None. I don't call in sick. It's a guilt thing.

The last time I called in sick is when something quite disturbing was happening to my body. I called my manager at 5 am from home, saying I didn't think I was going to be in today. At 12 noon I was in the OR having surgery.

Right now I'm taking the whole week over this damned bronchitis. (sometimes, I use sick days as 'mental health days,' because I rarely get sick).

Not to say I wouldn't call in sick if I had the flu or something. It just works out that I am hardly ever ill. Knock on wood.

Jonmc, it's interesting that you say that. My employer actually flat-out calls them sick/personal/mental health days, and encourages us to use them by the end of the year. And since I tend to tough it out unless I'm contagious, so far I've only taken a couple because I feel like otherwise I just wouldn't take them and then they will all disappear.

This year? Nah, no sick days. I took a bunch last year though for various -oscopies and long dr visits.

A couple, I guess. MuddDude gets sick at the drop of a hat, and I'll sometimes take one in solidarity with him, even though I could probably come to work. My working theory is that, if I'm some sort of Typhoid Mary who doesn't get sick but carries germs to the office, then I'm actually saving the company some money by staying home if MuddDude gets sick.

Also, the damned tetanus shot has made my left arm sore. Like it's full of concrete.

Very few. Maybe one or two, but I honestly can't remember. I'm pretty healthy. Because I work from home a couple of days a week, I use those days sometimes as mental health days where I can keep to myself the whole day. If I feel a cold coming on, I can bring work home with me, so it's not counted as sick time.

jon, tetanus shots tend to do that. take it from a farm kid who's had her share.

I rarely take "sick" days, for all the reasons SassHat listed up there, and I rarely take time off in general, but my boss doesn't mind it at all if us peons take mental health days (paid leave) when we aren't insanely busy. his only requirement is that none of us BS around, and just admit that we're playing hooky. so I leave a voicemail saying "i'm playing hooky..." and he does the same anytime he has a hawt golf date or a nooner with the wifey.

he will flat out send us home if he thinks we're contagious. coming to work whilst broadcasting some godawful plague is a good way to irritate him, and he's not an irritable dude.

1.5. I don't remember what the half day was for, but the full day was for an endoscopy. Since I'm leaving this job pretty soon, I think I'll just use my accumulated week's worth of sick leave as vacation time.

I take very few sick days. I'll come in if I'm not feeling great and promise to go home at noon but then never do. real sick days are never fun because, yes, I'm at home, but I can't do anything but lie on the couch and moan. However, once in a while I will take a Sanity Day and not feel one ounce of guilt.

Two this calendar year, but, er, 23 this rolling year. I had tonsillitis then food poisoning in Nov/ Dec. I can take mental health days whenever I want though - my TOIL balance has been consistent at around 180 hours for years (stupid 35 hour week. Honestly, who can do a full week's work in 35 hours?), so sometimes if I don't have any meetings I'll call in a TOIL day.

We can take six months sick on full pay, then half pay for six months before facing the medical capability procedure. This is great for if I get cancer again or something, but managing it in the staff can be really fuckin hard as it's so easy to take advantage of. I always send staff home if they're contagious - we've had measles, chicken pox, pinkeye, norovirus, and of course colds and the flu go round the scheme in the last two years, and staff spread it to the service users (some of whom are immuno-compromised) and vice versa. It's not worth it - go home!

I've never had a job before where I could freely take sick days, but we're allowed to keep up to 90 of them, so I'll probably just hang onto them for a while unless I do get sick.

It's a small office though, so if we are sick, we are encouraged to stay home because if we all get sick, we have to shut down.

I hoard my sick days throughout the year so I can use them when needed--which is to say, in the interval starting with Thanksgiving (when all the students come back from break with all the new germ strains they've picked up from families and friends), and running through registration crunch (when they are all in my office, streaming with phlegm and wiping their noses on their hands and then using my computer to log onto the reg system), and ending with finals week and the ramp-up to holidays (when everyone's remaining frail remnents of immune system fall victim to the onslaught of uber-stress). In the eleven years I've been doing academic advising, nine times I've gotten bronchitis for Christmas.