HOME - What is unfortunate about being sick is not only do you have to stay at home to rest, but also you lose out a PTO (vacation) day to do something you like to do.
My company combines sick days and PTO days together, and that’s why we have 21 days of PTO every year (great company benefits!). In this case, we do not have to fake being sick to take a day off because it’s all the same. I remember for one time, I had to take a day off every Friday because I was maxing out on my PTO hours :P
Anyway, I got stomach flu this past weekend, and I dragged myself out of bed to go to work today, hoping that things would be better; unfortunately it didn’t. So after replying to a few Emails and making a few phone calls to cancel some scheduled meetings and testing in the lab, I came back home. After thinking about all the wonderful things I could have been doing using the PTO (including going to the beach, watching a movie with friends, shoot some hoops), I think being sick for one day is actually not as bad as I think…
Long-Term Illness: Being physically sick for one day is NOTHING compared to long-term physical illness. Some people are plagued by certain illnesses that require them to be at the hospitals, and obviously they can’t really come to work even if they wanted to. Work gives us motivation and the sense of existence sometimes, but sitting on a hospital bed sucks things out of us. These people miss their coworkers, and that bad boss all of a sudden seems OK now, or the project that was almost done just seems to be that one thing that won’t ever be done…
Mental Stress: Another type of people are the ones who are under tremendous stress, yet they have to go to work everyday while being sick due to stress. They have to make the ends meet so they can’t quit, but they go to work suffering within every single day. “If I got laid off today, how would we pay for the house?”, “This project has to be completed by next Monday, but my mind is just not here and everything is falling apart…”, or something similar to these. If everyday at work we are stressed to a point that we’re experiencing panic attacks, it’s again, way worse than my little stomach flu.
Anyway, I am counting my blessings that I have a job still, a relatively healthy body, and family members who love me as I am. ^________^
life is more than wok and money