self employed, so no “sick days” here. or vacation for that matter. It’s all unpaid leave for me.
Haven’t done it yet, but probably will after IM. In our work area, people use sick days to take care of their children when they are sick. I’m not in the situation, so if I can’t walk up a flight of stairs or I’m so drained I get to work and can’t get started. I feel is okay to call in “sick”. Sick to me doesn’t mean I need to go to the doctor it means I can’t perform at an acceptable level.
I have not had to, but who defines what is sick? Sick (to me) means being physically or mentally unable to complete your job. I have gone into work sore from workouts, but if I thought my soreness would compromise patient care I would have no problems calling in sick. Our sick/vacation time is lumped together, so I see it as a waste of vacation to be sick. If someone has a wedding or some other big event and is hungover (not a chronic thing) or sore from a big race, by all means, call in sick. I do not want any of the medical staff taking care of me or my family to not be feeling well for whatever reason.
As a matter of fact, my 5 year old had surgery yesterday. I called in sick today because I was up most of the night trying to get his pain under control. There is no way I should be in the operating room on 2 hours of sleep. My managers feel the same.
That being said, I do not abuse the system, nor do most of my co workers. The few who do are the outliers.
-S-Man
We don’t have “sick days”. We have a number of PTO (paid time off) days to be used in whatever manner we choose. I like it better than designated sick days (like I had at my last job). When I quit my last job I had to make a bunch of dr appointments (eye, dentist, whatever) to not lose that time. My unused designated “vacation” time I was paid for upon my departure.
I suppose it boils down to how “sick” is defined.
I see a lot of responses saying take the day off if you’re fried from a race.
I also see a lot of responses saying sick days are only for being sick, which to me begs the question of what is “sick”? Throwing up and a fever? A cough? A headache? Tummy ache? It seems like a slippery slope and how much you can handle – how much you can tough it out. I see people at work who go home when they are coughing a lot. Coughing a reason to go home? Personally I think thats a joke. Or people who stay home when they feel uncomfortable and a little off center. That’s how they define sick. Probably a little to generous a definition. On the other hand, there is a woman at the office who will never take a sick day and comes to work with a fever and coughing and sneezing up a storm. People tell her to go home, and at one point the boss told her point blank to go home. This woman is tough and her definition of sick is a little too hardcore judging from the condition she comes to work in sometime. If she can work when she’s so ill, I’d hate to see what she thinks being “sick” is like.
So on the contiunum of sick, with a light cough on one end and fever/pooping/throwing up on the other end, where does fried legs and exhaustion lie?
I’m debating asking my boss if I can use sick days after a race, but that’s a little risky considering if she says “no” my cover would be blown if I do want to use a sick day after a race.
PTO days - I like that idea
.
As an employer I would not like this. It is cheating. Use a vacation day to recover from your hobbies.
It would seem to me that sick is involuntary and making yourself tired from your hobby is voluntary. If your a tired from your vacation flight home from Tahiti, does that also qualitfy as sick, giving you another day off?
Sick days??? We get “time off” that we can use for whatever we wish. I get 6 weeks/year (accrued monthly), though you can only bank 2x your yearly amount where you have to take some, cash it out or you stop accruing.
clm
If I feel sick or sore enough to reduce my abilities at work I call off. I believe that sick time is a benefit and that employees should use it if they feel they need to. How productive is it for someone who isn’t feeling well to be at work anyway, and besides it has been proven that triathletes are typically more productive then their less healthy counterparts so we should be rewarded with extra days off anyway!
I am lucky enough to have suficent vacation time to preschedule days off after big events or big training days. I believe that in my line of work (firefighter) it is disrespectful to my co-workers and those who call us to show up to work “injuried” or “sick” for whatever reason.
It is a little easier with my work schedule, although I work 56 hour weeks (normally scheduled shifts) I only work 3 days out of 9. Even with my teaching and staff responsiblities I have more then enough time to get my workouts in.
I am able to bank my sick days from year to year, so I have avoided using them unless I’m really sick, because as we all know from reading this forum, cycling can be a dangerous sport and you never know when you might end up being off work for a long period of time.
Seems to me the relevant question is whether you would be willing to tell your boss that the reason you’re taking the sick day is to recover from the race. If you feel like you have to hide the real reason, then it’s probably not ok.
(Note: this is an entirely different question than whether you boss has the right to ask about your medical condition.)
I am surprised by what seems to be a prevailing attitude of entitlement.
I usually feel pretty stoked after a race. The post race high (long workouts too) makes my work better so I get right back to it.
I agree w/ Dev - I don’t take 'em. I think that at some point there is a “price” to pay if you do.
I’m lucky in that we’re encouraged to use our days off (vacation, sick, personal) very liberally. All-in-all it adds up to 4 work weeks. I was even told that it was OK to use sick days if my pet were sick or if I had a hang-over. I’m sure that if I were unable to move, excessively sleepy, nauseous, dizzy, and dehydrated they would consider that ‘sick.’
6 Weeks of PTO???
Are you sure you leave in SF and not in France???
Fred.
My company offers a generous 12 days per year. I, working as an HRIS (Human Resources Systems) Administrator actually manage time off for the employer and I personally wouldn’t take it for a post-race recovery.
Sick days, at least in my employers eyes, are to be used when unexpectedly, you are unable to perform or immediate family member are unable to care for themselves… Being that my employer knows that I race, I couldn’t in the right mind use a “sick” day to recover from a race because it was expected that I would be “fried”.
With that being said, If I were to crash in a race, then I would use “sick” days to recover because that was not expected.
I consistently have to remind individuals that “sick” time is a benefit, not an entitlement in addition to the 20 days of vacation and 5 personal days which our employer provides.
Use the sick days. Although if you do a lot of boasting about your race before or after you may be setting yourself up for some grief.
“but I am F*#$%#$ lucky to not have to worry about getting food on the table for each meal or a roof over my head and on top of that spend lots of $$$ on training and racing”
??? Lucky you!
a = sugar momma
b = live with parents
c = wealthy & retired
Besides, most businesses don’t really care what you have going on – they just budget you a certain number of sick days and a certain number of vacation days and don’t expect you to go over.
In my experience, most business really do care what you have going on when you call in sick. And while they may budget for sick days, they don’t assume that every employee will use the total annual accrual of sick leave each year. I’ve seen numerous cases where employers have been on employees’ cases for excessive absenteeism, even though each individual absence may have been covered by accrued sick leave.