I am home sick. I’m not so sick as to need to be in bed all day. I probably could have popped some medicine and made it through the work day. But I always regret it when I do that. I end up sicker and I don’t really accomplish anything at work. So I can sit here in the comfort of my own home with my laptop and piddle away. I can sniff and sneeze without anyone noticing.

Of course, I will probably try to get something done. I want to do some work around the house and I brought home a book on CSS that I’ve been trying to read forever. I can probably polish that off today.

It’s funny how we feel guilty if we take a day and don’t do anything. I used to skip class at the first sign of illness and I felt horribly guilty. Of course, I probably could have sat through an hour of class; working for 8 hours is a little different. I mean, no one will really miss me if I’m not there. The world will not come to an end. And yet, the tug of guilt. Will they think I’m not a hard worker? That I’m lazy? Will they think I’m doing this just to get out of a meeting? I don’t think those things about other people. Why do I think they’re thinking it about me? Why do we do this to ourselves. It’s crazy.

The other thing about sick days or vacation days spent at home is that I start thinking about the wonderful freedom of controlling your own schedule. In some ways I like the forced schedule of working 9-5. It means that I can stop at 5 and not think about work until 9 the next day. Though I sometimes violate this, it’s an easy excuse to tell myself that no one expects me to work past 5 (and I don’t get paid for it) and so if task Y is a day late, big deal. But then sometimes, I wish I could simply do what I want when I want during the day. Having a day interrupted by meetings and email and phone calls means if I want to do something like read a book or write an article, it has to be done piecemeal or I have to escape to another location (and then people are wondering what the hell I’m up to and am I *really* working). And there’s the kid factor of being able to hang with them more than I do now. So sometimes I wish I had a job that allowed me to work on my own schedule, but I probably couldn’t do the kind of work I do like that and I like the work I do. But you know, I’ve changed careers like every 5 years or so, so it could happen again.

All this because I have a sore throat and stuffy nose. 🙂