Sunday, January 29, 2006

Nancy Boys

So, I've been a little hacked off lately because everyone at work is calling in sick, which leaves me to work 12 or 16 hour shifts (after which I immediately have to go to class for four hours). I realize it's cold & flu season, but it's always chapped my ass how often "calling in sick" is really "calling in lazy" or "calling in hungover". I've had friends who have called in "just because I needed a day to myself" or because "I had some stuff I needed to catch up on" and it was all I could do to keep from going apeshit on them. I've called in sick twice the whole time I've been at my current job - once to go to the doctor when I had the flu (along with a case of strep throat that was inflamed to the point of my throat starting to swell shut), and once when I spent the day in the emergency room with a broken hand. I've come to realize that I was simply raised with a different work ethic than most other people, thanks to my parents. I mean, they just did not miss work. My father was able to retire seven years early because he had so much sick time, vacation time, & personal days saved up. This was instilled into them by their parents, who had an enthusiasm for dangerous, menial jobs performed for slave-labor wages that only first-generation immigrants seem to be able to muster. For everyone else, I have developed a short test based on these principles - feel free to print it out and refer to it when you are debating calling in to work:

-Click to enlarge-
(sorry guys, had to shrink it down to avoid page formatting problems)


Hope this helps - just trying to do my part.

2 comments:

jenifer lake said...

yah...but when you work at a job that doesn't accumulate your sick days and they just go away if you don't use them...what incentive is that? (besides said work ethic and morals...)

Der_General said...

when you work at a job that doesn't accumulate your sick days and they just go away if you don't use them

Admittedly I haven't had to worry about that in a while, but for me personally it would be the "work ethic & morals" issue - if I call in sick and I'm not REALLY REALLY sick, I would feel so guilty as to ruin the entire day anyway...

If you were to ask my grandparents, they would say that "sick days" are exactly that - a privilege to be used only when you're sick. The goal isn't to report to work for a few days as possible. (Remember that these were people who grew up during the Depression, when having a job (ANY job) was a thing to be thankful for. They went to work in the Pittsburgh steel mills and glass furnaces when they were barely teenagers to support their families). They would then give you a look that would make you feel so ashamed that you would immediately head for the nearest church.