The title should be “How Not to Call In Sick.” The advice for calling in sick is simple. Call. Call in the morning when your boss first gets in the office. Describe your illness only in the most general of terms. Sound sick.
Monday morning is the worst. I come dragging in the office and see the light on my phone blinking red. The lying begins.
How do I know when someone is lying? Because they do it so very badly.
I’ll ignore the blatant liars, the ones who leave messages with background noise that’s a dead giveaway. The crackling of cell phones, the swoosh of the open highway. Messages left remarkable close to last call. Giggling and shushing in the background. The fizzing of liquor splashing over ice. Out and out drunken laughter.
No, that’s too easy. It’s the bona fide calls that I get around 6 or 7 a.m. Often they start out sounding sick. Their mistake is that they keep talking. Telling me about the symptoms, their emotional response to the symptoms, their dismay at the breakdown of their health. At first they usually sound very sick, and very, very sad that they will not be at work. But sometime mid-message they forget why they are calling, around the time they start to explain to me the methodology to their recovery, how they will be spending the day resting, drinking a lot of fluids, trying to get stronger, they start to get more energetic. Then they start telling me how they’re pretty sure they’ll be in the next day. Practically positive. By the time they are ringing off they sound beyond chipper. I would describe it as euphoric. Definitely not sick.
Then there are the ones that go into graphic detail about their illness. Blow by blow. There is always an attempt to be Victorian about the nature of it, but there are hints. Usually a toilet is involved. They’ve been hugging or on it for xx number of hours. If not a toilet, then there is clotting, the passing of things. A stray abscess or two.
TMI, TMI. Why in God’s name the TMI? Do you want me to feel sorry for you? Or is it a passive aggressive screw you to me, the representative of evil management, the man? Whatever the motivation, is this really how you want me to think of you? Not as a competent hard worker with that going somewhere look in your eye? No. Instead I have graphic description of an oozing, festering toilet hugging mess, and I promise you, I will inwardly recoil the next time I see you. Do you really want that?
Just one last thing: Worse than the liars and the fakers and the sharing too much-ers, are the saints, the ones that drag themselves in no matter how contagiously sick they are. For days, not just me, your boss, but the rest of the office, get to hear the hacking and the honking, get to see the cubicle littered with nasty balled up Kleenex as you toil over scraps of paper that we will have to touch. You more than anyone must call in sick.
If this sounds like begging, it is. Please take care of your health. Stay in during the week. Save the bar hopping for Friday and Saturday nights. Call in sick when you are sick. From time to time, even call in sick when you aren’t. When you call in sick, lie to me. I’m not even asking that you lie well enough so I believe it, just make me wonder. Better yet, ask for vacation.
Monday morning is the worst. I come dragging in the office and see the light on my phone blinking red. The lying begins.
How do I know when someone is lying? Because they do it so very badly.
I’ll ignore the blatant liars, the ones who leave messages with background noise that’s a dead giveaway. The crackling of cell phones, the swoosh of the open highway. Messages left remarkable close to last call. Giggling and shushing in the background. The fizzing of liquor splashing over ice. Out and out drunken laughter.
No, that’s too easy. It’s the bona fide calls that I get around 6 or 7 a.m. Often they start out sounding sick. Their mistake is that they keep talking. Telling me about the symptoms, their emotional response to the symptoms, their dismay at the breakdown of their health. At first they usually sound very sick, and very, very sad that they will not be at work. But sometime mid-message they forget why they are calling, around the time they start to explain to me the methodology to their recovery, how they will be spending the day resting, drinking a lot of fluids, trying to get stronger, they start to get more energetic. Then they start telling me how they’re pretty sure they’ll be in the next day. Practically positive. By the time they are ringing off they sound beyond chipper. I would describe it as euphoric. Definitely not sick.
Then there are the ones that go into graphic detail about their illness. Blow by blow. There is always an attempt to be Victorian about the nature of it, but there are hints. Usually a toilet is involved. They’ve been hugging or on it for xx number of hours. If not a toilet, then there is clotting, the passing of things. A stray abscess or two.
TMI, TMI. Why in God’s name the TMI? Do you want me to feel sorry for you? Or is it a passive aggressive screw you to me, the representative of evil management, the man? Whatever the motivation, is this really how you want me to think of you? Not as a competent hard worker with that going somewhere look in your eye? No. Instead I have graphic description of an oozing, festering toilet hugging mess, and I promise you, I will inwardly recoil the next time I see you. Do you really want that?
Just one last thing: Worse than the liars and the fakers and the sharing too much-ers, are the saints, the ones that drag themselves in no matter how contagiously sick they are. For days, not just me, your boss, but the rest of the office, get to hear the hacking and the honking, get to see the cubicle littered with nasty balled up Kleenex as you toil over scraps of paper that we will have to touch. You more than anyone must call in sick.
If this sounds like begging, it is. Please take care of your health. Stay in during the week. Save the bar hopping for Friday and Saturday nights. Call in sick when you are sick. From time to time, even call in sick when you aren’t. When you call in sick, lie to me. I’m not even asking that you lie well enough so I believe it, just make me wonder. Better yet, ask for vacation.
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