They will notice, they will appreciate it, and they will reward you with even more work.
Exactly. So many jobs in my early 20s where I’d work my ass off, get thrown into a manager position, gain substantially more responsibilities, and then end up making less money than half the staff a year later.
How long were your early 20s?
Probably like 10-12 years
Two kinds of employees. The irreplaceable widgets in the soulless machine of industry and the hot-swappable cogs.
Curiously, it’s the irreplaceable widgets that get paid the worst, because the company has a vested interest in keeping these costs minimized long term. The real money is as an expendable, as the jobs are created when the industry is growing and flush with cash to blow on empty suit executives and PowerPoint brain consultants. And when the party is over, they’re the ones with all the networking connections to jump ship soonest. Meanwhile, the irreplaceable widgets are the ones wedged into a sinking ship.
If you work hard and never use any sick days, you’ll be secure in your position at Lehman Brothers or Silicon Valley Bank as the last guy left to turn the lights out when the business fails. If you’re at Deloitte or Capspire or PWC, you’re already on to the next host organism long before your old firm even knows it’s got a terminal case of rot.
Yeah, I appreciate when my grocery store has an awesome sale on the products I wanted to buy, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to pay them more or anything. To your company, you’re just a product.
Currently at the office on a Monday morning after they fired they guy above me a few months back and are now expecting me to not only do my job but his job as well. They raised my pay by $1 an hour, by the way. Jokes on them because I’m putting in exactly as much effort as one should while expected to do two peoples jobs for low pay and it’s not that much work at all.
I’m in a similar situation, my entire team of 6 was laid off except for me. Now I’m on a team of 3 with an AI and expect to do more now than before. I’ve told them numerous times the AI has only slowed us down due to the numerous mistakes it makes but they don’t like hearing things that make them question their “brilliant” decision making abilities.
I’ve decided to in a way to quiet quit and literally let the AI do everything like they wanted. I know its making tons of mistakes but I simply don’t care anymore. Things will go to shit and deadlines will be missed I’ll blame the AI and tell them I was told numerous times its great and to use it. I’ll probably still get fired but then they will lose the last person who understands all of the projects my team had worked on for years. I’ll be fine but I can’t say the same about them.
This is how you’re supposed to respond to awful management directives. Follow it to the T and when it fails tell them why.
If you ‘do the right thing’ and create work-arounds and hidden fixes to problems management created, they will think their decisions were absolutely justified and were the correct course of action. They’ll pat themselves on the back, give you an attaboy, and move into the next disaster with misplaced confidence, all without ever seeing all the cracks in their plan that you silently filled as you carried the weight on your back.
Last week I took three days of sick leave while not being sick and enjoyed every single second of it🥳
Gen-X here. I and many of my contemporaries learned that lesson by watching our parents. Hence the nonconformist “slacker” start and the high rate of job hopping in the 90’s and 2Ks. Somewhere along the way (looking at you 2008), that changed.
My name is Eric Stonestreet
I used to be a clown
I’m going to spend nearly a decade playing one of the most amazing gay guys ever on a highly public and beloved TV show, and I’m gonna make millions of dollars doing it
Life makes clowns of us all. Sometimes, that’s the best thing that can happen to you.
How do You use a sick day?
By being lazy, obviously. Get back to work.
Fizbo the clown is no fool, I’ll have you know.
Pagliacci the clown goes to the doctor. He says he’s depressed, that life seems harsh and cruel in a lonely threatening world. The doctor tells him that the treatment is simple, and that they should go to the monster truck rally this sunday sunday sundaay. So they do and have a great time, and it’s pretty good first date
We’re having a major go-live this month. Management wanted someone to visit on the third (when we observe the holiday). I volunteered because: I’m close, my kids are all grown, and I’m technically part of the management team.
While I was there, there was an issue. I dutifully reached out to one of the people managing some processes to see if her processes could be causing the issue. She didn’t reply.
I told one of the managers on site that day that I was proud of her for ignoring me, that she was doing exactly what I told her she should do, and I’d be upset if she had responded.
It turns out she never got the message until today. I told her if she had actually replied I would have yelled at her for reading work messages on the holiday.
It’s a weird kind of psychosis. I had to ask her, but I was happier not getting the response than I would have been if she had replied.
Is this a linkedin shaped joke? If not, why the hell reach out if you’re so adamant against her actually replying? If a collegue of mine has time off, no chance in hell I’ll actually call or write them.
Primarily because if I didn’t reach out, my manager would have. Except he wouldn’t have stopped with a teams chat message. He would have started calling her cell phone, personal phone, etc.
When I said I’d reach out to her, I circumvented that. It gave us time for him to move onto the next thing.
He’s getting better, but when he panics he falls back into bad behavior.
Unfortunately they DO notice when you actually take sick days. Avoiding taking sick days isn’t so much about thinking you’ll get rewarded as it is about trying not to get punished.
I threw up on my boss once. He doesn’t bother me anymore. Mainly cuz I got fired, but it wasn’t for throwing up on him, no, I just fucked his wife while his dog watched. He walked in on us. It was an affair of an affair, I gotta say, at least I finished, and then I threw up. Spermicide does that to me for some reason, so I just raw dog it with whomever, or let them bareback me.
If everyone was like you my friend we wouldn’t need unions
Prostitutes would still need unions

Art, obviously
Imagine having a set amount of days you’re allowed to be sick and are expected not to use them when you actually are sick.
The US is not failing. It has always been fucked up.
You make my current government look reasonable even when it’s making using healthcare as much of an annoyance and throwing as many obstacles in your way as possible.
You make my current government look reasonable
Do you understand how little that narrows it down?
The US is failing, though. The entire world has always been fucked up. Every place has its problems. There was a point of divergence between the US and countries that have things better off where the US stopped improving, though. This moment happened after FDR died in 1945. With his death, the movement to universal healthcare died. Then, just two years later, the Taft–Hartley Act passed and gutted the power of unions. That same year, McCarthyism became a thing. And after that, it just took a while for the momentum to die and for everything gained to be lost. If we want to look at the moment of failure for the US, it happened long before Trump, Bush, Reagan, and Nixon. Henry Wallace was the vice president of FDR from 1941-1945. Then, the party decided to replace him with a conservative, Harry Truman. This decision is ultimately what screwed the US. Had FDR refused to replace Henry Wallace, history would have taken a very different path.
I remember once I had an interview and they told me the number of sick days and I was so confused lol. How could you possibly determine the number of times I will be sick before it happens.
If I’m sick I’m not coming I don’t care what number you wrote down lol
You’re allowed to be sick more days, they just won’t pay you for it.
No big deal, the government does.
My favorite interview experience was at a company that listed the expected salary on the job posting. Then when the question of my salary came up I told them I was happy with what they said they offered in the ad. It was in line with other ads for similar positions. That was not the right answer. They said that if I was actually passionate about the company that I would have made a low offer to save the department money. I remarked that I wasn’t an employee yet so the department and companies wellbeing wasn’t one of my priorities. I didn’t get the job, although I wasn’t upset I didn’t.
Jesus fckn Christ, what a shithole company. Massive bullet dodged there.
I have a set amount of sick days too unfortunately.
180 days in a year. After that the government says tough luck, work or starve.
Won’t happen here either. If you are sick, your employer has to pay your regular salary for six weeks. After that, your health insurance pays Krankengeld (usually 70% of your gross salary) for up to 72 more weeks. After that, unemployment insurance covers you.
Half the year? Is this satire? 😂
I’m part time, and if I don’t miss anything, I “earn” 19 hours of “vacation time” / PTO a year. There is no “sick time” at all. 😂
Wow, almost 2.5 whole work days a year?!?! Slow your roll there Rockefeller /s
I’m taking my sick days, but I also work hard and I’ve been rewarded pretty well for it.
Oh they’ll notice alright… Then take advantage of you by giving you more tasks but not more compensation while they appreciate you being such a rube they can control.
“Everyone has to learn this lesson the hard way”
No, only if you’re an idiot. A lot of people realise that isn’t true well before they’re old enough to work.
And it’s especially common to not realise this until well into adulthood in the US because of the level of capitalistic brain washing that happens there.
I’ve specifically discussed this with friends, both from my country (Sweden) and other countries (including outside europe) and this fucked mindset just isn’t there for any of us.John Wayne Gacy is a meme now?
Actually the company benefits if you take days off. It’s a risk leveling benefit for them if your PTO is a liability they must pay when you leave.

















