For anyone who has ever worked in an office this question has come up at least once in his or her life. With the paltry vacation time most companies offer employees in the US, many people find themselves “stuck” when it comes to having enough time to take off Call in Sickfrom work. After all besides the truly necessary time to take a real vacation, there are a myriad of other possible reasons the savvy person might need to miss work – personal development, family commitments, workshops, classes, etc. If you are someone who is in a job for now while you’re attempting to build something bigger and better like an entrepreneurial venture, the time crunch is even greater (believe me I know!).

Let’s face it, as LGBT families with or without kids, the flexibility a lot of companies offer don’t fall into our needs. As someone without kids I have always found that I end up on the short end of the stick because getting a half-day off for personal development doesn’t cut the nonsensical “management discretion” muster, but for colleagues who need a half day for a child’s school event, it is a non issue. I’m not taking a dig at parents, gay or straight, because that is one yeomans job and I applaud each and every parent who goes to great lengths to really BE there for their kids’ activities. After all, isn’t that part of the whole point of being a parent? Where I get grouchy is with the double standard that exists in the workplace.

That being said, parent or non-parent we’ve all experienced the crunch and stress that comes with juggling and planning those precious vacation days. If you’re like me, they are “spoken for” way too quickly as I attempt to spread them throughout the year in an attempt to save my sanity. Of course life doesn’t come in neat tidy packages like the little boxes companies create for their “time off package”. Inevitably if you work long enough you’ll come up against the need for time off and not have any vacation time to take. If that is the case, what do you do? Do you miss out on whatever event or life need you need to take care of? Do you call in sick? Do you do something else entirely?

According to this recent article it seems that as work and life gets more stress filled that more people choose to use sick time to simply manage their life. Of course no one in this article or others that I read seem to address the underlying problem — unrealistic expectations and paltry time off (I mean, really, take a look at Eurpoe, they have a clue about down time), they only try to find bandaid solutions to what they perceive is the problem, employee behavior. While I am not suggesting people go hog wild or engage in dishonest behavior that is out of their personal integrity, I do wonder where the happy medium lies and firmly believe that life is not to be missed. I’ve had to turn down more than one great opportunity in my life because of lack of time off. At some point it simply starts to eat at you.

So, back to the “What Would You Do?” question of the week. You have something you really want to do and you’re out of time off. Would you call in sick or miss the opportunity? How would your answer change if the time off needed was > 1 day? Would your answer change if you had to travel to do what you wanted to do? Or only use this workaround if you were close to home?

I’d love to hear your war stories and conundrum breakers in the comments……