with Britt Reints
Forget the 9 to 5; Full Time, All the Time is a blog about the mobile working life - when you have the freedom to work from anywhere and the responsibility of always having your smartphone turned on. Britt Reints works as a freelance writer while traveling fulltime in an RV with her husband and two kids. She explores balancing real-life bills with an unconventional work life, and finding time to maintain relationships with family and friends.
You can also find Britt at InPursuitOfHappiness.net.
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I should warn you right now, I am sick.
My stomach hurts, I have a mild but persistent headache, and I kind of hate anyone who is not sick right now.
And yet, here I am, trying to string a few letters into sentences and sentences into - what do you call a bunch of sentences again? I’m not doing it for the money, but because I have a deadline and that deadline represents a level of trust to me. Someone else is counting on me, trusting me, to do what I said I was going to do when I said I was going to do it. It’s not their fault I’m sick, right?
I’ve actually gotten better about taking sick days in recent years. When I first started working, I would have to be on my deathbed before I would call in sick to work. Of course, then it probably was about the money, but it was also about not wanting to let anyone else down. But when I was younger I was more likely to have a job that just needed a warm body in a spot for a set amount of hours - it didn’t matter if that body was warm due to fever. If we’re lucky, our jobs become less about taking up space and more about quality as we get further into our working lives, and there’s no doubt that my quality takes a hit when I’m sick. Clearly.
I’ve also learned that I’m more likely to heal quickly if I succumb to the sickness and just rest, as opposed to pushing my body beyond its limits so that I can halfway get by for days or weeks. Better to just suck it up and take to my bed for a day then struggle through several days, right?
But there’s still that nagging point of trust and expectation.
Where do you draw the line? How sick do you have to be to take a sick day?
I used to have to be unable to actually drag myself out of bed to take a sick day but this is mostly because when I call off of work, my boss winds up calling me all day, freaking out because he cant find stuff and it winds up being harder on me to stay home than it would be to just suck it up and go in but that’s a totally different article.
I hope you feel better
Sheila | May 18th, 2011 at 11:07 am
I take sick days whenever I think I need them now, but when I was younger I didn’t either. It seemed like some kind of badge of honor to work through being sick, like I was too tough to let it beat me. Now I realize that it’s as much for my coworkers as it is for me that I take time off because our office is the house of pestilence - whenever one of us gets sick we all go down eventually unless the sick person actually stays home. We’re kind of militant about it here now, and *strongly* encourage sick folks to go home and rest and take their germs with them.
Lisa | May 18th, 2011 at 11:08 am
I used to have to be vomiting or something to take a day off, but now, if I don’t feel good, I don’t feel good and I take the time to take care of me.
But I know I would try to complete freelance assignments or get a couple of days’ extension depending on how awful I felt.
Megan | May 18th, 2011 at 11:20 am
I always take a sick day when I’m so sick it’s an effort to concentrate. Not only so my body can rest and heal faster, but so I’m not interacting with others when I might be contagious. It doesn’t help anybody if you go into work sick and get everyone else sick, who in turn get you sick again.
Michelle | May 18th, 2011 at 11:31 am
I have to be pretty sick. In fact, other than a gall bladder operation a few years ago, I can’t remember the last time I took a day off because I was sick. Crazy. Right?
Lisa Mills | May 18th, 2011 at 5:07 pm
I’m currently having a bad flare of IBS, of which I don’t have a choice but to take time off work. I work in a lot of areas without restrooms, and for me to go to work with this condition as it is right now with be not only disastrous but also humiliating.
Normally if I’m unwell I’ll plod along until I can’t anymore. Which normally means that I’ll work whilst sick, and get worse and end up on serious scores of drugs or in the hospital. So now at the first sign of illness I make sure I take care of myself and if it means being off from work then so be it.
Personally I know how my body will react before it actually does. I know from the first sign of a wheezy cough that it’ll develop into a chest infection which gives me time to get to the doctors (who is constantly amazed at this weird ability) to get some medicine. I’ve ignored it twice now, and I ended up so sick. The first time was with Flu and then with Bronchitis!
Becca_Masters | May 18th, 2011 at 5:17 pm
When I had a real job I used to show up no matter how horrible I felt then I would just get sent home.
These days I’ll take an I’m just not in the mood for work day or a there’s a sale at Dillard’s day or the weather is great for hiking day, but I’m self employed so it’s no big deal.
Seriously, if I am feeling under the weather I either don’t work or scale way back and just read. I find that taking that one day of rest minimizes cold symptoms and like you said speeds up healing.
mneave | May 19th, 2011 at 2:46 pm
Exactly…….I really join your opinion, you said the true in the case of women……………..
Betty.
bettyjames | May 23rd, 2011 at 5:55 am