I have a hard time being home on a sick day. Somehow it's always "do I have a fever?" and if that's not the case, I buckle up and go to work. Being a grad student and a post doc in these cases made it slightly easier since then I could even go into work when I had a fever - experiments depending. In short, I am not good at admitting defeat to my body.
This morning I woke up with stuffed nose and red eyes, throat itching and sneezing and a massive head ache to go with that. I decided not to be a silly person (like I was Friday since I knew I had to finish some experiments and thought it would be a "quick day in the lab" - yeah, not so much) but called in and then promptly fell asleep and woke up in the middle of the afternoon. Clearly I needed some sleep?!
Now I wonder if I should stay home tomorrow as well or buckle up and go in and do those assays that are needed to be run? I should wait until tomorrow morning to decide, of course, but I am a little curious on how people think about this "sick leave"*. When do you stay home and how sick "should" one be for it to be ok?
(I am a little surprised myself for wondering but I've realised the older I get, the more it seems to be OK to go into work with coughing, sniffles and looking positively "not well". Anyone else on the "as long as there is no fever" train?)
*I'm lucky in this country since I have both vacation and sick leave, on different accounts so I don't loose pay if I am sick. That said, it's not that I think I want to waste any days since they might come in handy some time... and if I'm not sick I'm not allowed to take them off. Obviously, since they are sick days.
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On another note. Anyone has any ideas on why my posts show up on my blog, but not on the RSS feed?!? Or at least not more than randomly and several days later?
4 comments:
For me, it depends on how close I am to a grant deadline, how much of my to-do list can be done from home, and how infectious I think I might be. I definitely stay off work with a fever though.
If I do call in sick I usually at least check and reply to emails from home, and sometimes I do much more than that; I have to be really sick (e.g. fever, first day of the norovirus, first three days of the flu) not to do anything all day!
In your case, I think you definitely made the right call by calling in sick - sleeping for that long is a good sign that your body needed the down-time! If I were you I'd take at least one more day off, too.
Hope you feel better soon xx
Cath:I was surprised myself since I woke up at 7 am and tried to get ready to go to work but realised that woozyness indicated that I probably benefitted from staying home. The joke got me when I fell asleep and woke up at 1.30 pm.... I mean, sleeping for 12h+ even makes me realise that I have some sort of infection. duh. ^^
I'll see how the night fares. Right now I am starting to be more stressed about the assays to do than to stay home if I feel like tonight tomorrow.... if that makes sense?
I used to be a "no-going-to-work-if-sick" in general person. Now that I find myself pretty much constantly sick (due to Evan being in daycare and bringing home everything under the sun), I force myself to go in more often than I normally would. I don't know if this is a good thing, since it a) probably makes my sickness(es) last longer, and b) could be passing on to others. But, I also don't want to miss days of work every 1-2 weeks.
I think your body generally tells you if you shouldn't go to work (like the wooziness you felt). If you don't get sick too often, I would take more than one day in a row so you can recover more quickly.
Feel better soon!
PS: I see your posts in RSS feeds, though I don't generally check if it's posting on the right day/time.
Alyssa: yes, I can see the problem if you are sick more often. I've had some sniffles due to allergies but usually suck it up and move on. This thing though seem more like a cold - head cold - and if nothing else my hands aren't as steady as they need to be for my important assays... hopefully I feel better tomorrow. I simply hate being sick (like that's something different from other ppl?)
THanks for letting me know I show up in your RSS feed at least. I'll see if i can sort something out.
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