Posted by Brian McCullough
- First, take the sick day. Stay home. You don’t get any bonus points for being a martyr and trying to work through a cold. And you’re just going to get everyone else in the office sick, thereby destroying the productivity of your whole team. You know how much you hate it when the guy in the cubicle next to you is sneezing and sniffling all over the place? Today, that guy is you. Do everyone else a favor and be a one-person quarantine.
- Take steps to stay in the loop. If you’re gone for one day or one week, try to arrange things so that you’re not too far behind the 8 ball when you get back. Set up your emails to forward home. Set out of office replies. Have someone check in with you to let you know what you miss.
- Take steps to keep the other people on your team in the loop. From working at startups, I can tell you that nothing monkey-wrenches a project more than a key team member suddenly going awol with no status reports. The team member missing- where was he on the project? When will he get back? Did he solve problem x? Can I finish my part of the project or do I have to wait until he gets back? Avoid all this. Before checking out, try to give a debriefing to everyone on your team. Let them know where you’re at and try to make it easy for them to access key aspects of what you were doing while you’re gone.
- Take full advantage of the sick day. Try to make it one sick day instead of three. Working at home accomplishes nothing if it only delays your recovery. If you’ve committed to taking the sick day, make the most of it. Stay in bed. Sleep as much as possible. Drink OJ. One day of good, solid recovery rest is better than three days of half work/half sick leave. I have a friend that takes his sick days in a hotel room because he knows an afternoon at home with the kids won’t give him the rest he needs.
I guess you can surmise I’ve been sick lately. With a cold that came on Tuesday like a baseball bat to the lungs. Getting better, tho.
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