If I’m stupid enough to get trashed on a work night, I usually force myself to go in. It reminds me that I don’t ever want to get trashed on a work night ever again.
On the other hand I could have called my last two bosses from the bar to tell them I wouldn’t be in the next day. The reason I could do this was because I * wasn’t the type* to do that kinda thing so I could have gotten away with it.
I don’t feel the ski analogy holds. Skiing is a calculated risk and breaking a bone would be accidental. Drinking alcohol is not the same. Assuming you know your limit; it’s a choice - and therefore going beyond that point could easily be seen as irresponsible. If you know you’re the kind of person who is liable to get hungover and you drink 6 paralyzers one night, that’s your own bad judgment. You should have stuck with one or two.
I worked with someone once who had a system worked out with our manager. If she called in and said “I’m sick, I can’t come in,” then it was understood that she really was sick, don’t bother to try talking her out of it. But if she called in and said, “I just really don’t think I can make it in today,” without actually stating that she was sick, manager understood that she could say, “two other people are out, I really need you to suck it up and be here,” or whatever the situation was.
I like that kind of employee relations.
That’s my sick leave - which I would use if I ever became disabled, and would lose upon retirement.
We are limited to carrying over something like 240 hours of vacation from year to year.
My last job, chances are I would be at the bar with my boss at 2am doing shots of Patron on a Tueday. I would generally be able to drag myself to work the next day though.
Generally, most companies have what they call PTO days (Personal Time Off). Basically, you have a certain number of days to call in sick, go on vacation or do whatever. You probably want to downplay being hungover, but I can’t imagine a professional organization really caring.
The problem is, if you use up all your PTO for hangovers, you won’t be able to take an actual vacation.
The guy in the OP, I noticed, had a pretty low level call center job. One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that the lower level your job is, the more petty and controlling the boss tends to be. My soon to be retiring boss used to be very petty about taking time off and working from home. She always wanted requests made weeks ahead of time and never wanted to give you time off on Mon or Fri since you were “extending the weekend”. Me, I don’t give a shit. One of my people wants to work from home to wait for the cable guy or nurse a hangover, as long as the work gets done I have no problem.
Then there was my other crazy project lead.
CPL: "can I go home early? (2:00pm)
Me: “Um…why? Are you sick or something?”
CPL: “No…I just don’t want to work anymore.”
Me: “Hmmm…could you at least do me the common courtesy of pretending you are sick or something?”
CPL: “Well…I wanted to be honest.”
Me: “Well…in the spirit of honesty, I have to tell you I wouldn’t be doing my job as manager if I just let everyone go home whenever they just didn’t feel like being here anymore.”
Yeah - as the vet of more severe hangovers that I could possibly count, I don’t quite understand the attitude of being unable to go into work the next day. Sure you don’t want to, you feel like shit, and you aren’t going to be as productive as you should be, but there’s no reason you could not drag your sorry ass out of bed and make it to work if you wanted to. I deplore the horrible work ethic of today’s drunks! 
Hell, I still remember nearly 30 years ago when I was a high schooler, the workplace nurse at the factory I was working at told me advised me to push fluids, especially OJ, to minimize the effects of my daily hangovers…
Yeah, I have over 800 hours of sick leave banked. It was really handy when I was out with the flu for two weeks. I still have plenty left if I where to be injured or have a long illness.
My employer’s COO has the perfect solution for this situation. It’s called The Vacation Day!!
Need to stay home, because the guy from Sears is going to fix your fridge sometime between 9 and 2?
Take a Vacation Day!
Power line breaks across the street, (falling to the ground and starting a fire) and you cannot leave because a Fire Truck is blocking your driveway?
Take a Vacation Day!
Want to leave 30 minutes early on your birthday, to pick up your son?
Take half of a Vacation Day!
This is sensible.
If I ever were to take over a company, the first thing I’d do is offer the employees a deal as follows: “Hmm, you guys have sick leave, carer’s leave, some other weird leave, totalling ten (or fifteen or whatever) days per annum. To take this you have to get my permission for some types, a doctor’s note for other types, etc. Here’s the deal: I’ll cut it to ten (or five or whatever) days per annum. We’ll call it “personal leave”. In return for the cut, you get these days fully paid and with no bullshit or being treated like a kid. Sick? Take a day. Hungover? Not my business. Take a day. Just couldn’t be fucked getting out of your warm bed? Take a day.”
As both an employer and an employee, I’d seriously look at this a a good deal.
Fed employees can use sick and annual leave in quarter-hour increments.
This afternoon, I’m heading home early to paint a bathroom ceiling. I’ll take 2 hrs annual leave.
It’s a good gig!
My employer allows this too. The problem is that ANY vacation time taken has to have a minimum 24 hrs advance notice, and be approved by a supervisor. The only other alternative is sick time.
I guess I’m out of step.
In 35 years continuous employment, I’ve been sent home once (came in with a heavy cold; manager didn’t want anyone esle to catch it) and taken time off when my mother died.
No ‘sick’ days.
The guy who came in with a heavy cold last year gave it to me, and I could barely get out of bed for three days. This year, he got a hundred dollar gift voucher for his perfect attendance.
Presenteeism is a real problem, IMHO.
I’m with msmith537 here–I’ve been extremely fortunate to work at a series of companies who have not had a concept of “sick days”, just additional personal days. I get 4+ weeks a year worth (not sure the exact amount, just started here this month) here and, aside from policy saying you can’t take more than two unscheduled ones in a row without convincing the boss you were that sick (doesn’t usually require a note) we don’t have any restrictions.
Frankly, I prefer this way to separate sick and vacation days, and I also prefer this way immensely to bosses who feel the need to vet or audit sick days. Look, I get x number of days a year–why is that number set sufficiently high that I’ll get my record dinged if I take all of them? Why not set the freakin’ limit lower with a policy provision for provable long-term illness?
On preview: I’d rather work for TheLoadedDog than crazyjoe.
I think it entirely depends on how you value work ethic vs. free time or whatever other factors.
From my point of view, sick/personal/vacation days are part of my pay package, and if I don’t use them I’m cheating myself.
By the same token, I worked for a place (my last job) where I got two weeks vacation and an unlimited number of paid “sick” days, limited only by boss approval and he’d force people to go home if they were sneezing–I didn’t take any sick time at that job, because I did not have an expected part of my pay implicitly tied up in numbered “sick days”.
But… why not? Was there work going to be left unfinished? I don’t see a problem with employees using their paid time off to leave early as long as they’ve gotten their day’s work done. At places where the work is continuous and only stops because it’s the end of the day, I guess I can understand this attitude, but otherwise, really, what’s the big deal?
As to the OP, to me, hung over is sick. Irresponsibly sick, but sick nonetheless. If I were the manager, I would hope the employee wouldn’t be so stupid as to actually TELL me he’s hung over when he called in, but if he did (or I otherwise found out), I’d probably just snap at him not to let it happen again and be pissed at him for a while-- certainly not a firable offense, IMO.
I don’t get all of this policing of leave employers want to do these days. As long as they’ve got the time and they’re not abusing it (by which I mean calling in all the freakin’ time), why is it anyone else’s business how it’s used?
The actual conversation between my husband and his boss Friday morning at 7 a.m.:
Husband: Hey, I’m not coming in today.
Boss: Why?
Husband: Because I don’t want to!
Boss: That’s it? You can’t come up with anything better than that?
Husband: What, you want me to lie?
Boss: Yeah.
Husband: Okay, I’m sick.
Boss: Okay, see you Monday.
My boss is just as cool. 
Me, I’d rather you didn’t tell me you were hungover, because I don’t want to be questioning your judgement, but sick works just as well, and if you’re not a constant attendance problem, I wouldn’t be checking up on you on your Facebook, either. Hell, it wouldn’t occur to me to check Facebook.
I would only do something like this if my employee were a terminal retard with demonstrated weak judgment.
Yes and no.
When I worked for the Feds, I got a nasty cold that led me to stay home for 3 days. (And I’m not one to abuse sick leave; I worked for the Feds for 3.5 years, and at the end of that time, I had almost 3 weeks of unused sick leave. And the only reason I didn’t have 4 weeks is that I had a bad time getting wisdom teeth removed, and an interpreter who can’t open her mouth because of the stitches isn’t going to be terribly useful in court.)
The rule was that after 3 days’ unscheduled absence, you needed to bring in a doctor’s note stating that you were fit to return to work. So I spent most of another day going to my doctor’s office so I could get a note. This was during Hillary Clinton’s attempt to reform the health care system.
My doctor asked what was wrong with me (which was readily apparent; I was still congested as hell). I told her I’d had a bad cold, but basically felt fine, and that I just needed a note from her so I could go back to work. Her response? “Wait, you work for the Federal Government, right? Aren’t they the ones trying to decrease health care expenditures? Don’t they trust you to know when you’re over your cold, rather than wasting my time writing you a note?” The woman had a point.
I don’t know what you do, but that does sound like a very old fashioned working class mentality. I come from a Gen X mind set where we grew up watching people like you work 40 years with perfect attendance at the same company only to get laid off, outsourced or at best retire with a pat on the back and a handshake. Basically, I think the attitude of just about everyone I know under 40 is you do what is in your best interest for your career or you do the least amount of work possible.
In other words, you skip vacations and work long hours if you think you’re getting promoted in a year or so. If not, you go look for another job.