Alternative Medicine: Sick Days

In my working life there have been several days I planned stepping out into the road without looking (properly) just to get a couple of days off. It seems to me, that with shit jobs, it appears more likely that one would call in with croaky morning throat sound effects and not be believed, and why? Because your hatred of the job must be apparent to others in the office yes? Therefore every time you contemplate calling in sick for normal sickness, hot flushes, cough and a banging headache it seems these symptoms become signs of deviousness and a calculated way of receiving more days off without booking annual leave.

Here are some cunning ways to call in sick to a job that may not believe you would genuinely EVER be sick just because they know you hate being underpaid and bored all day long*

Food poisoning Now this is a pretty straight forward one, but it doesn't do any harm to mention you're off to Heston Bloomingdale's several times in the lead up to your proposed day(s) off. Remember though, thou doth protest too much isn't a cliché for nothing. Don't mention it more than twice - let it sink into several co-workers’ consciousness but not their frontal lobe. Your second day off is because you've only managed to eat two digestives and you brought back up your toast when you were getting ready to return to work.

Burglary Two options here: you can either pay someone last month's salary to smash up your office, or more practically you can wake up to find OH NO the TV's gone and my auntie's gold heirlooms.

Falling off the ferry Now - this one is rather geographically specific but let's think of ferry as being any part of your journey to work that involves water. A canal, river or puddle will do. No-one wants to sit next to someone slowly mouldering in their swivel chair and smelling like frogspawn. Downsides include, risk of death by boat or pneumonia and worse - you may have to attend the office to prove your incapable of doing anything but ‘working from home’.

Getting run over Now this may seem a little extreme in practice but it's time consuming planning this one off event properly - helping you wend away the hours in work the day before your tragic mishap. Several things to bear in mind. Firstly, do you want to get bumped first thing, on the coffee run, or at lunch? Secondly, how do you go about calling in, which in turn effects the third point of consideration, did your collision involve a trip to A&E? Fourthly, injuries, obviously broken bones can be a challenge to fake so stick to mild concussion and large bruises in 'embarrassing' places. i.e. a bruise on the shin maybe available for morbid colleagues to peer at, stick with ass and belly as you're least likely to get these out on a bad day, let alone when they're all yellow and blue. If you go for the ass, remember it’s going to hurt to sit at a desk for too long (more than twenty minutes).

You've decided that you'd rather dance around in racoon poo and have rotten milk in your tea than go into work this morning. ‘Nuff said.


So, it may seem like taking a day off is as complicated as installing wired intranet system for fifteen people in subzero conditions and gale force icy winds but it is immeasurably more fun. Try it, and for tips on getting hit by a car please feel free to contact Ms Caitlin Skinner who was once bruised by one of the pesky polluting machines on Princess St.
(If you like your job this is not for you, as we all know if anything but a cheeky pest urchin devoid of stimulation/pocket money in the work place you only take genuine sick days if you're trusted to do your job well regardless.)


*No businesses were harmed in the writing of this blog, just my soul, oh look, another chunk just fell to the floor with a gigantuous clunk.