I said every six months although my traditional pattern is to get a nasty upper respiratory infection in either late Jan or early Feb, with a recurrence (usually worse) in March. So I have to take a few days for each time. We only get five sick days a year, so believe you me, I use them for legitimate illnesses. Last year’s second bout of illness took up one of my vacation days because I blew through my sick days so fast with the first round.
Speaking of which, if this is a “normal” year then I should start coming down with something in 3…2…1…
I’m self employed so there really isn’t any ‘calling in sick’ anymore.
Thankfully I don’t get sick very often. Back when I worked for other people, I was either actually sick or taking off to take care of a kid who was actually sick. Most professional jobs I’ve had, they let you take a sick day to take care of a sick kid.
So, maybe I was actually sick a couple of days a year; and stayed home with a sick child maybe four or five days a year.
My company offers a tremendous amount of time off (I get 19 days this year and get bumped up to 24 days off next year which is incredible for a company in the US!) so once every couple of months I call in sick due to insomnia. I suffer from a pretty serious case of insomnia so if I hit a point where I haven’t slept for 2 days or more and I don’t feel I can safely navigate the subway to get to work I call in sick. I feel very lucky having a job with a company that allows me to take that kind of time off when needed.
I call in sick about once every two months, though I’ve been making an effort to call in sick more often. My company allocates 80 hours of sick time to us and posts it to our pay stubs. Before coming here, I reckon I called in sick 2-3 times per year. But the culture here encourages use of sick time as mental health time. My boss took a sick day over the summer and went golfing. The last two sick days I took were a half-day a couple weeks ago (I run a small consulting business and spent the afternoon with a client) and a couple months ago (I farted around all morning then went to a movie). I also took two sick days at the beginning of December because my son was in the hospital with pnemonia.
I left 20 hours of sick time on the table at the end of last year. I’m going to try hard not to do that again.
I selected once every 3 months. That’s usually to stay home with Rafe, Jr. Mrs. Hollister doesn’t have sick time at her job. So if the kid is sick, I have to take a sick day to stay with him. That’s what I’m doing today. It’s rare that I’m ever sick.
I’m able to work from home when I need to, so actual sick days don’t happen often. I’d say that I take out one or two days a year (if two, they’re consecutive) due to being too sick to work effectively; plus another half-day for “mental health”.
Normally it’s about once a year, but I’ve been like a sick cat this past year and called in on a few days, twice with stomach bugs and once with a bad cold. I’m pretty much always sick if I call in, but once or twice I have left work early for severe menstrual cramps/stomach discomfort, which aren’t technically illness, I guess.
I rarely get sick, but I do take the occasional “mental health days”, which is used either
worrying about what I’m missing at work,
catching up on personal stuff that I need to take care of.
People who say “calling in sick when you’re not sick is stealing from the company” have it wrong, imho. Part of the (salaried) benefit package includes a certain number of paid sick days: therefore, imho, taking a paid sick day is as morally justifiable as depositing your paycheck. Now, common sense states that you shouldn’t deplete your sick days well before the year ends, but if it’s December 9th and I have 5 sick days remaining and there’s little chance of being sick for those 5 days, I might as well use one - especially if they don’t “roll over”.
I work for a company that combines vacation and sick days so I get 22 days a year but I like long vacations so I never call in sick. At my old company when I had sick days I never got sick and I had every other Friday off for Doctor’s appointments and stuff.
So four years of working and zero sick days I went with never.
Despite the fact that I haven’t needed to do it in years, I wouldn’t feel bad about calling in sick for a “mental health day” if I needed to, as stress and overwork can build up (for me) into mental fatigue that’s just as debilitating as a physical illness. Luckily, I haven’t been working as many weekends as I used to, so it hasn’t been a problem in a long time, but I don’t begrudge people who need to take not-truly-sick sick days once in a while.
I picked once every three months, just on average. I’ve had years where I didn’t call out sick once. On the other hand, I had my gall bladder go south on my last year and I was out for a week.
The latest was a nasty effing cold I had last week. I called in sick and was sick.
I have it easy though. If I want to take a mental health day, pretty much all I have to do is tell my boss that I’m taking some PTO (paid time off … we get so many days per year to take whenever the hell we want … but that includes holidays; if I have no PTO left on Dec 25, I either work, or don’t get paid for that day).
I picked “Other”, because I don’t remember the last time I called in sick, but I know I have, and I will, if I’m ever really sick.
Back in the days that I had actual sick leave, as opposed to “personal days”, I would probably call in a couple times a year. It was rare for me to do this if I wasn’t sick, but it was usually something fairly minor that I will just work through these days. I live in fear of getting sick and losing all my vacation time. I cherish my vacation time.
My company makes it easy to work from home, so I’ve only called in when I’ve had migraines that make even that impossible. Maybe 2-3 times a year, at the most.
I get three allotted “sick days” paid at work, so I don’t call in sick more than those 3 unless I’m dying. I’m usually sick when I use them, but I have ditched just to do something fun before.
It’s rare that I’m ever sick.