wayne on July 27, 2008
When do you call in sick to work? As different as people are, so are the the reasons and excuses people use when calling in sick to work. I've decided for myself that if I am contagious in any way, I'll call in sick. Regardless of how I feel, if I am contagious, I don't want to help spread any little bugs to others.
This week has also shown me some real reasons to watch what I eat. I came down with food poisoning in the middle of the week, and it really threw off my entire schedule. Thankfully, I've had a few posts in queue that helped me get through the week, although, they were not necessarily complete in my eyes. I hope you found them informative enough.
The only thing I can nail down that might have made me sick is a 3x3 from In & Out Burger. I noticed as I ate my wonderful three layer cheeseburger at lunch on Wednesday was a nice little pink layer in the middle of one of my burgers. I thought I would be fine...I was wrong.
In & Out is the only thing I had different than those around me so that makes it suspect. While I still don't know for sure, it's the best I have to go on.
I awoke at 3:38 AM the next day with a mouthful, and I won't get any more detailed other to say that I was beginning the process of purging everything in my system. What a wonderful feeling to awake with the process of purging already beginning. ugh...
I meet up with my savior, the porcelain throne again at 6:30 AM. A smidgen earlier than my normal waking time, but again, the ugly side of nature was calling again.
Disappointingly I call in sick to work, something I really don't like to do. I will however, when there is really no point in me coming in. If my head is pounding from a migraine, I call in. I won't try to push myself through a migraine at all. I need my brain firing on all cylinders to be able to write code. Minor headaches are alright, but a migraine is debilitating when you are working on logical structures and decision trees. It simply sucks.
I'll also call in sick to work if I won't be able to sit for extended periods of time without heading to the restroom. I find there is nothing more embarrassing than have those issues, so I just avoid them and work things out at home. I'm sure other co-workers would be quite glad I made that decision too.
The final reason I'll call in sick is because I'm coming down with the flu or some contagion. If there is something pressing, I would probably show up and do what needs to be done, but most times that isn't the norm. There is usually time tomorrow or the next day for the projects I work on.
Don't get me wrong, emergencies are emergencies and I take care of those as expeditiously as possible. However, when there isn't a fire to put out or deadline to meet, I'll call in without concern. I know that by calling in, I'm helping to stop the spread of the virus to my co-workers, and thus helping to eliminate even more downtime in other areas of the business.
For those of you who have subscribed and are frequent readers of my blog, thank you for hanging in there during my downtime. I'm feeling much better, now 5 days later, to resume posting and get caught up on everything that fell behind these past days. And boy is there a lot of stuff for my to catch up on...
