calling in sick

without pissing off your boss

Fate has it that from the moment I planned to write about this topic, Liesbeth (who has never been sick in her Amayzine era) and I were both struck with a fever. What are the odds. Getting and being sick happens, there isn’t too much you can do about it, but how you tell your boss and colleagues, that’s in your own hands.

1. Mondays are the hardest

I used to have a coworker who was quite the wild child and every Monday he called in sick. However, I was never on the retrieving end of the call. One of our other coworkers always worked as the messenger. Monday’s are always the favorite ‘sick day.’ Any other day of the week has an average of 5000 people who aren’t feeling well but on Monday’s it’s an estimated 9000.

So just know that if you’re ever not feeling well on a Monday, people might think it’s because you spent an entire weekend staying up until dawn. So if you really are sick on a Monday, it’s best you inform your supervisor on a Saturday or a Sunday. Tell them you’ve been struck by a fever and that you hope to be back and at it on Monday. That way your supervisor knows you won’t be spending your weekend hopping from one bar to the next. 2-0 for you!

2. call

Sending a text is easy. I think that when you’re sick you need to, excuse my language, have the balls to call your boss. Plus it’ll allow them to hear how miserable you’re feeling and you’ll be able to pass along the assignments that need to be done while you aren’t there.

3. don’t use a colleague as a messenger

I understand that it might seem easier to ask someone you work with to inform everyone that you aren’t feeling well, but that’s not how it works. It shows a lack of respect to your supervisor and it makes it seem as though you’re taking the easy way out. Bad self promotion.

4. think of solutions

You’ll have a better nights (or in this case days) sleep when you’re in bed and you think of solutions to make sure all your work will be done on time and which things can wait a couple of days, or what you can outsource to someone else. If you send out a very detailed e-mail of all your work and how things will be handled, you’ll automatically create an overall sketch of all your current affairs and you’ll score bonus points with your colleagues.

5. be available

When you’re sick, of course it’s important that you get as must rest as you can, but sending a quick text shouldn’t be too hard now should it? Just let your colleagues know that you might be taking a nap every now and then so you might not always respond right away but that you’ll get back to them as soon as you can. It’s not like they’re going to be calling you non stop but they have been given extra work to do since you’re sick, so replying to them is the least you can do.

6. the homecoming

I’ve written about it before; keep it short. You were sick, you felt awful, add in a couple of jokes about how appalling you looked but save all the gory details for yourself and then get back to work.