The title of this post says it all.
Last weekend I came down with a cold—not a super terrible one, but one that had me coughing with a sore throat and made my body ache for a few days. When I realized what was wrong, I put some unnecessary projects on hold and took it easy for a few hours. Then, when it was clear that I really feeling well, I called in to work and took a few sick days to recover.
Since I already wrote an entire post about how the national Japanese health care system makes it super-easy to go to the doctor, instead I want to emphasize that because my job as a teacher on the JET program gives me as many sick days as I need, I felt really comfortable calling in and staying home. This is because:
- I wasn’t going to lose money
- I wasn’t going to use up all my sick time on a cold in case something more serious happened later, and
- My bosses openly told me to take time off when I’m sick
At other Day Jobs I’ve had I found myself constantly worrying about these things. If it was a job with no sick days, I’d push myself to my limits because I didn’t want to lose money. A sickness had to be pretty dire for me to call in and see a lower paycheck the following week, so I often came to work even when I was sneezing, coughing, or had a sore throat, which only caused me to stay sick for longer and probably got other people sick too (d’oh!).
Even at jobs when I was given a limited number of sick days I tried to use them carefully, and found myself saving them for when I really did feel too ungodly awful to work—which, again, meant that I almost always came to work when I had the common cold.
I’ve since realized that this was NOT a good thing for me to be doing. It partly stemmed from a desire not to let my bosses and coworkers down by missing work, but I think the bigger factor was that I was trying to live a frugal lifestyle and maximize my income, so I always wanted to make sure I had enough money coming in.
Now, I try not to think like that. I want to put my health first and focus on my well-being more than money, since being sick affects literally every other aspect of my life: I can’t do my creative work, can’t see people I care about, and can’t advance in the world. It also helps that I’m not in debt anymore and have a decent financial cushion saved, so even if my unconscious instincts are screaming for me to bring in more money, my conscious self knows that I’m not going to go bankrupt by missing a few days of work.
Also, shame on bosses and companies that don’t give out sick time, because by not giving their employees sick days they’re forcing them to make the same difficult decisions between money and health that I used to have to make. Even more shame should go out to bosses who indirectly pressure their employees to come in when they’re sick to get work done, or make them feel guilty for calling out. The best bosses are the ones who encourage their workers to take time off when they need it.
And in case it wasn’t clear already, in the age of COVID where people’s lives are literally at stake, encouraging employees to stay home is even more important.
That’s a good note to end on—I fell behind on creative work this week because of my cold, so I think I’ll keep this post short ;-)