

Feb 19, 2020 20:54:11 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

I played hooky from work once back around 1980.  Did nothing special.  Manager tried to guilt trip me stating I would ruin my perfect attendance record.

Oh well.

HR scofflaw! You're supposed to lead by example.

For the record I never did. Last job was all PTO. I probably would have not burnt out so bad had I taken more time off. Like Southern Susana when I left the District after only 8 years of employment I had six months of PTO.

Smiley face (for HR scofflaw comment seeing the emojis aren't working).

Actually, I was a hourly dispatcher at the time of the call-in. 

In my 30 year career with the company, I probably called in sick maybe five times.  I actually liked working and all my jobs.  My hourly years greatly helped me as a HR rep.  No one could tell me I didn't understand their jobs.  Been there and done them.

[stillmovingforward]

My facility works 24/7, 365 days per year. We get Holiday and PTO hours every paycheck. No holiday off if it falls on your shift unless you schedule it. But you get the hours to use how you want. We have a huge subset of people who work thru the holidays and take long vacations in the off seasons.

[haapai]

I did it once.  It was about thirty years ago.  I called in sick and went to a Pride March. 

I ran into one of my managers there but suffered no adverse consequences at work.  We had a saying back then to the effect if you ran into your boss at a pride rally, you had absolutely nothing to worry about.  Apparently, this was even true if you were playing hooky. 

Your mileage may vary.  Times have changed a bit.  

[teen persuasion]

Last minute call out, because I don't feel like working today?  No, too much of a scramble to get a coworker to cover for me RIGHT NOW.  There's only 3 of us total, and week days there's usually two of us already scheduled.    Half the time, the director (other day person) is already scheduled for outreach, an off-site meeting, or has a program to run (thus still needs someone at the desk).

But we are flexible - if someone knows in advance they need/want off on a given day, we work it out and swap days as needed.

We have been known to shut the library down so everyone can attend the system annual dinner, though - years ago the low man on the totem pole had to cover the evening shift.  And we changed policy so that we close the library whenever our school district has a snow day.