Matthew Yglesias » Thoughtful

Dec 5th, 2008 at 11:26 am

Thoughtful

Just noticed that CAP has a form you can fill out to request sick leave in advance. That’s a nice gesture — I don’t like faking.

Comments
23

23 Responses to “Thoughtful”

Brad L Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Many places now use the term ‘personal leave,’ indistinguishable from sick leave. Much more civilized.
arthur Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Speaking from experience, such a form is quite useful when your doctor tells you and your wife to check into the hospital next Tuesday for a kidney donation/transplant operation. We were both working at the time, and she was perfectly healthy.
Kent Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 11:48 am
And you just noticed this?

Most organizations do the same. And most adults with children use sick leave for things like taking your kid to the doctor or dentist, or taking yourself to the doctor or dentist. Appointments that you have scheduled in advance.

Maybe tomorrow you can post about how you just discovered that your employer conveniently deducts your taxes and SS from your paycheck so you don’t have to.
Matthew G. Saroff Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
You have never scheduled a medical procedure in advance?

All but 2 of my inpatient stays in hospital, and the first was my birth, were scheduled at least a week in advance.
peep Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Who are you trying to fool Matt?

We read your blog, Matt — we know perfectly well you have never taken a day off.
Lon Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
My company does this in an even more double-speak sort of way. Instead of sick leave we have unscheduled leave which can be used as sick leave or anything else. And, as you might have guessed, we have a form with which to schedule our unscheduled leave.
mistermix Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Matt, you’re clearly a smart guy but you are also obviously very young. Enjoy your youth and good health, but bookmark that form. Someday you’ll need it to schedule a medical procedure, and you’ll realize that you’re not indestructible.
Nate Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
“Hey, look at this nifty thing my employers do! . . . Wait, what do you mean that’s pretty much standard practice in all corporate, government and non-profit workplaces? And you mean that people actually take sick leave for reasons other than just the fact that they don’t feel well enough to go to the office when they wake up?”

Sometimes the naivete is charming. Other times, not so much . . .
Warren Terra Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
peep, I’m pretty sure Matt has taken a day off. At least once, though it’s hardly typical of him. He made a post about it, as I recall.
Joe Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I was perplexed by this as well at my then-new (now current) job, but was told the point is that you are suppose to submit sick leave requests in arrears.
Easy as Pie Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
What Mistermix said.

I guess Matt can’t be expected to be expert in widely-accepted Human Resources practices, but yes Sick Leave isn’t just for the sniffles.

I really do try not to get all righteous or condescending about the limited life experience of many of these clever young men and women who predominate in the left political blogosphere. But really, for those of us with children and those of us who are responsible, y’know, for someone other than ourselves, this glib post really is borderline insulting.
Nat Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Yeah, Matt is clearly not a parent.

Nor is he old enough to actually have to schedule significant medical procedures in advance. Just think of the chemo, bypasses, and reconstructive surgeries he has to look forward to scheduling. Or (hopefully) not. Chemo is one of those every other week sorts of things that goes on for many months, like clock work. Yet work continues. One has to eat, after all.

Mortality sneaks up on you. Think of this paperwork as just one part of keeping it at bay.
dds Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I really do try not to get all righteous or condescending about the limited life experience of many of these clever young men and women who predominate in the left political blogosphere. But really, for those of us with children and those of us who are responsible, y’know, for someone other than ourselves, this glib post really is borderline insulting.

Hmm. I really do try not to get all righteous or condescending about the limited life experience of those many clever professional-class men and women whose employers actually do offer an array of benefits and treat their employees with some degree of dignity and respect. But really, for those of us who, y’know, have sh*tty jobs and work three of them and have to fake sickness in order to, say, be there for your wife’s effing colonoscopy appointment because your boss is a jerk, etc, etc, comments like this really are borderline insulting. Not everybody works a “nice” job. Hell, even when I worked as a public school teacher and had nice orange sick-leave forms to submit, 3 of the 5 I submitted were “rejected” on technicality (a fiance is not a wife, yet, and a sick fiance is not a sick wife). So I had to fake it. And I sure as —- wasn’t alone.

“Hey, look at this nifty thing my employers do! . . . Wait, what do you mean that’s pretty much standard practice in all corporate, government and non-profit workplaces? And you mean that people actually take sick leave for reasons other than just the fact that they don’t feel well enough to go to the office when they wake up?”

Ever occur to you that some people have to “fake” urgent sickness in order to go to those appointments because their employer would just demand they reschedule the appointment rather than miss work? It’s not a unique or even an infrequent occurrence for those with McJobs. Again, I think by “corporate, government and non-profit” you’re unduly restricting the range of job experience folks might have, especially young folks.

I was perplexed by this as well at my then-new (now current) job, but was told the point is that you are suppose to submit sick leave requests in arrears.

I had a job like that… and if the sick leave was “denied” for whatever reason, then you had your wages reduced accordingly. Never needed sick leave at that time, so I was lucky, but others were hurt by the practice.

Man, a couple people have nice jobs and they start to think everybody gets treated like they do. That’s every bit as naive as Matt’s thought that “sick leave” = “time off for not wanting to go into work”.
Lila Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Whoa. Don’t use age as a proxy for health. Matt is young AND HEALTHY. I’m a 23-year old woman with no kids. You would never be able to tell I had health problems by looking at me. However, unless you have had cancer or a similar long-term, serious illness, you haven’t come close to the number of hospital visits (too many to count) and general anasthesia knockouts (more than 25) I’ve needed. And having kids doesn’t automatically give you maturity and life experience, so stop with the parental self-righeousness already. I hope that neither Matt nor anyone else reading this who might be confused by his employer’s policy ever has to schedule real sick leave for themselves.
miguel Says:
December 6th, 2008 at 12:52 am
Oooh! I have to make a comment putting down Yglesias because I also have a similar form at my job. He’s so stupid to point out something so obvious! What a naive young idiot he is making such dumb useless observations. I’m so much smarter and experienced than he is that I’ll keep coming to his blog over and over to point out how dumb and uninteresting all his many posts are!
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23 Responses to “Thoughtful”

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