Thursday, November 30, 2006

Need Christmas Shopping Time? PLAY HOOKIE


We all know the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season...cookies to be baked, dinners to be planned, decorating our homes inside and out, and of course SHOPPING...lots and lots of shopping and it all has to be done by Christmas Eve, squeezed in between Christmas Parties and drinking some serious Holiday Cheer. Looking at all these responsibilities and duties falling on the average American worker, what is and employee supposed to do?

PLAY HOOKIE...That's right, call in sick, fake a cough, whisper hoarsely into the phone that you ARE DYING! Not to worry, every one (almost) is doing it. What choice do we have? Let's be serious, our children, friends and family are counting on us to deliver the goods on Christmas, and sometimes getting those hard to find toys and gifts require some serious standing on line time. So, feeling pressured, need a few additional hours to take care of the real business of the season...TAKE THE DAY OFF, use up one of your sick days, tell them one of your children is vomiting all over the living room rug.

Holiday season rings in the phony absences
POSTED: 11:43 a.m. EST, November 29, 2006
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/11/29/work.sick.reut/index.html


NEW YORK (Reuters) -- One in three workers has called in sick when they're not in the past year, and the end-of-year holiday season brings a rash of phony absences, experts and studies say.

Harried workers are juggling shopping, holiday preparations and family obligations this time of year, on top of perhaps having run out of the year's legitimate vacation days, they say. And the mornings after holiday parties don't help.

"We do know just anecdotally in dealing with employers that there certainly is a higher rate ... associated with holidays, catching up on shopping, or spending time with family and friends," said Jennifer Sullivan, spokeswoman for CareerBuilder.com, which conducts an annual survey of employee absenteeism. "You do see a higher incidence."

The firm's survey, released this week, showed that 32 percent of workers said they called in sick when they felt fine at least once in the last year, and one in 10 said they did so three times or more.

Women were more likely to take a sick day when they are not sick than men, by 37 to 26 percent, the survey said.

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