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Sick Day!

Started by Beagle 2, May 08, 2007, 09:37:31 AM

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Beagle 2

I am all sniffly and poorly today, but who cares, a day off sick for me and a nice continuation of the long weekend. Obviously there's negatives to being ill on this of all days, the sarcy tone of voice my boss had this morning made it pretty obvious she sniffed an all-day bank holiday drinking session, but she's WRONG, I am proper ill so nuts to you.

I love sick days. Obviously it has to be either a) a lie or b) something not serious enough to get in the way of your all-day lounging and catching up on appalling daytime telly. They're the best sort of day off because you don't feel guilty for doing fuck all.

As for lying, well it usually is alcohol-related but there have been a few times when I've thought "No. Just not today". There's a certain process, deciding in bed, going past the point of no return and then counting down to the dreaded phone-call. Got to be prepared but not sound too prepared. Got to make sure I know exactly who I'm getting through to and what the fall-out's going to be. Even if I'm genuinely ill, got to ham it up at least just a little bit, maybe hold one nostril shut. And sniff obviously. Always room for a sniff.  

And then when it's over the glorious feeling of relief, the whole day stretching out in front of you. Maybe snuggle back in bed, imagining exactly what you're supposed to be doing at that precise moment, and how pleased you are you're not doing it.

Ever used a ludicrous excuse to pull a sickie? What's your phone technique? And if you haven't set off for work yet, have a look outside. Miserable intit? Go on, make the call. It must be something you ate. You know it makes sense.

I can't find Adam and Joe's guide to pulling a sickie on YouTube, boo!

Neville Chamberlain

Crikey! This thread's reminded me that I haven't had a sick day in 8 years. Is this some kind of record?!?

Hobes

Regarding the phone call, I've been told the best method (by a self-proclaimed sickie expert) is to lay on the bed with your head dangling over the edge upside-down.

Apparently, you get just the right amount of nasal quality without sounding strained or put-on.

Me personnally? I just get the missus to make the call. She tells them I'm still asleep, and she doesn't want to wake me as I was up all night shitting/puking/crying/in agony/all of these. Never failied to convince yet.

duckorange

My colleague actually txted in sick the other week. Pathetic.

Go With The Flow

EDIT: Never mind.

I was actually sorely tempted to do a sickie today (moreso than the general 'ugh I can't be bothered' morning moan), but I decided against it.

mothman

I just had four days off sick, so that's me buggered for pulling sickies, which means that two days off I need this month (for kitchen-fitting-related purposes) will have to be booked as holiday.

Beagle 2

Quote from: "Jim"Crikey! I haven't had a sick day in 8 years. Is this some kind of record?!?

Be careful, I think those were Steve Irwin's last words...

Neville Chamberlain

I work on the 4th floor of an office building in the middle of Germany, so the chances of me getting gored by a stringray are probably less than about 1 in 20.

Milo

Quote from: "duckorange"My colleague actually txted in sick the other week. Pathetic.

Teehee. I used to do this in a previous job.

SOTS

I love sick days. I normally sleep half a day and then get up, listen to a bit of music and best of all, watch the first showing of Neighbours at 1.40pm. Which school never allows me to do.

But the reason i'm here today is because it's an inservice day, but I will actually be here for the next month because of study leave. Possibly the best idea ever. A month off, with a few exams interspersed inbetween long periods of laziness.

Plus, the joy of being off when all the younger lot are still at school. Which gives the added bonus of being able to go into Edinburgh and bowl in empty alleys, and watch films in empty cinemas. Joy!

Cack Hen

That sounds a little bit depressing, to be honest.

Emma Raducanu

The worst part about 'pulling sickies' at uni, that is to say just not turning up to seminars, was that you didn't need to phone in beforehand. Instead the explaining was left till the next seminar when you'd be asked where you were. Usually I'd have forgotten anyway but the blatant stumbling 'err yeh I was illll... yeh that's right, ill', was totally transparent. I don't think this has prepared me well for pulling them in employment. I'd likely ham the phonecall up too much by fake coughing and rounding it all off with pretending to puke up and chirpily exclaiming 'See you tomorrow!'

Eight Taiwanese Teenagers

I am off work today. Kind of delayed annual leave as I couldn't take some I wanted in the last 'holiday year' as it were. Been doing nothing. Reminds me of being unemployed - oh happy days!

I took the cat to the Vet at the end of your road this morning.  I did seriously think about bringing the camera on the off-chance I saw you going to work (for the now past its use-by date "take a sneaky photo of you" challenge.)  Just as well I didn't bother.

Garam

Gawd, i've had enough sick days to last a lifetime. I earned myself the nickname 'Monday Boy' at school, 'cause nine times out of ten, I didn't show up on the first school day of the week (double geography, double chemistry.) I've carried it on into college and have lost hundreds of pounds of potential EMA payments. Luckily, i've found myself doing a subject which I have a flair for, so I'm getting full marks in exams with a low attendance rating. It's ace, I can act like a smug Byronic loner who benefits from isolation, free from the decaying presence of the other proles. Back in school, the low attendance combined with the dodgy attention span mostly resulted in a load of C's and D's.


I am getting a bit bored of it now, though. Too much free time. Far too much time devouring fiction results in disillusionment and spotting clichés everywhere ("Cuh! A male character! That is so typical.") Isolated escapism makes you a bit of a tedious mate, too. While you're picking apart their "alright mate, how's it goin?" for not advancing the plot or developing their character, they're finding you a boring git, because all you ever talk about is books, films and TV shows, 'cause that's all you ever do during the day. I'm contemplating getting a factory job with immigrant hours as a form of detox. I don't want to become one of those unbearable gits who can't handle the slightest bit of work, or, even worse, those tedious tedious wankers who define their personality based on their media intake.


Still, a good lie-in can't be beat.

SOTS

Quote from: "Cack Hen"That sounds a little bit depressing, to be honest.

What about it exactly?

It's really not that bad. It's just the novelty being able to go places without being surrounded by kids. Because we've been at school all of our lives, our only ever holidays are school ones, which means anywhere we go the places are always mobbed with kids and families. When we go to places during study leave, they're practically deserted and far more fun.

(When I say "we," i'm referring to me and my best friend. Who do this every time we have study leave because we really don't have a lot else to do. Apart from study of course.)

Cack Hen

Okay, it's just you didn't say "we" before. I assumed you were going bowling on your own.

SOTS

Quote from: "Cack Hen"Okay, it's just you didn't say "we" before. I assumed you were going bowling on your own.

Oh, fuck no. What'd be the point in that? It's all about the competition! That and the fact that it only costs us £2.50 each on our student entitlement cards.

Make me smile

Quote from: "SOTS"
Quote from: "Cack Hen"Okay, it's just you didn't say "we" before. I assumed you were going bowling on your own.

Oh, fuck no. What'd be the point in that? It's all about the competition! That and the fact that it only costs us £2.50 each on our student entitlement cards.

Heh, I once tried to work out what the most depressing thing to do on your own is, bowling won by a long chalk.

rudi

Quote from: "Make me smile"
Quote from: "SOTS"
Quote from: "Cack Hen"Okay, it's just you didn't say "we" before. I assumed you were going bowling on your own.

Oh, fuck no. What'd be the point in that? It's all about the competition! That and the fact that it only costs us £2.50 each on our student entitlement cards.

Heh, I once tried to work out what the most depressing thing to do on your own is, bowling won by a long chalk.

Taking 'fun' photos?

Playing board games ooh no table tennis ooh! no: hide n seek.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Surely going out to the pub on your own for the sole purpose of drinking alone is worse than bowling. I haven't been bowling on my own but I imagine you could distract yourself from the spirit-crushing banality of it all by having a competition with yourself.

rudi

Quote from: "Shoulders?-Stomach!"Surely going out to the pub on your own for the sole purpose of drinking alone is worse than bowling.

God no - I love being in pubs by myself, especially during the day.

I either sit, eat, drink and read or I wander to the bar and start nattering to the barflies.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Yes, eating and reading and talking to people is fine..

But for the sole purpose of drinking alone, that's got to be grim.

Cack Hen

Ever been to a school prom on your own? No, neither have I. But I almost did until I realised that would be the single most depressing thing you could possibly do.

non capisco

The only problem I have with pulling a sickie is the bit in the afternoon when you're meant to ring up and tell them whether or not you think you're going to be well enough to come in tomorrow. Even by half 12 that's looming, spoiling your enjoyment of a day dossing about. It's like phoning in sick all over again. You have to adjust your voice and play act for a second time if you're pulling a fast one, something I've never felt particuarly good at.

chand

I was terrible at taking sick days, for some reason I felt some kind of misguided loyalty to my (part-time, weekend) employers even though they never gave a warm shit about me. The one time I had some time off sick from there I'd actually turned up on the Saturday pale as hell in cold sweats and barely able to stand, communicating in a series in incomprehensible grunts, until they took enough pity on me to send me home. I once brought a girl home on a Saturday night, and upon waking on the Sunday morning she asked me to ring in sick in order to spend the day, quite frankly, fucking. Instead I decided that work needed me and dumped her at a nearby bus stop at 9am while I fucked off for another dreary day at work. Only to get there and have to work harder because of the inevitable weekend drinking casualties that would ring in sick.

I did recently have the luxury of a full five-day week off work (with weekends making it 9 glorious days), with the guilt-free excuse that I was going in on the Monday to have an operation and the doctors had told me that I must be as lazy as possible for a week. It was fucking brilliant. I love being off work. At one stage as a student I was just working weekends and skipping entire weeks, and I never got bored.

buttgammon

I've technically taken almost the entire school year off sick, although I had a valid reason because I was traumatised by the place and no alternative was offered apart from them sending me bits of work home occasionally. I did go about twice, but I felt like I wanted to die afterwards. I went once in early December when I just went to a single maths lesson and sat alone on the edge of a table, and a few weeks later I went to two lessons, both of which I spent playing poker, swearing, making a nuisance of myself to girls and falling over on my chair while laughing (I am usually very quiet, but I went just to be disruptive).

And to be more on-topic I hardly ever went, anyway. My sleep pattern is so fucked up that I last got up before about 10 on a regular basis when I was about 11, and I'm now 16. I would usually only attend afternoon lessons as a result and sometimes I just wouldn't bother going in at all. In spite of this, I haven't played truant in my entire life. It was just a case of me saying to my mum "I'm not going to school" and her either doting on me and saying "You aren't well. Is there anything I can get you?" or telling me she would go to prison if I didn't to go but she wasn't going to make me.

I did always have a big problem with non-attendance. I'm generally not very punctual, but it's been far worse with school. I briefly started reception but I refused to go and I would just get upset and distressed so my mum didn't take me. The school just put it down to the fact that my dad died about a year before and sent social workers and a counsellor round, but I still wouldn't go to school. The counsellor moved away and I refused to see another one, so that ended as well. The council decided they would pay for a private tutor to come to the house weekly to teach me, so I started to be taught properly but I wasn't in school and didn't return until I went up to junior school. The other children were cruel to me and I felt very isolated, so I didn't want to go and ended up only attending sporadically. Social workers would sometimes force me to go, but that made it worse. I was once dragged there kicking and screaming, and I took it out on the headmaster. I kicked him in the balls, and it's fortunate he was very kind and understanding and didn't expel me. I made a bit of progress towards the end of my first year of junior school, attending regularly and making some friends, but it got worse again in peaks and troughs in the next two years. My attendance became patchy again and social workers coming to the house to take me to school became a regular occurrance. One of them, a nice Scouse bloke called Craig drove me to school sometimes and he encouraged me to go more, but I still had very bad days. Once, my mum and my aunt had to grab me by the arms and literally drag me in. I didn't eat my sandwiches when I was in school as a protest against me having to go there and my mum got the staff to make sure I ate every little bite. Some other kids from my class saw them check I'd eaten it all and told everyone, humiliating me.

It was, however, much better in my last year of junior school. I had a settled and close-knit group of absolutely fantastic friends, and I was enjoying myself. I went to school virtually every day of the year with no problems. I remember the summer I left primary school as being possibly the happiest time of my life, hot and sunny every day, playing badminton in the park, staying over at friend's houses for the night, watching wrestling and playing computer games. Most of these friends went to different secondary schools and I've hardly had a true friend since.

From start to finish, secondary school has been shit. I attended frequently in the first year until my sleep pattern got disturbed and I couldn't get up before about 11. My school merged with another local school the following year and I had to spend the whole academic year on a temporary site. It was like a prison, and I tried to miss most of it just to avoid the cold, lonely place. My grandfather died that summer, but I thought things were looking up with school turning to a shiny new site. It started off better, but I had less friends than ever before and everybody seemed against me. I stopped attending after a couple of weeks and only went occassionally afterwards. The year after was better. I made a few friends again (not that I ever saw any of them out of school) and discovered Dostoevsky, this place (well, rediscovered I suppose as I'd lurked here before) and girls. Then I got visciously beaten up twice on the last two days of term and it went downhill again. My exams start next week now, and my time 'in' school is coming to an end.

Sorry to get all like this.

Jack Shaftoe

I really like going to the cinema on my own, but apparently to the other people in the queue, I am doing the most depressing thing in the world, and I feel uilty for bringing them down.

So I tend to go in the afternoon when there's fewer people.

EDIT: Er, that was written before buttgammon's post.

Beagle 2

Fuck BG, sorry to hear that! School can be such a fucked up and inescapable place for some people, but it sounds like things will soon change once you can start making your own choices. Get yourself a reason to get out of bed and you'll get out of bed and all that, however trite that may sound.

This sick day is pretty shit actually, I' m much sicker than yesterday (yes, I'm in bed with my sister etc...). Being grown up is shite, where's me mam bringing me puzzle books and bottles of lucozade eh? EH? Not bladdy getting paid any more now either, so fond am I of chucking them that I've used up my allowance for the year.

Still, talking to mortgage brokers in rude health or sunbathing with a sore throat all day? Hey, no pain no gain.

Beagle 2

What's up wi't cinema on your own? It wouldn't have occurred to me that was considered "saaad" to be honest! Unless there's a sex scene, in which case it's hands where they can be seen, and you may like to gaze around the room a bit as if you've not even noticed what's going on.