Encore: Calling in well

Five years ago I wrote this post about calling in well. Having just reread it, I think in some ways it's a timely article because of what's going on in the world right now.

Maybe, maybe not.

The point is I wanted to put up a post and I didn't want to have to write one.

Is that so wrong? Don't answer that.

Anyone can call in sick. When you’re fighting muscle aches, nausea, diarrhea and a 101-degree fever it’s a no brainer.

Of course, we’ve all been around those people who drag their sorry selves in no matter what, looking like they just finished auditioning for Contagion II. For some inexplicable reason – perhaps an overdeveloped sense of importance, a crippling fear of being fired if they miss a day, or just to get even with everyone they work with who don’t give them the recognition they deserve, they feel it’s their civic duty to keep working until they drop.

But if you ask anyone who’s ever worked with me, after they stop denying it, they’ll tell you in no uncertain terms that’s never been my problem.

Sniffles? Home for three days. That’s the spirit.

I used to work with this guy at an agency who would occasionally call in well to work. He’d wake up in the morning feeling great, optimistic, ready to take on the world. On those days, he’d call the agency, get someone on the line and say, “I won’t be in today. I feel too damn good to come to work.”

I’m all in favor of the concept.

Some shops give you a couple mental days or personal days off a year. I suppose they think you should use those if you’re going to call in well. I think it’s a matter of expanding the definition of sick. As in, it would make me sick to go into work feeling this good.

Which brings me to another point (assuming I had one in the first place): maybe it’s time to reconsider the name “sick days.” If people are going to start calling in well – as they should – the days allotted should reflect that policy.

Maybe a combination of sick and well, a term that would define and describe the days for exactly what they are. Let’s call them Swell Days™.

Although technically, that could be any day you’re not in the office.

Germ of an idea

Whenever I hear "It's the season!" I know whoever said it means the Christmas, Joy To The World, Goodwill Towards All time of year. I'm all for it (except for the Mariah Carey Christmas song Macy's has on a loop).

But the holiday season happens to coincide with another, less popular one—cold and flu season.

If you work in an office like I do—with central air-conditioning you thought was your friend—you know colds and flu shoot through the workplace like wildfire.

It's basically a game of dominoes. Once the first person falls, it's only a matter of time before everyone else does.

You can't help getting sick, but you can help other people from getting sick. It's easy, here's the trick: stay home until you're completely better.

Not a lot better.

Not better than you were.

Not almost better.

All the way better. The way you were before you had any inkling you were coming down with anything. It's only common sense and common courtesy, amiright?

But as we all know, there are people who, in spite of a phlegmy, hacking cough, juicy sneezes, noses running faster than Usain Bolt, fever so high they could fry eggs on their foreheads and fatigue so intense they're asleep standing up, for some reason insist on coming to work.

I suppose they might feel a certain sense of responsibility to the job. Or have an unrelenting work ethic that doesn't allow them to put themselves before the job, which they feel must get done regardless of their current state of affliction.

Both things I know nothing about. Just ask anyone I work with.

I hate it when people do that for two reasons. First, the idea of coming to work in general is one I resist with everything I've got pretty much on a daily basis. Maybe it's because I've been freelance so long, or the fact I appreciate my freedom and want to set my own schedule. Maybe it's because I'm an only child and the world revolves around me (but you already knew that). It could be that I'm just a lazy bastard who'd rather sit on the couch and binge Breaking Bad, again, than earn money to pay my bills and feed my family.

A man can dream can't he?

Anyway, the idea of coming to work when I'm sick wouldn't even occur to me. Besides, hard to imagine as it is, I'm even less productive when I'm sick. And getting back to that common courtesy thought, color me old-fashioned, but I just think it'd be better not to pass along the creeping crud I'm fighting to my fellow workers. They'll remember it come Secret Santa time, which means better re-giftable items for me.

And since no one's giving out medals or raises to people who drag their sorry asses in while they're on their death beds, there's really no percentage in it.

Besides, can you ever get enough daytime television? I think not.

Sorry for the rant, but occasionally you have to knock some sense into people so they do the right thing, like stay home when they're sick, get well, and not infect anyone else along the way because they have. to. get. back. to. work.

I'm not saying this post is directed at anyone in particular, but I'm not saying it isn't. With any luck, maybe they'll read it while they're having a fever delirium in their sick bed.

Or at their desk.