Sick Day

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I still haven't quite gotten used to sick days in Finland since, you know, you can stay home when you feel like shit and you don't have to worry if you have to take personal time to do it since there is no set allotment of days per year that you can take. I stayed at home and slept all day yesterday and I probably should have stayed home today, too, but it's hard to change such deeply ingrained habits like going to work when you're not feeling poorly enough to be hospitalized. Short of having ebola or barfing up a lung, it's just another workday.

I remember having a job where the HR drone explained to me in the first few days that I was the lucky recipient of one week of paid holiday time that could be taken after I had completed a full year of employment as well as 3 whole sick days that I could use after my 6-month probationary period. She said this very cheerfully as though I must be excited at the prospect of a whole week away from work after putting in a year of countless hours of unpaid overtime. I tried very hard not to roll my eyes and mention that I had 6 weeks of holiday time every year at my previous job. Of course, that should have been my first big clue that leaving the lower paying womb of academia was a bad idea. That was the stingy end of the spectrum but on the whole it wasn't terribly uncommon and still isn't. This is why most people in the US drag their ass to work when sick so that they can infect their coworkers and save their sad allotment of sick days as 'mental health days' to augment their holiday time instead.