OK, the sun is shining and the powder is dry. But it's a weekday and you should be heading to work. You forsake your briefcase and reach for the skis. Your fingers just itch to pick up the phone to call in sick.
Most people know it's wrong, but the old trick of playing hooky is as healthy as the people who are calling in "sick."
Earlier this week on the slopes at Alta Ski Area, exploring the subject of calling in sick to go skiing is, well, a slippery slope.
Mark, a resident of Salt Lake City, admitted to taking a day for himself to go skiing. "It's just a good powder day," he said, but he also points out that it has been eight years since his last slide on the ethical slope. "I think it's wrong to do it, and I think a lot of people abuse it," he said.
Yet, with most ethical issues, there can be gray areas. What if your child or spouse is sick and needs to be taken to the doctor? What if you simply feel blue or worn out and need a spontaneous day to screw your head back on?
Brian, a father of three young children in Roy, says he appreciates it when an employer allows him to take a sick day to take care of his kids. Although he does not think taking sick leave to relax is a good enough excuse, Brian said he does feel employers need to be flexible.
In fact, some experts say a good employer will treat sick leave in more casual terms, rather than requiring the employee to be at death's door.
"Certainly we've come a long way from the days of capitalistic industrialization, when there was no sick leave," said David Keller, director of the Center for the Study of Ethics at Utah Valley State College.
Calling in sick to hit the slopes, Keller said, is just plain unethical. "It's unethical because an employee is hired by an employer to do a job and do it as best as possible, and that is not contingent upon good ski days," Keller said.
However, Keller said some employers' strict sick leave policies may actually encourage their employees to be dishonest with them. It may come to the point that an honest employee may appear to be punished for sticking to the rules while others slide.
"I do believe there are more instances where this is more gray," Keller said, citing "mental health" days or relatives and friends suddenly coming into town.
"One would hope that the relationship between you and your boss is good enough that you could come up to him (or her) and say, 'Hey, I'm not sick, but I've got this friend or family member coming into town,' " Keller said.
Cindy Berg, a professor of psychology at the University of Utah who specializes in the area of coping with stress, said there is a constructive purpose for using sick leave for mental-health days — if it's not abused.
Although there appears to be little research done on mental-heath days, Berg said people in "high-risk" jobs need down time. If someone is not able to take care of himself, he is not going to be able to take care of his duties effectively at the workplace.
Back at the slopes of Alta, Tony, a Provo resident, said he has never called in sick to goof off. "Do we know it goes on? Yeah," Tony said.
Keller said there is always an important need for "trust and humanness" among employers to keep employees productive.
Doug, from Draper, had a message for employers: Lighten up. "I think employers need to give their employees some leeway on good powder days," Doug said. "It's important to a lot of people, and it's important to their health and well-being."
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