I h8 being sick

Not that I imagine anyone actually likes being sick. But I really, really hate it. My bronchitis-related coughing and tiredness led me to call in sick both yesterday and today. I have just been too tired to actually be productive and I’m probably spreading germs to all my co-workers.1. And I really, really hate calling in sick.  Of the 9.5 months I worked in 2007, I only took one sick day and that was the day I got my wisdom teeth out – I scheduled my sick day for the least possible disruption!  I seem to have inherited my father’s “work ethic.2” My father, you see, is obsessed with perfect attendance. He’s been at his current job for ~14 years. And in that 14 years, he has never missed a day. Not. One. Single. Day. And he has never been late to work. Not once in 14 years. At his previous job, where he installed transmissions in Mack Trucks before the factory closed down, he could tell you each of the individual days he missed in the 20+ years he worked there. “The day your sister was born,” he would tell me, “And the day you were born. I took a day to go to your grandmother’s funeral and a day to go to your grandfather’s funeral. There was the time I had pneumonia. I took an afternoon off once to go to my good friend’s funeral.”  So I have this crazy idea that calling in sick means I’m bad.  I’m not dedicated to my work.  I’m weak.  Objectively, I know all this is ridiculous.  I know that going to work when I’m sick would only mean that I’m not resting, not getting better, dragging out the illness.  Plus, I’m wouldn’t even be all that productive if I were at work, because I’m so damn tired.  Not to mention potentially infecting everyone around me.  But my gut reaction is still to feel guilty about missing two whole days of work!

GAH!!!  There was just a spider crawling on my couch!!  Right fucking next to me!!  Here I was, innocently proofreading the first overlong paragraph of my blog posting and a big goddamn motherfucking spider comes crawling along, less than a foot from where I am sitting!  It’s like the motherfuckers *know.*  They *know* the terror they instill in me.  They smell my fear and they are evil.  Now I forget where I was even going with this blog posting.  Is this week over yet?

1And seeing as I work in a hospital, it’s not very kind of me to go there spreading my icky germs to people who really don’t need to be exposed to any more germs than they already are!
2Which I usually call “work ethic to the point of stupidity.” The man went to work with shingles, for god’s sake. Shingles! And he works in a factory on a very, very hot oven making brake parts, where you have to wear coveralls and it’s very, very, stupidly, ridiculously hot2
3I know this because I worked there too, for a summer3 during my undergrad.
4Longest four months of my life!

Comments |5|

Re: BethCancel

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  • Hope you’re feeling better soon. But since you’ve lost your place, can I ask you something off topic?
    You don’t know anything about dog nutrition, do you? In particular, if you didn’t want to feed any commercial food – what “recipe” could a person mix together to make a balanced diet?
    I know this isn’t your field of expertise but maybe you did something in school related to this?
    (I saw a rather disturbing documentary on CBC last night. http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/dogsbreakfast.html ).
    P.S. I hope you’re not offended by this question. None intended.

    Reply

  • You know I’m not a big believer in sickness. I’m sorry, I was born this way. The part of my brain that’s supposed to make me sympathetic to the sick is just broken. In short: stop faking with the fake sickness already.

    Reply

  • Hey Julie! Alas, I don’t know anything at all about dog nutrition (and, nope, not offended by the question, I just never studied any animal nutrition). Have you asked your vet?

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