Someone Else's Sick Day

By and large, I don't take many sick days. This isn't out of stubbornness, or a desire to be student affairs' Cal Ripken; I've just been fortunate enough not to need to. I will occasionally tally a sick day (or hours) for a doctor's appointment, but when I'm actually not feeling well and legitimately need to take a sick day, I don't hesitate, or so I thought.

As I take a mental inventory of the times I've called out, I realize that if I'm completely honest with myself, I'll admit that I more or less schedule sick days. It's typically within reason, but if I'm not feeling my best and can push missing any work off to a time that's convenient to leave early/come in late/miss a day, I almost always do.

Things have changed. 

Eleven months (two days and 12 minutes, but who's counting?) ago, I took on a new role in life: That of Daddy. In my role as Director of the First Year Experience (one of my favorite student affairs/new parent jokes, and I've got less than a month to keep using it!) I learned quickly that there's no scheduling sick days when it comes to my daughter. If she's sick, whether it means a trip to the doctor or just that she can't go to day care, my wife and I typically take inventory of each of our days to see which of us is best equipped to miss that time from work. We've been fortunate that it's worked out to a pretty even split thus far, and we will sometimes split a day in half so that we can each attend to things we need to. Still, when we wake up in the morning and realize we'll have to put a sick day plan into place, I can't help but feel inconvenienced, whether I'm missing meetings, events, or jut work that I need to get done in the office.

Don't get it twisted. The world stops for my daughter, and rightfully so. But still, coming from a mold of taking time when it's most convenient for me, I can sometimes feel like I'm missing something, that I'm not present or not pulling my weight. I sometimes try to work from home (though if you've ever tried this with a sick infant afoot, you know how hit-or-miss that can be) but so much of work in student activities is actually being there. And while my staff, students, colleagues and supervisor all certainly understand, I still admittedly find the uncertainty frustrating at times. Of course, it's not anywhere near frustrating enough for me not to do what's best for my daughter, it's just one of many new wrinkles to get used to in my life as a parent.