As others have said and noted, my willingness to call in strongly corresponds with the freedom I have to do so.
I too grew up in a “we all feel like crap, still gotta work” household, though that was more due to my parents struggling to keep a roof over our heads rather than semi-abusive, and our school district at the time was notorious for trying to over-enforce truancy policies. I do know of one instance that one of my classmates and a good friend was taken into foster care for being out of school too much due to her cancer treatments. Her parents raised all sorts of rightful hell and got her back fast, but sweet mercy, it was horrid.
Now, back on topic!
In my previous jobs, also retail and food service, calling out was the ultimate sin, and so many of us got sick/got customers sick/got sick FROM customers, it was atrocious. Nowadays, while we have a combined vacation/sick leave PTO bank, we hourly folks earn 8 hours a week of PTO. I currently have 270+, giving me a little over 33 days of sweet, sweet time off that’s fully paid at the moment. I’m using a ton of that over the holidays for the first time ever this year, which makes it the first set of holidays I will actually be off since I was 15, but that still leaves me with at least 10 days I could use to call in sick if I needed to.
And the best part is, I could! I’m currently suffering some rough issues with thyroid and arthritis, so other this week that I could not skip at all, I’m free to take time off however and whenever I choose. And that freedom is almost scary, because I never had it before, nor did I have coverage. So, I would personally say that if you have the freedom, even if it’s just a cold, take it. Take it, and do not regret it. I plan to next week if this doesn’t get better, and spending a day at home resting is certainly not going to hurt me at this point.
Edit, because not rewriting this: Check that, I have 90 hours of PTO leftover.
