Never feel guilty for taking sick days
You might have noticed I haven't written anything in several weeks. (Actually, I hope you didn't notice, because that means you have more important stuff to worry about than my newsletter, and that makes me happy for you.) With that, I've decided to write this mini newsletter to somewhat make up for my recent absence.
After avoiding it for so long, I finally caught Covid and was out sick for a few days. I'm still recovering, but most of my energy and mental capacity is back. I had to take off most of the week from work, and I felt guilty about it, especially because one of my coworkers had to take on some of my work at the last second, and other work had to be pushed back. This was the first time I've had to take time off work from being sick in a long time. But much like Covid, the guilt hit me like a ton of bricks.
I had no reason to feel guilty about it, though. All my other coworkers have taken sick time off, and I've helped take on some of their work temporarily. It was never a problem, and they never felt guilty about it. So why did I feel like it was suddenly a problem when I took sick time off?
When I went back to work (while still not feeling 100%, mind you), I wanted to jump back in with both feet so I could catch up, but my manager made it clear that if I needed to take more time off, then I should. It was a good reminder that I was unnecessarily and unfairly setting myself to a higher standard. Not even a higher standard—a dumb standard.
Basically, I wanted to write this quick newsletter to say this: Never feel guilty for taking sick days.
I'll be back to my regularly scheduled newsletter-ing on February 23!