Email us questions at [email protected], subject line “businesslady.”
Dear Businesslady,
The other morning I woke up, thought about going in to work, and was just like “nope.” I called in sick, then spent the day catching up on a bunch of chores that had been stressing me out for ages (along with spending some quality time binge-watching TV). I do this periodically, and it always makes me feel much more refreshed when I go back into work the next day.
But when I mentioned this “hooky day” to a friend/coworker, she was appalled, and made me feel like a horrible, dishonest person for taking the day off. Is my moral compass totally out of whack, or is it okay to take a “mental health day” when you’re not really sick?
Signed,
(Cough, Cough) I Think I Caught That Thing That’s Going Around
Dear Coughy,
Ahh, the politics and ethics of sick days. This is a complicated issue that elicits a lot of strong opinions; my own stance tends to be pretty liberally in favor of “take care of yourself by any means necessary,” but there are still a lot of other contingencies to consider when you’re lying in bed and debating whether or not you can stand to face your job.
The most important issue is how legit sick days are handled in your particular workplace. When someone’s out, does everyone—or even just your boss—roll their eyes and question that person’s work ethic? Are you in the type of job where other people have to pick up your slack if you’re not there? If the answer to these first two questions is “yes,” then an unexpected absence is unlikely to reflect well on you, and you’re probably (alas) better off saving your sick days for real illnesses or other emergencies. (Although the first situation suggests a shitty work culture, particularly if there’s no direct relationship between job duties and flawless attendance.)
Another factor to consider is whether you have paid time off or a flexible policy regarding unpaid time off. If you’re given sick time, then the expectation is that it’s there to be used. Similarly, if you’re in a situation where you’re not paid for sick days, but there’s no real stigma around using them, then you should be at your discretion to decide that a day off is worth the financial hit. If your job uses a shared Paid Time Off pool that includes both vacation and sick days, then that’s implicitly empowering you to allocate that time off as you see fit—but it also might mean that too many “mental-health days” will end up interfering with your vacation plans in the future.
And about that phrase you (and I) used: “mental-health day.” I know this is often used interchangeably with “hooky day,” but it conflates “I am feeling too depressed to deal with my workplace” with “I really want to catch up on Orange Is the New Black.” I’m all for decreasing the stigma around mental illness, and that includes acknowledging that even people who don’t have a Diagnosed Psychiatric Condition™ occasionally get that “nope” feeling at the start of the workday. (And if your version of self-care involves mainlining OItNB, no judgment here.) But culturally, I’d like to advocate for reserving “mental-health day” for instances where there really is something going on emotionally, and “hooky day” for times when you’re just feeling (for lack of a better word) lazy.
Similarly, if you feel you have to out-and-out lie in order to feel justified in taking the time off, then that suggests that perhaps your job is not the place for less-than-medically-confirmed sick days. My personal policy is to be utterly truthful: “I’m not feeling that great, so I’m going back to sleep to see if that helps”; “I feel like I might be coming down with something, so I’m going to stay home”; and so on. Don’t weave some elaborate tale about the food poisoning you don’t actually have; it’ll just put you in an awkward position when you’re back at work and you have to keep the story going. And also, unless you want to torpedo your career for stupid reasons, don’t call in “sick” and then go to some very public event where your ruse might be discovered (or if you do, promise me you won’t document it on facebook/instagram/tumblr/ your social-media portal of choice. Even google+ isn’t safe).
Bottom line: if you’ve got the time off to use and your job is such that your absence doesn’t ruin your coworkers’ day, I say take it. But if you find yourself regularly dreading the workday, then you may want to take your self-care beyond the occasional day off and look into therapy and/or finding yourself a less soul-sucking job.
~Businesslady
* * *
Dear Businesslady,
I’m at kind of a decision point in my (early) career and I’m getting conflicting advice. It looks like an internal promotion is about to fall into my lap — my manager specifically asked me to apply, and while the new job is a stretch, I think I can do it. I’m trying to be prepared in case I do get an offer, and based on some research I’m pretty sure the promotion should come with a big raise — like, a BIG raise. Maybe 40% of what I’m making now.
I felt pretty good about all of this until I started talking to my parents. My mom is worried that the new gig will overwhelm me, that I’ll fail, and that I’ll end up having to leave my company. And BOTH of my parents are adamant that I’ll look ridiculous if I ask for a 40% raise over what I’m making now. They think I’ll seem naive and that my boss would pull the offer as a result. So I’m torn. I think this is an important step and a good opportunity for me, so I think I want to take it. But I really don’t want to screw it up, especially at the negotiation stage. And the thought of having a conversation about salary makes me really uncomfortable. But I also don’t want to end up making less money than I could be. Then again if my manager already knows my work and the budget for the position, won’t his offer be fair anyway (my parents’ argument)?
I don’t think my manager would try to cheat me, but it’s a small company and he may not have a good sense of what these types of positions pay out in the rest of the world. What do I do if I don’t get the pay I think I deserve? Is it still worth it just for the experience? And if I start off on a bad foot right at the offer, won’t that make the job even harder (if I can even do it at all)? How should I handle this??
– You Don’t Negotiate at the Entry Level
Dear Negotiate,
Okay, there’s a lot going on here, so let’s start at the bottom, with your signature. Who says you don’t negotiate at the entry level? Sure, you may not have as much bargaining power when you’re just starting out in the workforce—which means you need to be realistic if you want to agitate for more salary—but negotiation is always an option. In fact, I’d argue that everyone should negotiate, always, even if you know you’re getting a fair offer that’s unlikely to be increased: it takes the mystique and worry out of the whole ordeal and will make you more comfortable advocating for yourself in the future when the stakes will almost certainly be higher.
So on to your second point. Should you take this job? I think so. Will you fail horribly at it? Maybe—life is full of surprises! But promotion opportunities don’t come along every day, and even if it turns out to be a poor fit (the worst-case scenario), you’ll surely learn a lot about your abilities that will serve you well down the line. (There’s also that old adage that it’s better to regret things you did than things you didn’t do; I’m not entirely sure I agree with that universally, but I think it definitely applies here.) More importantly—assuming your boss is reasonably competent and sane—it’s not like you’re going to make one mistake and then immediately get fired; your manager probably realizes this is a big step up for you, and accordingly he should be prepared to coach you in what you need to learn. This may mean some negative feedback as you find your footing, and that’s never fun, but if you demonstrate that you can handle constructive criticism it will likely mean good things in terms of your career overall—both with this company and with other employers whenever you decide to move on.
And speaking of moving on…taking a new job is one of the few times when it’s completely acceptable and expected to agitate for higher pay. That’s not to say that you can’t make a case for a raise when you’ve been in the same job for a while—I’m about to do just that in my own job, in fact—but it’s more of an uphill battle and you have to be prepared to make a pretty compelling argument for how your current performance merits it. By contrast, the offer stage is kind of a free-for-all, and unless you make a wholly unreasonable request (“As a part-time Starbucks barista I believe I deserve a minimum of $200k annual compensation”) it’s hard to imagine it backfiring in a non-dysfunctional company.
I can’t say whether the figure you’ve arrived at is reasonable or not, but one important point to consider is that you’re not asking for a raise here—not really. While your manager presumably knows you’re able to live off of whatever you’re making now, the job on the table is different from your current role and thus your current salary should be largely irrelevant to the discussion. (Think of the reverse—if I’m making $30/hour in my corporate job, but decide I want to moonlight as an Anthropologie cashier for the discount, will they take me seriously if I explain that my time is worth $30/hour, full stop? I expect not.) If your new responsibilities will be dramatically different (and expanded), then a corresponding pay increase makes sense. My only concern here would be whether or not your salary estimate is accurate; sites like Glassdoor and Salary.com are a good place to start but can often be misleading, so ideally you’ll have gotten feedback from coworkers or done other research. If you haven’t done that yet, try to do it now—ask people you have a good relationship with (ideally not exactly parallel with your new role so it’s not too awkward, and don’t make it about “how much do you make?” but rather “do you think this amount seems fair?”); also, see if there are any comparable positions in local state/government institutions whose salary info is publicly available online.
Assuming you’ve done your homework and know the appropriate compensation for the job in question, then all you have to do is wait for the offer (it sounds like is pretty airtight, but it’s just as well if you pretend it’s not going to happen just in case). If they ask you to name a number first, don’t be too coy—it’s nice to know what they’re thinking of a the outset, but if you outright refuse that just makes the dynamic unnecessarily weird. Whatever figure you throw out should be slightly higher than what you’d be happy to make, since that leaves some room for you to “compromise.” By contrast, if they name a salary that’s exactly what you were hoping for (or even higher), do yourself a favor and see if you can’t get them to bump it up—the worst thing they could do is say no, and trust me when I tell you that it shouldn’t have any negative repercussions beyond that one moment of disappointment.
Everyone finds salary negotiation a little bit awkward, but it’s part of the process, and that feeling of discomfort dissipates a bit each time you go through it. The earlier you get comfortable negotiating, the better you’ll be at it throughout your career—and, more importantly, the more money you’ll make.
Think of it this way: let’s say you’re making $30k right now. Even if you’re only able to secure a 25% increase for this promotion—and even your next five negotiations each only net you an extra 5%—that still leaves you making nearly $48k.
As my dad’s fond of saying, “if ya don’t ask, ya don’t get”; it’s rare, if not outright unheard-of, for a company to say “you know what? we’re vastly underpaying you!” So seize this opportunity to make a big jump forward in your career—and if the new job isn’t all you hoped it would be, use your newly acquired skills, title, and salary to find something better.
~Businesslady
Tags: advice, dear businesslady, jobs, working
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Businessladies of the internet! http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php/index.php?i…
Those rule!!!
Haha, awesome. I somehow missed that despite a long history of Kate Beaton reading, and I couldn’t resist putting it on my tumblr. 🙂
Get new feature! I have a submission for the Businesslady, but I don’t suppose “FOR THE LOVE OF BABY JEEBUS, WHY WON’T ANYONE HIRE ME?!?” is conducive to discussion, is it.
If you don’t read askamanager.org, you must start! Her advice on job-searching, resumes, and cover letters is nothing short or genius.
I already read it religiously. Sometimes it helps and sometimes it convinces me that I’m unworthy of ever being hired again.
Re: above–missed my edit window, but the new feature is great!
Yeah, sometimes reading about other people’s situations just makes me feel completely unfit for living in the world, like I’ve been wasting all of my years doing the wrong things and not honing my skills in 15 different areas.
I love Ask a Manager! And yes, her advice on getting hired is fantastic. (That said, supergogo, if you want to get in touch and share a brief, anonymized account of how you’ve been approaching your search thus far, I might be able to give you some suggestions too.)
I am all for everyone using sick days whenever they feel like it, but I am tragically unable to take my own advice. My goody-goody fear of lying and getting caught is too deeply ingrained. It’s really annoying. An extra day off can make a HUGE difference in my crabbiness level (which can get pretty extreme), but I can’t even bring myself to email a generic “I don’t feel well, not coming in.” It doesn’t help that my coworkers are great and would be genuinely worried about me (since I never get sick) and ask how I’m feeling. Jerks.
I’m all for taking off if your crabbiness needs to be reduced, and like Businesslady advised I always stick to a generic “going back to bed” kind of thing. It drives me NUTS when I come back in and my (usually male) boss or manager ask me detailed questions about my illness. Mostly in a caring way, or wanting to know if I’m contagious way, not a trying-to-catch-me-in-a-lie way, but still. It makes me want to snap “MENSES” and walk away. (That was an OITNB reference for those of us who mainlined.)
I tend to get occasional migraines, which more often than not hit on the weekend, so sometimes I take a Monday off sick. Sometimes I get one when I’m already at work, so I look like a zombie rushing around trying to “get just a few things done before I go home and rest”. Having that reputation creates a fallback excuse in the rare event I take a mental-health day.
I was like that for a loooooooooong time, mostly because Pa Jinx had hammered it into me that idea that sick days are there to be looked at and admired, but not used. Just…don’t get sick. (Easy for Pa to say, since by the time I was working a Grown Up Lady Job he’d been at his company for 30 years and had accrued a metric tonne of vacation days he could use whenever he wanted.) My attitude changed after a few years of office work when I realized that a) That one person who never calls in sick no matter what is almost always Patient Zero and gets the rest of the office sick, and I didn’t want to be Patient Zero and b) though I am a valuable asset to my company (or they wouldn’t have hired me!), I am not irreplaceable. The world will not cease to spin if I stay home to nurse my case of the Mean Reds once in a while. When I’ve taken my self-care day, I can return to work refreshed and, ideally, invigorated, and almost happy to deal with whatever crap appeared on my desk while I was out.
ALSO worth considering: your sick days are a part of your compensation! Some companies (mine included, luckily for me) will pay you out for all or a portion of your unused days every year, but this is by no means a universal policy and generally you only get a fraction of what the days are worth. So it’s a nice little bit of extra cash if you’ve just so happened to not use all your days, but it’s hardly worth purposefully never calling in sick.
My dad recently left his job and was paid out for TWO MONTHS’ worth of vacation. TWO MONTHS. (Of course, his company let him keep vacation time every year, whereas mine resets every January.)
DADS.
(I am with you on all these things. Sick days are good for everyone.)
BUSINESS TOASTIES I approve
Re sick days: Your workplace is a TOXIC WASTELAND if you’re not encouraged to take your PTO/days off/whatever you call them. I work at a Fortune 500 company where everyone is a ~~*serious businessperson*~~ and we’re encouraged to use our days off as recklessly as possible. Short notice? GRANTED. All four weeks at once? DONE. All four weeks at once plus one week of unpaid vacay JUST BECAUSE? YOU GOT IT.
Seriously if anyone is not supposed to take your days off, leave the address of your workplace here and I will find the powers that be and smear dog shit on all of their keys, pens, and door handles every day until they die from poop cooties.
In my previous corporate gig it was a badge of honor if you were such a workaholic that you didn’t end up using your sick/personal days by the end of the year and you lost them (based on a company policy, designed to encourage people to take their dang leave).
“I lost 5 days.” “Oh really? I lost 7 days, oh man…”
Every time I was privy to these conversations I thought, You people are total tools. And also, Just got back from my sweet vacation – took off the last 2 weeks of December so I wouldn’t lose any leave, oh yeah…<I/>
I just don’t get that! THEY WERE PISSING AWAY MONEY BY LOSING DAYS. That is just so wasteful to me!
Ah, I hate that work culture. There are quite a few pockets of people in my super large organization who try to one up how late they stay. “I was in the office til midnight last night.” “Oh, me too. I couldn’t get away from my desk til 2! Busy busy!”
It’s ridiculous. Also, being busy, to me, is not a good thing. I hate being busy. Lots of folks in DC think it’s a good thing.
Sending late-night emails was also a big badge of honor at my last job. Every now and then I used to send an email at, say, 5.30 PM but hold it in Outlook ’til 11.30 or midnight so it looked impressive.
As a fellow DC-area resident, that “If you’re not busy, you’re not really working” mentality is insane, as is questioning whether people are “legitimately” using their paid time off. I’ve been in a few offices where people spent hours gossiping about whether or not Employee A was “really sick” or whether he/she was “skipping work.”
Towards the end of my tenure—when I just didn’t really care about being asked to leave—I mentioned to two colleagues who were once again discussing an employee being sick (or “sick”) and were about to take another one of their hour-long (or longer) lunches (when we were only meant to take 30 minutes) that they were wasting a lot of their valuable work time discussing if someone was maybe, possibly skipping work, which seemed ironic. I bluntly asked if they’d be happy with this employee coming in and wasting hours of his/her day gossiping about other coworkers.
Neither of them spoke to me again. I left the company soon after for a nonprofit art organization.
It’s great to know that this mentality won’t end when I leave the “as many AP classes as possible” high school culture.
*gigantic sigh*
“Oh yeah? Well I work for free and don’t ever use my HMO’s doctor!”
is my new fav emoticon
It’s a chagrined Ceylon.
I’m with you. I actually did lose vacation time last year (due to some poor planning at levels above my head and my dumb work ethic) but managed to use that situation to negotiate for extra days this year which I promptly used. Vacation is important.
I miss Sweden, where it is expected at most companies that you take an entire month off during the summer (paid) to go on vacation and where taking time due to mental illness (or run of the mill unhappiness/ennui), etc., and especially for taking care of family (sick relatives or a new child), was not at all frowned upon.
Two of my good friends have both just returned from work after being granted 4+ month to care for their new child, after their wives took a year off (with government assistance). I can’t think of a more sane system than one that encourages new parents to spend the first year and a half or so of an infant’s life with them.
And now they are once again experimenting with the six-hour workday. Sadly, none of that will ever happen in these good ol’ United States of America. Too communist-y.
I work in DC in a field that ~Saves Lives~ and there is a total martyr complex around losing your leave (so dedicated! so brave!), though that is sloooooowly changing.
Oh man. 4 weeks vacation? My two weeks total PTO is telling me I’m in the wrong profession.
It’s the company, not the profession! I’m a corporate writer with a degree in Fancy Poems. I don’t feel like I can ever leave this place because holy shit.
4 weeks is not counting the holidays (5 fixed + 3 floating). You also get ANOTHER week after you’ve been there for three years SOOOO…
I’m at a private university (just a lowly administrative assistant) but we also get 12 vacation days per year, plus 11 paid holidays and two full weeks for Christmas/New Year’s. I am TOTALLY spoiled now.
ELEVEN paid holidays? Do they observe…I can’t even think up eleven–Arbor Day?
HA my university gets 11 too: 4th, labor day, 2 days for thanksgiving, Xmas eve, xmas, NYE, NYD, MLK, President’s day, memorial day.
15 vacation days first two years, then starting your 3rd year you will accrue 18 a year.
12 sick days.
I may not get paid a lot, but at least I have a decent amount of time to not be at work.
Holllaaa, that is badass. Enjoy it!
We get eight holidays (Memorial, 4th of July, Labor, two days for Thanksgiving, Christmas eve, Christmas, New Year’s Day) and since I’m in my second year here I get 80 hours (10 days) vacation and 40 hours of sick time. I’ll jump to 15 days vacation next year if I’m still here (please no) but sick time never changes.
Labor Day, Columbus Day, two days for Thanksgiving, Feast of the Immaculate Conception (YUP), MLK Jr. Day, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Memorial Day, 4th of July.
It’s ridiculous but I am NOT COMPLAINING. This job is so much better than my old job, for LOTS of reasons!
I am sensing that you work for a Catholic institution…
I am mad jealous but hope you enjoy every minute of your time off! (When is the Feast of the Immaculate conception, even? Hopefully in the middle of one of the holiday droughts?)
HOW did you guess?
Yeah, Immaculate Conception is Dec. 8 and on my first day my boss told me she was disappointed that Dec. 8 was a Saturday last year, because normally it’s a good day for Christmas shopping. I also forgot August 15, which is the Feast of the Assumption (of Mary), which is timed well because it’s a small break before the school year starts in earnest.
I’m at a public university and I can never leave. Everyone want to be jealous? I get 11 paid holidays, more sick time than I’ve ever used so I don’t know how much it is, and 24 vacation days. Per year. My coworkers and I joke that during our slow season we’re going to take alternate months off.
I feel you. At my community college we don’t get All the Pays but we get ALL THE DAYS (see what I did there?) – I am staff, not faculty (don’t even get me started on those lucky bastards, I am jealous of them, pay me no mind), and we get MLK Day, Spring Break (5 days), Spring Holiday (Good Friday but we don’t call it that because we are public), Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day (I think?), three days for Thanksgiving, and two to three weeks for Christmas/New Year’s (the first week of the break, we have to have “essential offices” open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., so we work it out so everyone in my office stays ONE DAY of that first week, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. SO AWESOME). Plus 30 days paid vacation with no cap, two floating days of “personal leave”, 8 hours of sick leave per month with a 120-day cap. And a partridge in a pear tree. I whine about MANY THINGS at this job, but it is actually a great place to work for flexibility and good vacay. (She wrote, on her work computer at 3:20 p.m. on a Thursday.)
I get 80 hours of PTO to cover vacation, sick time, etc. This is measured in increments of 5 minutes. Meaning, every time the bus is running behind or I have to leave at ten to 5 for a doctor’s visit, I am docked “vacation.” I am also fairly positive that PTO does not accrue when we are using said vacation time, based on the wonky numbers I keep seeing.
As of the end of Q2 I will have -3.83 hours of vacation time accrued. This job is the fucking worst and I would welcome a bout of poop cooties if it meant I didn’t have to ever come back here.
GET OUT. Get out get out get out get out get out get out. Freaking monsters, what’s wrong with people. Honestly.
We get three weeks PTO starting your first year, and it goes up over time, with I think 10 paid holidays? One floating holiday a quarter. You’re required to take three days of PTO as part of a company mandated shutdown, which I call bullshit (it’s not my PTO if you tell me when to take it! Assholes.) but whatever.
Nobody in my department is allowed to take any time off for the entire month of June, because of an event that 80 percent of us are not involved with. Please come and smear dog poop.
JUNE IS THE MOST SACRED MONTH, THE MONTH OUR MOTHER GODDESS TENDERLY EXTENDS HER CUPPED HANDS FULL OF SUNSHINE DOWN TO THE MORTAL REALM SO THAT HER DAUGHTERS DRINK DEEPLY OF LIFE AND MOTHERFUCKING SUMMER OKAY
poop will be smeared, sisterbro of the light
Ha! I’m dying – go on with this invocation, sisterbro of the light!
I wrote this below… I would welcome all the poop you can muster.
I get plenty of PTO, but it’s categorized, and I can only take “unscheduled sick” time off 5 times a year. If any more than that, I’m written up. (I currently have many weeks of sick time accrued)
….is that legal?
…how are you supposed to schedule your sick time? Can you say “Sorry, I planning on coming down with something for [accrued amount of sick time] in [your favorite time for vacation]. My doctor recommends a sea-cure and I have to go to the Caribbean.”? Only seems fair to me.
NO PROBLEM COOTIES CAN’T SOLVE tell me when you would like to take a vacation and we will pencil you in for some poop cooties.
PLOT TWIST your employer will get the poop and the cooties, but you get the vacation..
At a previous job, we had semi-annual performance evals where we were rated 1 (unsatisfactory) to 5 (exceeds expectations) on a number of factors. My first evaluation, I got a 5 for attendance because I hadn’t missed a day. By the time the next evaluation came around, because I had taken a single measly sick day, my rating for attendance dropped to 2.
A lot depends on the culture in your particular office and whether or not you have the misfortune of working for a Huge Jerkass.
Yes, in my old workplace, you could not be rated “exceeds expectations” if you used any of your sick time. It made me so angry because it’s so dumb to have policies that coerce people to come to work when they are sick. Public health risk, much?!
????
I got fired from a (very part-time) job at a bakery many years ago because I called in sick. They called me back later that week and told me that I shouldn’t bother coming back because I had shown that I “wasn’t dependable.” YOU WANT ME COUGHING ON YOUR OVERPRICED, OVERSWEETENED, OVERFROSTED CUPCAKES THEN?
edit: I called in sick ONCE. ONE TIME
THAT IS WHERE NOROVIRUS COMES FROM. That policy. There.
Hm, yes, we expect humans to get sick. That is a thing they do, I cannot say that you have defied our predictions for your fragile mortal shell this fiscal quarter.
It’s very considerate of them to let you know to just stop bothering outright
My boss took at least 2 sick days a month for migraines, so I had thought she would understand my being too sick to come to work just once. That experience made me realize that she was very much the “I got mine so screw you” type and I jumped ship as soon as possible.
Yeah, wow.
I get one week of vacation each year at the soon-to-be-former employer. (I had negotiated on everything besides the vacation days, assuming 2wks/yr, and they surprise me with that.)
I used all of my vacation time (interviewing elsewhere) and came down with bronchitis. We can do all of our work remotely, and don’t really collaborate with coworkers, but this time I wasn’t permitted to work from home.
That morning, I got a lecture from the owner of our firm about how I should be more responsible with my PTO if I wanted to not come into the office the next time I was sick.
The next week, I got another lecture from him about how I had gotten three other people sick and shouldn’t have come into the office if I were ill.
On the upside there is something really satisfying about finally hitting that point where you are going to just blatantly sit around filling out applications to other, better jobs all day and there is nothing more they can take from you.
I felt massively guilty about getting the other people sick and had to talk it out with my therapist about my sense of responsibility.
Thankfully, my direct supervisor doesn’t mind if I have to work remotely on occasion and/or put in extra time. I’m not as bold as you suggest, but right now I’m embellishing on friends’ weddings to explain why I won’t be in on Monday or have to leave Friday at lunch. (Orthodox friends and family in remote South Texas help there, respectively.)
Man, I really hope that guy gets poop cooties.
I assume the complete attendance rating scale was as follows:
5 – Never misses work.
4 – Didn’t actually miss work during this evaluation period, but took a sick day once three years ago, and we haven’t forgotten.
3 – Once left ten minutes early, supposedly for an appointment. Only provided notice of this one week in advance.
2 – Took one sick day.
1 – Came into work while sick, infected the entire office.
For the second letter, I think you should take the promotion and tell your parents to shove it. Whose parents are like “don’t take the promotion you’ll fail horribly” anyway?
Yeah, I don’t want to say “your parents seem like dicks” but…
Your parents seem like dicks.
My dad is looking down from heaven right now and shaking his head at these wangs. He was always my biggest cheerleader, and often more convinced I was ready for a promotion than I was.
NO KIDDING. I want to send Pa Jinx to this LW’s parents so he can stand there and stare at them in quiet disapproval. He may not have encouraged me to take sick days willy-nilly, but he’s always at least acted like he’s got bigger faith in my brains/abilities than I do, which is what parents are supposed to do.
They aren’t supposed to tear you down and make you feel like shit constantly?
Parents are definitely supposed to make you feel bad for wanting to move across the country for a job.
Seriously appalled by LW2’s parents. Try to remember they are expressing their OWN fear (of failure/of people not liking them/etc), and that it is entirely separate from your own abilities/accomplishments. You are doing all the right things.
I agree, those parents are the worst! Mine were always encouraging me to take on more difficult jobs. Is it bad advice to say,”get better parents”?
I liked the piece of advice about “remember that your parents are projecting their insecurities onto you. That is about them, not you.”
Yep. Just want to add my voice to this, LW 2. Don’t listen to your parents – they’re wrong. I find it absolutely abhorrent that they encourage you to keep a lower paying job just because it’s “safe”.
Oh oh! That’s my mother!
I worked for a terrible company and then got laid off recently and when I found a new job my old job asked me if I wanted to come back. New job was better in every imaginable way and was a huge promotion.
My mom told me that I should consider going back to my old job since my new job might be “too stressful”.
I hate my mother so so much.
I wonder if parents ever say things like this to their sons.
🙁
Yes, namely, “take the offer to go permanent at the horrible place where you’re a contractor.” Reasons being, “You need stability” and “You were laid off from —-; who knows if you’ll get another offer from anyone else?”
This type of thing happened to me too! Let’s make sure our daughters never follow their dreams!
Also, preeeetttty sure your BOSS has a better understanding of your ability to do a job than your PARENTS.
Things that happened lately: I got a literary agent. My mother thinks it may be too much for me. Saw an ad for my dream job. My mother thinks it may be too much for me. Talked vaguely about getting a cat. “No. No. I forbid you to get a cat, it will be too much for you.” I am an adult, and live on another continent to my mother. My mother, by the way, is completely lovely, but she doesn’t think I am very good at being alive.
Well I hope the next time you talk to her there is a lot of loud meowing in the background as you discuss your book deal and your new job. I’m sorry… I know I’m commenting on a situation I know nothing about, but I can’t imagine parents not supporting your dreams. My parents supported my dream of becoming a violinist even though it was QUITE OBVIOUSLY destined not to work out, and then they supported me in my dream of becoming a lawyer. I need to call them and thank them and always remember that I am lucky to have them…
my old company was very serious about sick days, like if you missed more than two days in a quarter without a doctor’s note your bonus could be taken away. One day I was home sick, with a bad cold, and the CEO CALLED ME. Luckily I sounded shitty enough on the phone that he said “Oh I can hear it in your voice, you are sick.”
Pretty sure he was trying to catch me since he had humiliated me the day before and he thought I was hiding/retaliating.
I never miss working there.
Jesus, that is fucked up. I mean, I live in the world, right, so I’m not surprised this culture exists – thrives, even! – and I’ve seen it first hand myself on occasion, but it never ceases to disappoint me when I see/hear examples of it and the damage it causes.
“He had humiliated me the day before and he thought I was hiding/retaliating.”
WOW. Good Christ, what an asshole.
I worked at a store where I did not have paid sick days, and my boss still did not believe I had a cold and made me go get a doctor’s note although I told her that my insurance did not pay for it and I would rather work sick than shell out a bunch of money to be told I had a cold.
Businesslady’s bio sounds astonishingly like me in all particulars–except that I really dislike my job writing and editing for a nonprofit and am having difficulty finding a new one.
*sits in a corner and contemplates life choices*
If you have sick/PTO days available to you, my opinion is that it’s no one’s business but yours why you take advantage of them, other than a vague-as-you-like explanation to your boss. (“I’m not feeling well and won’t be in today.”) I especially wouldn’t tell nosy co-workers if the reason is something other than physical illness, in case they are the sort of person who feels obligated to “inform” on you.
Yeah, as a manager I’m discouraged by HR from even asking what’s wrong because it might be intensely personal and uncomfortable for someone to share. If they need the day they get it, and if they’re running short of available days I might discuss that with them but only in the context of time off and not why they need it.
Exactly. If we have staff who are close to/at the end of their leave balance, then we make sure they know, and also recommend that they talk to HR if they have an issue that means they might need ST disability or whatever.
Well, in some work environments pto is sick day whatever, however my partner who works in a predominantly male field where sick days are expected to be used sparingly. Unfortunately, he hasn’t quite caught on(and it’s not the sort of thing that a manager would ever bother to have a discussion about). So, after having work for one company for several years where they were only profuction oriented, hedecided to make a change out of boredom. Used his pto for mental health days and got fired a year later. Got another job same field and was fired after 3 months for the same reason. A small work community (in a city of 1mil) has made him pretty much unhirable. I’ve always been the type to drag myself in unless I was a raging contagion. Maybe I give management too much credit, but I feel as if the people you work closely with know if you are just taking a FML day. It’s just not worth it to me to not go to work because I’m pissy, hungover, or whatever. Being dependable and punctual have always seemed to be part of the equation in my promotions and raises.
I work in a small department, so the unspoken rule is that sick days shouldn’t be used when it’ll screw over the department, but if there’s not much going on it’s fine. That means I’ve come to work slightly sick, but also that I’ve stayed home on “nope” days. No one ever questions me if I email in to say I need to stay home, and I do my best to help out others when they stay home. I think it all balances out nicely.
Since we are all business-minded ladies here, I would appreciate anecdata/advice from you all. Really, the more people, the better.
I love my job and am very good at it. Also, basically 90% of my time and effort is expended on the internet. The other 10% is spent in strategy meetings with the rest of the group.
Because I have a long commute, I’d like to start working from home a few days a week. This is utterly normal for a person with my job title in most companies, but telecommuting is frowned on where I work. I get the impression that this is the direct result of our IT director having his head so far up his ass he still thinks it is 1997. But I digress.
What are some good talking points for negotiating working from home two days a week? Both of my immediate supervisors are empathetic mom-types who might respond to this being about keeping me happy and productive, but above them are male corporate sociopaths who are more interested in The Bottom Line and Staying the Course.
My old workplace was completely idiotic about working from home for a LONG time (“it damaged the office culture!” yeah, right) until they literally ran out of space to put everyone and then suddenly there was a “pilot program” for remote employment.
I think your best bet is to put together a really tight presentation where you point out how the company would benefit from you working from home. Is there any way it will save them money? Will you be able to complete projects faster without having in-person disruptions?
I found I was demonstrably more productive when I started working from home. I had more energy and was happier without a 2-hr daily round trip commute, which translated in better work. Additionally, my company was partially reimbursing our commuter passes, so by allowing me to work from home, they were saving $125/month (times 30 employees, that adds up). If working from home means you’d be using your own equipment rather than the company’s, that also could save them money in the long run.
I hope you get what you want!
My workplace/bosses are pretty nice about letting people with lots of internetty tasks work from home as needed, and as one with a long commute I support your plan! I’d say float the idea to your empathetic immediate superiors, and if they’re behind it find a way to present it to the sociopaths as a Bottom Line supporting way to keep their useful employee (you) productive and happy and living in the 21st century.
feel free to send this in as a question if you want! but off the top of my head, I’d say that a good rationale is “here are the ways in which my workflow will be utterly unchanged by this new arrangement.” (that’s what I did when I started working from home.)
I would frame it as an experiment or trial run and be very specific. “Boss, I would like to try working from home 2 days a week for the next month and see whether it’s an improvement for my group and myself.” This way the powers that be feel like they’re agreeing to something with a very specific and limited range vs. “I would like to work from home for an unspecified number of days per week for the rest of my tenure at the company.” At the end of the time frame you, your group, and your boss can evaluate how it went and negotiate from there.
Yes, a trial basis is good! People are more likely to agree to something if they have an out but it gives you a chance to demonstrate/prove that it’s a good idea.
Three of my team (including me) WFH some of the time. The other two are both parents who went part-time after sprogging, and they effectively jobshare now – one works Mon-Weds, the other Wed-Fri. One is meant to come in once a month, the other once a week, but in reality neither of them do. I am a slightly different kettle of fish as I am full time, didn’t take a demotion (the others both did) when they went part time and just moved 100 miles away and said ‘I don’t want to leave, you don’t want to lose me, what can we work out.’
I am vastly better at home – I dont get affected by the regular network issues in the office (our system is vastly underpowered and overloaded), I have no commute, so I’m never late, if there’s an emergency I can stay on or log back on in the evening if it’s needed. I do have to make sure I am extra-flexible about Stuff though, as my boss’s boss has a proper bee in her bonnet about people WFH for no reason that we can ascertain (the other two have had to involve HR as she was trying to change their arrangements, and HR were horrified both times) so I do have to skirt round her issues. So I do offer to do (paid) overtime on big projects as it’s easy for me, I don’t take the week off between Xmas and NY so it’s one less person who has to go into the office, I offer to swap days off when I can, I haul my arse out of bed an hour earlier when we’re really short staffed without logging it as overtime, if something needs finishing off into lunchtime I’ll do it as I’ve mostly had my lunch at 11 anyway, etc etc.
Definitely agree to ask for a trial period, and be as specific as possible. Think about what you can offer that won’t be too onerous for you but that will benefit them.
I managed to do what you did (move a few hundred miles away, and stay full-time) AND then cut back to part time (4 days/week) once I sprogged, and so far, I am *still* as productive as I would have been in the office. I’d say that the pilot idea is a good one, and also maybe spend some time articulating your job in terms of deliverables, rather than in terms of time. If you can demonstrate to your boss what you accomplish in a given week, and then demonstrate how that is maintained (or improved!) by working from home, there’s a pretty good argument for increased efficiency at no extra cost to the company.
Male Corporate Sociopath here, but framing the experiment as a potential productivity gain is something that warms the cockles of my cold, synergy-obsessed heart.
If the OP’s immediate bosses have to go to their chiefs, give them some language that their bosses would be receptive to (as a coda to your main pitch).
This is where it is hard. It brushes up against a raw area in our department politics. We are all salaried, but since January, we have been required to track our time. The theory is that this will give the higher-ups a more accurate picture of departmental capacity for taking on projects. In practice it means that everyone is terrified not to attribute at least 8 hours a day, 5 days a week to WORK work, lest we be called out.
I would much rather be paid for results than for time, because that is supposedly what my contract says and also it just seems logical… but that’s not the direction things appear to be moving.
Man I got no advice but I really wanna hear how this works out and (if you pull it off) how you did it; in my experience places are either NO TELECOMMUTING YOU MUST COME IN EVERY DAY NO EXCUSES WINDOWS AND SMILING ARE WASTEFUL or will let you 95% telecommute if you can reasonably get away with it and, provided you get your work done well, politely ignore the sounds of bottles clinking and laughter in the background of your conference calls.
Businesslady, I wish you were here last week. I have just made the painstakingly difficult decision to turn down two better-paying jobs by negotiating a better salary here, and I am surprised I have any hair left after this past week.
Yikes, that does sound stressful. Hopefully things will stabilize for you soon, but if not, let me know if I can help!
Ha, the sick day question specifically addresses the terrible strategy I used the one time in my life I’ve used a non-legit sick day (well, I was sort of sick, but ‘stayed out till 5am and am terribly hungover isn’t my traditional definition of sick). I said I got food poisoning and it was super awkward the next day and as a result one of my coworkers no longer goes to one of her favorite restaurants because she asked where it was and I needed a place to blame. Whoops. I am now working on getting over the crippling guilt I feel using a sick day for non-traditional reasons because I don’t actually think there’s anything wrong with it.
Good Lord, no. “Calling in sick” is like one of my top five Times You’re Totally Allowed to Lie.* (Also, in the future: “I picked up a stomach virus,” is a good question-dodge, as is “I think that milk in my fridge had turned.”) Not talking to my co-workers is totally helpful there, among other things.
*Basically, unless you’re a West Wing character or someone in a job that demands similar amounts of dedication and rewards you appropriately: your company isn’t going to go out of its way to be good to you. Why should you return the favor? If they give you sick days, take the sick days.
I’m currently trying to figure out whether I can morally justify taking bereavement days for the grandparents who died before I started this gig. Otherwise, it just seems like a waste, y’know? 😉
If you must call in ‘sick’ for not immediately obvious reasons, I suggest a migraine.
I just submitted a letter and I hope this is a weekly things because good lord, my job is eating me alive right now.
Business Lady, you give excellent advice. In an ironic twist, I am taking a sick day today, and it’s the first time in a long while that I haven’t felt like a garbage person for doing so. Self. You have multiple chronic conditions. It is OK to stay home when you’re sick! Especially when it’s slow at the office and you won’t be missing anything or pushing your work on anyone else by staying home and taking care of yourself!!!!
Oh my gosh, yes, PLEASE take sick days if you actually need them. I give you my official blessing. (Also, thanks!)
I get plenty of PTO, but it’s categorized, and I can only take “unscheduled sick” time off 5 times a year. If any more than that, I’m written up. (I currently have many weeks of sick time accrued)
….is that legal?
Depends on your state, I’m guessing. My draconian-ass work’s absence policy says you get a written warning for an absence without a Dr’s note, and final written for more than one of those in a 30 day period, with termination on the table for 6 absences, excused or unexcused, in a 12 month period. But then, I’m in a very bad state for employees, but a holy land for employers.
There is no federal law requiring employers to give workers any paid leave at all, so if your employer gives this as a non-required benefit, they get to set the terms.
The state of Connecticut and several cities (SF, NY, DC, Seattle, Portland (OR), Jersey City, Newark (NJ)) have laws in place requiring some (or all, in San Francisco) employers to let employees earn paid sick time. If you work in one of those jurisdictions, your employer’s sick leave policy must comply with the law.
One cool thing is that most of these laws allow the sick days to be used as “safe” days to get help for domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.
How do you not freak out while dealing with job hunting and offers and all that stuff?
I took a day off once because I was watching Season 1 of Veronica Mars for the first time and it was REALLY GOOD. And way better than a day of work. (I don’t work there anymore.)
“If your job uses a shared Paid Time Off pool that includes both vacation and sick days, then that’s implicitly empowering you to allocate that time off as you see fit—but it also might mean that too many ‘mental-health days’ will end up interfering with your vacation plans in the future.”
Indeed. Don’t be like me, kids! Discretionary Days used for hangovers lead to problems when you want to go on vacation or actually get sick, or, I don’t know, sprain your foot one night after karaoke and literally can’t walk up the subway steps.
Anyway, I have a co-worker who will always end up with more days off than she can use before her time off resets. I never understand this. She says she doesn’t just “call in.” Why not?? These are YOUR days, you are being paid for them, you earned them, USE THEM.
To the sick-day user, I would add: don’t tell your coworker you faked it! My workplace doesn’t ask a lot of questions around appropriate, sparsely used sick days, and I am comfortable saying “I’m not feeling well and won’t be in today” when I just feel like I need a day off. I was raised to believe that you NEVER call out sick, though, so those days are very rare (twice in the two years I’ve held this job).
To the hopeful promotee: if you’re being encouraged to apply, that’s a good sign, but it does NOT mean the promotion is falling into your lap! Do not count on it yet! And good luck!
But stress management is a very important part of maintaining good mental health! Sometimes that “nope” feeling is a good sign that you have stress or anxiety you’re not managing very well. I don’t think calling them “mental health days” is problematic at all.
Well I hope the next time you talk to her there is a lot of loud meowing in the background as you discuss your book deal and your new job. I'm sorry… I know I'm commenting on a situation I know nothing about, but I can't imagine parents not supporting your dreams. My parents supported my dream of becoming a violinist even though it was QUITE OBVIOUSLY destined not to work out, and then they supported me in my dream of becoming a lawyer. I need to call them and thank them and always remember that I am lucky to have them…
To the second letter writer: Go for it, but please don’t count your chickens yet! Sometimes being asked to apply for a job means you’re the “if all else fails” back-up plan rather than plan A.
Oh, oh, is this where we share our “What not to do on a spontaneous PTO day” stories? Because I have one and I’m going to tell it because even though everybody is probably done with this topic, I’m not.
So I called in one February day because February is my Worst Month and I needed the day. Boss says no problem, feel better, see you tomorrow. I spent the day on my couch, watching movies on my laptop, and eating brownie batter. Perfect. I then decide that I need to do something active and see people because that always cheers me up, so I went out to play Ultimate. Reader, this was a mistake. One wrong move and I tore my ACL and was left trying to figure out how on Earth I would explain my a) inability to drive to work and b) need to go to the orthopedist. All because I thought, “Oh, hey, I’ve been down in the dumps, but this will make me feel better!” The resulting knee surgery and rehab made that officially my most expensive hooky day ever.
I am sure nobody is reading these comments anymore, but just in case…
Just read this article on the danger of negotiating for women, and think it’s worth at least being aware of:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/mariakonnik…
I am! Thanks for posting that.
Like so many gender-related things, everyone has to make the choice between being a trailblazer and protecting themselves (e.g., “I’m not gonna let being a woman stop me from walking alone at night!” vs. “I can’t head out to the subway this late; it’s not safe.”). Neither decision is right or wrong, because it’s always dependent on a matrix of personal factors. That said, even in a scenario where someone might look askance at a woman for negotiating, I’d argue that not negotiating at ALL is ultimately going to penalize you further, because it totally shuts down the opportunity for a higher salary. (Plus, if you’re working somewhere that’s going to have the attitude of “ladies shouldn’t self-advocate,” it’s unlikely that you’ll be happy there either way.) And as Women Who Negotiate become more commonplace, one hopes that negative responses to it will diminish accordingly.
It’s tough, though, and as long as institutionalized sexism still infects most workplaces, this (along with many other similar perception issues) is going to be something women have to grapple with.
Even later and I’m somehow just noticing this column! I needed to see both Businesslady and this link today.
When I was offered a promotion recently, Boss’ reaction to my salary request was defensive. Suddenly I needed to interview for the position, and Boss changed his tune from offering me the position ‘considering’ me for it. Am in limbo now while he decides, which sucks, but I do feel a bit better knowing it’s a common reaction. I figure as the only lady in my company who doesn’t fill a ‘pink-collar’ clerical role, it was probably bound to happen. Luckily, the worst-case for me is to keep doing what I’m doing at my current pay while I start aggressively looking for whatever the heck the next thing is. Sigh.
This comment thread makes me sad. If you take the attitude that your time off balance is Your Right! and determine to use every minute of it whether needed or not, you are a bad employee. Period. You are exactly the reason why companies shrink the amount of PTO/vacation offered, and why many don’t give any at all.
Paid time off, in any form, is a benefit to be used when (and if) needed. If your employer offers health insurance, do you go down the list of covered services and make sure you have every single one done each year? Of course not! Really needed a decompression day after a hard week, and aren’t leaving your coworkers in the lurch? Sure, go ahead. Family emergency? Get out of here, we’ll cover for you. Giving yourself a hangover on a worknight? No, you’re an idiot and you have to live with the consequences of your bad choices.
The solution is to pay employees for unused sick days. Indeed many companies (not enough) do just that.
If the mere existence of paid sick days is an incentive to take them, and it is, then counterbalance with a counter incentive.
You know those 5 sick days you didn’t use in the last fiscal year? Well here’s a sweet little 1-weeks-extra-pay.
The company would have to pay it anyway if you used it. And lose productivity that day.
Paying out unused sick days is a win win.
I am! Thanks for posting that.
Like so many gender-related things, everyone has to make the choice between being a trailblazer and protecting themselves (e.g., "I'm not gonna let being a woman stop me from walking alone at night!" vs. "I can't head out to the subway this late; it's not safe."). Neither decision is right or wrong, because it's always dependent on a matrix of personal factors. That said, even in a scenario where someone might look askance at a woman for negotiating, I'd argue that not negotiating at ALL is ultimately going to penalize you further, because it totally shuts down the opportunity for a higher salary. (Plus, if you're working somewhere that's going to have the attitude of "ladies shouldn't self-advocate," it's unlikely that you'll be happy there either way.) And as Women Who Negotiate become more commonplace, one hopes that negative responses to it will diminish accordingly.
It's tough, though, and as long as institutionalized sexism still infects most workplaces, this (along with many other similar perception issues) is going to be something women have to grapple with.
That is a good solution, and I am all for it. However, it's not really the case that it's financially equal. If you used the 5 sick days, the company paid you for 52 weeks. If you didn't use the sick days and got a payout, the company paid you for 53 weeks.
The misunderstanding goes both ways; I had to argue very hard that our tiny nonprofit was not going to save money by cutting PTO hours, since we don't have a payout policy. Our ED just could not grasp the concept that there were still only a finite number of work days in a year. Our policy had the standard verbiage to prevent anyone from using PTO to go over 40 hours in a week. And since PTO was about the only decent benefit we had, cutting it was going to encourage people to quit.