July 27th, 2005, revisited

Three years ago today I called in sick to work.

In 20+ years as a professional I know I called in sick at least once when I wasn’t, maybe twice, but I didn’t make a habit of it. When I called in sick I was sick and I had certain criteria for doing it. If I were too sick to function well and actually work, or if I was too sick to safely get to or from work, or if I had a fever (which had to be high enough to feel like I had one before I even checked it anyway) I would consider calling in sick legitimate. There were times when I felt too sick to work, or when I was just sick but not really bad, that I went in anyway. If I got anyone else sick on those occasions I apologize.

I bring this up because there are those times when you wonder if people at work really believe that you are sick or if they think you just want a day or two off. When I called in it was late July, the weather was nice, and some may have thought that I just wanted to get out of work for a while. It was a Wednesday, so I could get a few days out of it. Like I said, I didn’t do that sort of thing, but the thought has crossed my mind.

I guess if anybody thought I was slacking off they that time changed their minds. Sometimes I put it as: I called in sick and never went back.

There’s something related that I, in my darkly humored way, find funny. After a certain number of days, my work, reasonably, wanted a doctor’s note explaining what was going on. I saw the form that my wife sent in to work to confirm that I was too sick to be there. There’s a space on it for the doctor to fill in the reason. The doctor wrote in “Critically ill”. I guess that’s a good reason.

Also, some time after I got home from the hospital, I was going through my email and I came across some from the 27th or the 28th, I don’t remember at this point. Apparently people at work were looking for some information about a project and they got in touch with me about it. As most people at work did, when I was home sick I still took calls and answered email and sometimes even worked from home. What I found funny was that I was being asked questions, and people were accepting my answers, but looking back on it with perspective I realized that at the time I had a fever of at least 102 and climbing. I hope I was giving them the right information.

Anyway, that struck me as funny as well. I told you I had a sick (pun intended) sense of humor.