When I was in the workplace we had personal leave. forty hours a year.
I never got sick. So, I would use the time as a mental health day. I could have the day off and play.
I always thought that these mental health days kept me from getting sick.
My mom used the term like 30 years ago. Today, people just say “I’m working from home”.
I have a butt-ton of sick time saved up, so theoretically I can take a day whenever I please. However, even if I’m really sick I just feel so guilty about calling in that I very rarely do.
I used to take a day off whenever a new Stephen King book came out; I should reinstate that. 
A couple of years ago I was in a pretty bad car wreck. No physical injuries whatsoever, but it really messed with my head. Several days later, while at work, I could feel myself getting more and more wound up about it. I was scheduled to meet a friend for lunch, but cancelled and went home instead, where I spent a couple of hours crying and shaking and then spent a few more hours slowly returning to normal. I emailed my boss in the middle of all of that to tell him I was unfit for duty and would be taking sick leave for the entire afternoon. I was completely honest with him regarding the reasons; his wife had survived a similarly violent car wreck some years earlier, so he knew what I was dealing with and was sympathetic and understanding.
I have also taken time off to recover from bouts of severe insomnia. It’s hard to be productive when you’ve only slept for three hours; when you finally feel yourself falling asleep just when you’re supposed to be getting up, I don’t think it’s out of line to take a few hours of sick leave to pay off some of that sleep debt. I’m not talking about lolling around until two in the afternoon, but just getting 2-3 hours of sleep so you’ll be able to think straight when you finally do go in.
A coworker once offered this bit of wisdom: “you don’t have to be dead to call in sick.” I can’t get behind the idea of calling in sick just because it’s a really nice spring day outside - but if your physical or mental state is such that being on the job is truly unpleasant (as opposed to being unable to do the job), then sick leave seems reasonable. The threshold of unpleasantness for justifying sick leave under that criteria is subjective. In the insomnia situation I mentioned, yeah, I probably could have gotten through the day with the help of a pot of coffee, but it would have sucked, and there was nothing so urgent that it couldn’t be put off for a day, so it seemed reasonable to try to get a few more hours of sleep.
Yes! I always say…“the seed has been planted”. So there is no way I’d be able to go to work after that.
I’m that way too. I have to be careful not to think about it too often
I have 700 hours of accumulated ‘sick’ leave. We can also use it for routine Dr./Dentist appointments.
If I have not taken any in a few months, I may take a day off. But it will usually be because I did not sleep well, of just feel a little off. Not REALLY sick. Just under the weather.
I work pretty much all on my own. And deadlines are flexible. No need to cover for me. We do have a policy that we prefer having 2 of us in the office (there are four of us total). So I try to avoid a situation where on person would be alone.
Never. The motto in my family was “Nobody wants to go to work - that’s why they pay people!” (We weren’t allowed to miss school either, aside from my suspensions for fighting.) When I use my PTO it’s usually to deal with the apt bldg I own, and since I work nights it’s rare that happens. In the three years I’ve worked at my current job, I’ve gotten a prize for perfect attendance twice (a truly horrible looking t-shirt; I’ve never worn either). Heck, typically I’ll go in for overtime when I know they’ll get a lot of call-ins (I went in Saturday because in KY 3 inches of snow is a blizzard and despite everyone driving 4-wd vehicles with 2 feet of ground clearance…)
That said, a co-worker recently boasted that he hasn’t missed a day in 4 years, and has even accrued 8 weeks vacation. We get 1 week of personal time a year and he uses that ONLY because it doesn’t roll over.
I don’t take random days off, but if I go more than about five months without a week long vacation I start to get squirrely.
Never, that I can remember. I will sometimes schedule a day off for no good reason except to burn excess PTO, but always at least a week in advance.
I call in “sick” about once every other month. It will usually be a combination of:
Light workload
Need to get a couple of things done around the house
Need some time away from both co-workers and husband
Want to watch a movie or two, of the type my husband hates
I have weeks of sick time built up, and my workplace doesn’t get into a snit over a sick day now and then.
Of course, I also schedule single days vacation days off here and there throughout the year. I have a buttload of vacation time built up. I’ve worked here nineteen years!
A mental health day to me is an unscheduled day off (if it’s scheduled, that’s vacation) that I take when I don’t feel sick usually because I need a break from work. I do it at least a few times a year. If I have a purpose for the day off, that would be a personal day.
On days when I am scheduled to work clinically - never. I have a job where my shift must be covered. If I don’t show up, the person I was supposed to relieve can’t leave until someone is called in to work for me.
On days when I’m not working clinically but was planning to come in to the office and work on charts or whatever, but I really don’t feel like it so maybe I’ll spend the day doing laundry or watch netflix and do a few charts from home so I don’t feel totally guilty about the nonproductive day. That happens at least once a month. But since I don’t have defined office hours does that really count as taking a mental health day? No one cares how much time I spend physically in my office provided I don’t miss any deadlines. In fact it took 3 years at this job before I actually had an office.
We get one paid call in day a year. Otherwise vacation days need to be scheduled 48hrs in advance. so I can’t call in for one. Nothing rolls forward, use it or lose it. Perfect attendance for 6 calendar months, Jan-June or July-Dec (including scheduled meetings ) earns 1 vacation day each. For a full calendar year, Jan-Dec, you get an extra call in day. The only call ins I’ve used were snow days. Mental health days would blow the perfect attendance gig, unless one planned for the day in advance.
Never for me. I support a medical devices distribution and manufacturing facility and I am the only one that knows how to fix and administer critical systems that control the whole facility that distributes products to the entire U.S. and internationally.
It wouldn’t even matter if I try to take an unscheduled day off, I am still on call and would have to work remotely anyway and that has happened plenty of times when I was on vacation. I keep telling them how dangerous it is to have so many things running through just one person but no one is listening. It would take me about 18 months to train even an experienced person to do my job so no one ever bothers. It is great job security but they would be SOL if I ever quit. No one else even has access to many of the systems but me let alone know what to do when something goes wrong.
It takes me about an hour to write lesson plans for a week that I can use for myself (this doesn’t count all the copying and materials gathering), and about an hour to write lesson plans for a sub for a single day (plus all the copying and materials gathering, to be done in advance). Missing a day is a pain in the butt. I take spontaneous days off to care for sick children, or for serious illness on my part (fever, vomiting, etc.), but pretty much never for mental health. That’s what bourbon is for.
Both very often and never.
I have it really easy in terms of time off work. I get 30 days paid leave a year and, I think, 15 days sick leave a year. I have about 200 days of accrued sick leave though, because I haven’t had a sick day for about 6 years.
Apart from all that I work flexible arrangements and can take 6 days off in any 12 week period and make up the time on other days. So when I feel like a mental health break I just take a day or two off. As it happens I am taking off all 4 work days next week just to relax, do nothing and unwind. Due to a heavy workload lately I already have enough hours in credit to take off 6 days if I wanted to.
I have a flexible job and can work from home if need be. So yeah, a mental health day is a work from home day. Haven’t taken one in several years. I’m a manager now and would feel guilty. We don’t get separate sick and vacation time. It’s all lumped into paid time off (PTO).
I accrue Paid Time Off (PTO) as a reward for actually coming in to the office. I can use it for whatever I want–day drinking, running errands, barfing, wrapping myself up in a blanket and crawling into the closet and blasting Kinks through the earphones, whatever. My job doesn’t really overlap with anyone else’s, so as long as I’m not about to miss a deadline I get to use my better judgment about how I use the PTO. My criteria for a “Fuggit, I ain’t going in today” is: I don’t go in if I’m only going to be able to sit at my desk and rock back and forth trying not to burst into tears for no good reason (nobody needs to see that!). That’s basically stealing from the company, so I buy a day off.
That’s a good way to look at it.
Our sick leave, holidays and vacation are in one bundle, so if I want to use one, I do. I will take a day off if the weather looks nice and I won’t miss a deadline.