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| Its Time For A Break |
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| Problem: youre not really ill but you want/need/deserve a day off. Solution: call in sick |
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When Carol Mullen was a cashier for the old Venture retail store back in the mid-1980s, she was invited to a 4th of July picnic that she just had to attend. Problem was, Mullen was scheduled to work. The 19-year-old made a grown-up decision: She called in sick. "Any party at 19 is always worth it," laughed Mullen, now a 38-year-old nurse at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, III. "I had better things to do than deal with crab-by customers in the cashier line."
Mullen was like many people who use sick days for something other than being sick. You have errands to run, need to take a family member somewhere, or simply want a day to recharge your batteries. Some might call it taking a mental health day. But because you will decide to take this day off at the spur of the moment, and you cant suddenly schedule a vacation day, you will come up with some sort of "ailment," call the supervisor and invoke a sick day _ maybe faking a hoarse voice in the process. "Some people feel like, Im an adult. . . . I dont want to have to cough into the phone to prove that Im sick," workplace expert Liz Ryan said. "If you cant respect that todays the day when you wont be seeing me . . . Im just going to go ahead and say Im sick. Because thats code today for "Im not coming in."
This type of drama appears to be on the rise. CCH Inc., a provider of employment law information, conducted a survey in 2004 that found the rate of unscheduled absenteeism was at a five-year high of 2.4 percent. That was up 1.9 percent from 2003. Only 38 percent of unscheduled absences were because of personal illness in 2004. "You couldnt even take a half-day to get things done without going through all kinds of grief, so you would call in sick because you had no choice," said Diane Carlin, 57, of Green Bay, Wis., about a recruitment firm she worked for several years ago. Lisa Hoffer of Elmhurst, III., said that "once in a blue moon" she needs a sick day at a company where she works as a special-events planner. "Its usually I need to stay home with my kids or something like that. Its never anything terribly selfish," said Hoffer, 40. "Afterward, I feel guilty and come in on my day off anyway." Hoffer stressed that when she has called in, "I dont think Ive ever made anything up." Eighteen percent of those who didnt report to work did it because of personal needs, according to the CCH survey of more than 300 human-resources executives. Ten percent cited "entitlement mentality," which, according to Paul Gibson of CCH, means those employees felt it was their right to use that sick day as they saw fit.
Mine all mine
Explained Gibson, CCHs vice president of business compliance products: "Entitlement mentality refers to the fact that in many cases, companies have sick days that youre only supposed to use if youre sick. So they give you seven sick days, and (employees say), "Even though Im not sick all seven days. Im going to use them up because theyre mine." Margaret Morford, president of the HR Edge Inc., a Nashville-based training and management development consulting company, noted how some believe theyve "earned" the sick days their companies give them, and "if (they) dont call in sick, (they) cant us them. People are getting burned out." "And I recommend to managers: You need to keep your eye on people, and sometimes you just need to give them a mental health day, or at least offer them the option." For some, the company line is that unused sick days cant carry over from one year to the next. So there is an urgency not to waste those days. "Any company today, in 2005, that still has a sick-day policy (where) if you dont use them, you lose them . . . then theyre just fooling themselves if they think people arent going to take the days," said Ryan, chief executive of WorldWIT, an online organization for businesswomen she created in Chicago in 1999."With the loyalty from the corporate side completely gone," Ryan added, "how can you really expect loyalty from the employee side?" Carlin, who is between jobs, felt justified in making up a story when she needed a day off from the recruitment company she worked for, mainly because she said her supervisor was a "mistrustful" type who wasnt the best
manager.
Dip into the pool
Gibson said more companies are combining sick days with vacation and personal days, to create an overall pool of days that an employee can take for whatever reason, including illnesses real or imagined. "That really gets around the problem of people having to call in to use a quote sick day unquote, even though theyre not sick," he said. Mullen has this at Good Samaritan Hospital, so "if you need a mental health day, and because its stressful, and you have the time to take off when you have those sick days or those personal days to take off, then you can be that much better for your employer the next day," she said. Morford said that if you do call in sick, it might be advisable to act as if you are. "More people get spotted out and about, and thats a bad thing," she said, laughing. For Mullen, who skipped work at Venture to attend the 4th of July picnic, it wasnt a laughing matter.
Mullen went to the party, but "little did I know that the lead cashier, who was scheduled that day also, lived across the street and about three houses down from the party I was at," she said. "I was sitting outside on the front lawn when she pulled into her driveway after her long day at work. "I ran into the back yard and did not go near the front yard until it was time to go home," Mullen said. Fortunately, "I was never caught."
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