you working stiffs. do you play hookie to fish?

[Darth-Baiter]

simple question.  my career is nuts.  crazy.  

 

my entire office and boss know i use fishing as my mental detox.  i dont even hide it.  i tell everyone, "i am not coming tomorrow, the Delta Tide is perfect". 

 

you all?  for the record, i am detoxing tomorrow!!!!  

[gim]

Not sure I'd call that "hookie" given that you know you're taking the day off in advance.  I always thought playing hookie meant skipping out on work the day of.

 

I get a lot of time off.  More than anyone I know of other than a teacher.  Can't say that I've ever played hookie though.  I request my days off in advance, other than when I'm sick.  And I don't call in sick if I'm not sick.

[Darth-Baiter]

you are correct.  hookie was the only word that jumped into my mind.

[Spankey]

I’m one year retired. When I was working (electro mechanical heavy industrial equipment repair) my fish and hunt time was my time. My job was demanding and I done an exceptional job at it.  When I wanted a mental health day(s) I took them. I’d never call out sick if a guys production was gonna go down the toilet or if guys were gonna get sent home because I wasn’t working or didn’t want to show up. I never caught any flack, we had an understanding. Countless times I’ve been called at 1, 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning troubleshooting something or asked to go in. Worked what seems like a lifetime of Saturdays and Sundays. Equipment repairs and pm’s are common on holidays. Never worked a Christmas Day. I’m not complaining, the ca$h was good. Got my family time in, got my fish and hunt time in. 

[Susky River Rat]

Yes I have and yes I do.

[WRB]

Back when I worked just said talking a mental health day.

Tom

[the reel ess]

I work from home and the schedule is pretty flexible. Yeah, I've taken many mornings and a few afternoons to fish. I usually make the time up. I asked my manager once and she said "This is not a prison. Just go."

[the reel ess]

It's so hot right now that I'd rather work.

[gim]

2 minutes ago, the reel ess said:

It's so hot right now that I'd rather work.

Lol aint that the truth.  Fishing would be downright miserable here today too.

[Bankc]

No.  I work for a small company, and if I take off, they'll call me constantly with problems they want me to walk them through.  Plus, they don't really let us have days off outside of two weeks of vacation (which I can't take all at once).  And I have to save some of those vacation days for if I get sick.  Because I can get fired for calling in sick if I don't have any vacation days left.  Also, no rollover on unused vacation days, so I often take some time off the last week of the year.  Use it or lose it.  

 

I've never had a job where you could play hookie.  I mean, you might be able to get away with it once or twice a year, but usually if you call in sick more than a few times a year, they start demanding you bring a doctor's note.  The idea being, if you're well enough that you don't need to see a doctor, then you're well enough to work through it.  

 

After having more than 20 jobs in my life, I kind of thought this was normal.  It's pretty much been the same at every one of those jobs.  Now I'm thinking, maybe it's a regional thing.  

[A-Jay]

Sometimes, I could fish 'at work'. 

That was fun.

?

A-Jay

[T-Billy]

We used to accumulate unlimited sick time, and I rarely missed a day. Last year the company took that from us, without compensating us for it. They stole about 10k worth of accumulated sick time from me. 

In their infinite wisdom, they implimented a policy where we started with 14 sick days, get 7 per year, and can only roll 7 over, so it's use 7 or give 'em back to the company each year. I averaged about one call off every couple years in the past. It's 7 days per year now. SMH. Makes sense somehow to the bean counters I guess.

Saving my last three of 23 for Muskiepalooza this Nov. or early Dec.

[immortl]

I'm a network security engineer and can pretty much do my job from anywhere.  I've worked from home (or wherever the RV is parked at) for the past 7 years or so.  I get my work done, keep team and customers happy, and take care of what I need/want to throughout the day.  Sometimes that is an afternoon or day of fishing.  Work/Life balance is excellent with my job.  I have no problem helping customers in say Asia in the middle of the night my local time, it's a give and take and works out to be pretty well balanced.  I really enjoy my job as well.  Should I win the lottery, I'd still quit tomorrow as I have a lot more hobbies to pursue, but for having to work, I'm pretty lucky to have the job I currently do.

[gim]

11 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

They stole about 10k worth of accumulated sick time from me. 

We can accumulate unlimited sick time.  My previous supervisor, who retired in 2018 after 40 years of service, told me that he had over 3,000 hours of sick time banked.  He never got chronically ill and never had kids, so he rarely used his sick time.  They pay us 65% of the sick time when we retire.

 

I am generally of the thinking that you never know when you might get seriously ill or injured, so having a reasonable amount of time off to cover that in case it occurs is always a good idea.  I view it as an insurance policy, sort of.  In your case, since you will lose it, you might as well use it.

[immortl]

23 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

We used to accumulate unlimited sick time, and I rarely missed a day. Last year the company took that from us, without compensating us for it. They stole about 10k worth of accumulated sick time from me. 

In their infinite wisdom, they implimented a policy where we started with 14 sick days, get 7 per year, and can only roll 7 over, so it's use 7 or give 'em back to the company each year. I averaged about one call off every couple years in the past. It's 7 days per year now. SMH. Makes sense somehow to the bean counters I guess.

Saving my last three of 23 for Muskiepalooza this Nov. or early Dec.

My old company in MT used to do something similar with PTO (vacation/sick lumped together).  Use it or lose it.  I never really put in for vacation time because I used my 'comp' time from travels and maintenance windows and such.  Then we got bought out by a larger company. 

 

It came about from the new larger company's legal and HR departments that that was illegal in the state of MT.  Earned time off was an accrued benefit or something.  They quietly started issuing checks to everyone who had 'lost' time over the previous 3 years.  If you went and talked with one of the old database admins, she would provide you with a table of accrued and lost hours going back 10 years.  Send that printout along with a copy of the state supreme court case ruling over to HR and you'd get another check for all the time you lost over the previous 10 years.  That was a pleasant windfall that year.

[Woody B]

Do I play hookie to fish?

 

 

 

Why, what did you hear?

[Bankbeater]

We have vacation and sick time lumped together.  The thing is the more senior employees, like me, get close to 5 hours of vacation time each week until we hit 384 hours. If I take an 8 hour vacation day during the week I'm only really using 3 hours of vacation time, because of the 5 hours I pick up.

A couple of years ago I was taking off every other week during the summer because I kept maxing out.

[J Francho]

I have called in before we had flexible time off. FTO is basically unlimited PTO. My boss said he'd never deny any time off request, but not to abuse it. NY requires a reason be entered. If it's short notice like less than three days, I just use "sick" as my reason. My boss fishes too. He knows what's up. 

[Tennessee Boy]

I'm no longer a working stiff.  I used to work for a company that would let us use sick leave for "Legal Matters".  I used it for fishing.  Of course I made sure my fishing license was up to date so it would be "legal".  

[Catt]

Since the mid 70s I've been able take off whenever I wanted.

 

Really like going in the middle of the week.

[Team9nine]

Retired now, but never called in “sick” to go fishing. Scheduled time off via vacation or personal days usually. Might leave early and go, but took vac. time to do it and let supervisor know. Nothing I hated more than actually being sick, so never wanted to jinx myself by saying I was when I wasn’t ?

[LrgmouthShad]

3 minutes ago, Catt said:

Really like going in the middle of the week.

My favorite currently is Thursday evenings after work. Because who fishes on a Thursday? Wait one day and you’re on the weekend

[DitchPanda]

Playing hookie to fish? No

Asked my supervisor short notice to take the next day off? Lots of times

 

[gim]

40 minutes ago, Catt said:

Since the mid 70s I've been able take off whenever I wanted.

 

Really like going in the middle of the week.

I knew retired folk would chime in soon enough here. 

[ironbjorn]

When I was still working I was a forklift driver at a factory. I was off for a week for vacation and when I came back nobody told me they added a stop sign to this one particular area. It hasn't been there in years. So obviously I blow it. Someone reported me. I get called into my bosses office and I'm like what stop sign? They showed me and it may as well have been a Fisher Price toy stop sign that was nailed to the wall slightly behind a pole. The thing was tiny. Oooookay I thought. Well they had no choice but to suspend me for the rest of the day. So I went fishing. My boss was on my Facebook page and I made sure to post a ton of photos of big river smallies I was catching cranking.