I usually use sick days for doctors appointments for myself and kids. So maybe 3. This past year not sick at all. But there have been times where I’ll get the flu and be out for 3 days. Maybe three times in my whole career did I call out sick for mental health day. Been working 20 years.

I’m ready to be “sick” soon. Life has been stressful for a variety of reasons and I could use a day to regroup!

Anonymous wrote:Don’t you guys have to take sick days for medical screening appointments: yearly physical, Pap smear, mammogram, eventual colonoscopies etc?

I never had to take any days off in my 20’s but I do now that I’m in my 40’s!

I would not want a job where I had to account for my time like that. I can take a few hours off to take care of stuff like that without taking PTO

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I took no sick leave at all during my federal career, and my sick leave was added my length of service for pension calculation purposes, resulting in a larger lifetime pension. I was rarely actually ill, and when I was, or when I needed to go to a Dr's appt., I just took annual (vacation) leave, as only a limited amount of that could be rolled over from year to year and the excess would be lost if not used.

.

No kids?

i have a child. My wife was a stay-at-home Mom. If she was unavailable due to scheduling issues, and my child needed an adult's presence for some reason, I again took annual leave.

Translation- you were an absent father. Congrats, I guess.

Reminds me of an interview I had right out of college. Guy interviewing me was maybe 30 and asked me about willingness to stay late and work weekends as needed. I said, sure, so long as its reasonable. He pops back with "I've been here 6 years and the only day I didn't work some (including weekends) was the birth of my twins."

All I could think of was what a sh*tty father and husband he must have been. Imagine bragging to a rando interviewee, as a flex, that you didn't give your wife a single break with twins for six years?

I stood up, said I don't think we'll be a good match, thanked him for the time and walked. He then refused to validate my parking. LOL. Dodged a bullet.

Not hardly. I just didn't take sick leave to do things with my child, I took annual leave or engaged in the evenings and weekends. I was also in a role where I was on call 24/7, so sometimes I had to suddenly go to work at night or over a weekend; comp time allowed me to make those hours up during weekdays, providing other opportunities to engage before or after school.

Don't assume your approach is the only one which allows a parent to be present in a child's life, or that both parents need to divide child-related responsibilities identically every day. Burning up sick leave is only one way to provide for a child's needs.

0. A few hours here and there nearly entirely for medical appointments. I might call in late if I had a stomach bug or something but I WFH and if I'm sick I may as well be on my computer.

I should take more...

I used to use about half my sick days every year (so maybe 3 or 4). I definitely felt pressure not to use them because of the pressure to finish projects and be present at meetings and since remote work was generally an option I'd just work from home if I was contagious.

Then I had a horrible pregnancy and used all of my sick leave and had to dip into vacation leave just to get through because I was barely functional for about two and a half months (hypermesis gravidarum and a few other complications). Suddenly my sick leave felt too limited because I had real health issues and I started looking into disability.

Now I work for myself and... I never take sick days. Because it's money out of my own pocket. I work through illness all the time because I don't want to miss out on money or let down clients to whom I'm personally accountable. I have take two sick days in the last three years. One was for surgery (took off the day of the surgery and then worked from bed through my recovery) and the other was when I got the Covid vaccine the first time and had an extremely strong reaction was basically non-functional for 30 hours. I worked through actually having Covid even though I wasn't sleeping because the fever was too high and wouldn't come down with meds.

I look forward to retirement in part because I really struggle to find a balance with work. It feels like it's all or nothing. Plus as a parent even if you take sick days from work when you are sick it's hard to truly get a break -- my spouse and I do help each other when we're sick but kids just always need you. Even if you get a break from the physical work of parenting you are always on emotional call.

Anonymous wrote:Don’t you guys have to take sick days for medical screening appointments: yearly physical, Pap smear, mammogram, eventual colonoscopies etc?

I never had to take any days off in my 20’s but I do now that I’m in my 40’s!

Not all jobs require sick time for this. I just block off my calendar and go.

Don’t you guys have to take sick days for medical screening appointments: yearly physical, Pap smear, mammogram, eventual colonoscopies etc?

I never had to take any days off in my 20’s but I do now that I’m in my 40’s!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I took no sick leave at all during my federal career, and my sick leave was added my length of service for pension calculation purposes, resulting in a larger lifetime pension. I was rarely actually ill, and when I was, or when I needed to go to a Dr's appt., I just took annual (vacation) leave, as only a limited amount of that could be rolled over from year to year and the excess would be lost if not used.

.

No kids?

i have a child. My wife was a stay-at-home Mom. If she was unavailable due to scheduling issues, and my child needed an adult's presence for some reason, I again took annual leave.

Translation- you were an absent father. Congrats, I guess.

Reminds me of an interview I had right out of college. Guy interviewing me was maybe 30 and asked me about willingness to stay late and work weekends as needed. I said, sure, so long as its reasonable. He pops back with "I've been here 6 years and the only day I didn't work some (including weekends) was the birth of my twins."

All I could think of was what a sh*tty father and husband he must have been. Imagine bragging to a rando interviewee, as a flex, that you didn't give your wife a single break with twins for six years?

I stood up, said I don't think we'll be a good match, thanked him for the time and walked. He then refused to validate my parking. LOL. Dodged a bullet.

I used to take 5-10 days per year, mostly for little kids' illnesses/appointments. Now that they are teens, I take almost no sick days. (My good health is mostly good luck. So far!)

At my job we get PTO days, which are both vacation and sick. We have a use or lose policy. I use all my PTO every year, mostly just vacation days.

I’m a fed. Despite my DH’s very generous (unlimited) leave I basically use my sick leave as I earn it.

I had two kids before there was parental leave so that depleted my leave. I had earned a decent amount back and then after a few years got a concussion had had to miss 6 days of work completely plus other hours for appointments. Then my younger DD needed speech therapy and occupational therapy weekly - luckily my husband covers most of that. But if you factor in kids’ other illnesses (often I have to cover unplanned ones due to DH’s heavy meeting schedule), my recurring appointments, dentist, dermatologist, physical, etc (had a colonoscopy this year which was a day) I just can’t accumulate much. I have about a week’s worth of leave on the books.

My job/boss is super flexible with appointments, so I almost never have to take time for doctor or dentist appts. I can also wfh so it has to be pretty bad that I actually don’t work at all. I get 5 specific sick days (but tons of pto) and rarely use it all. But I don’t fault anyone for using time that they are entitled to!

A full sick day? I honestly don’t remember the last one. I have taken a few hours for migraines probably twice a year.

20 hours thus far.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I took no sick leave at all during my federal career, and my sick leave was added my length of service for pension calculation purposes, resulting in a larger lifetime pension. I was rarely actually ill, and when I was, or when I needed to go to a Dr's appt., I just took annual (vacation) leave, as only a limited amount of that could be rolled over from year to year and the excess would be lost if not used.

so, you gave the federal government a years salary back (at your highest salary!) in return for a 1.1% higher pension payment. bless you and your math acumen. 😭

You can take leave and have a smaller pension, or you can not take leave and have a higher pension in perpetuity. Your annual income while employed is exactly the same in either scenario until you run out of leave to take. You do work more hours under the second scenario, but you are compensated for it later through your pension. There is no additional compensation for taking sick leave, just the ability to not work those hours.

I totally enjoy having two buckets for leave as a fed rather than just one for "PTO".

On average 2-3 sick days a year...some folk still telework when sick and I don't do that, if I don't feel well I take my SL to rest til I'm 100% again....this year I haven't had as much as a sniffle though. I took a day when I got my eyes dilated and a tooth extracted so far.

When I see that ending balance for annual use or lose I take it ALL before the year is out for sure!