"That's how life is played, a ten cent masquerade"
- "Street Life", by Randy Crawford and the Joe Sample Trio
There is a person in my office who is perpetually sick. It is very unusual actually, because by most counts, this person seems healthy. It's just that every few days, I will notice that this person is not at her desk. In fact, it seems to me that she is not at her desk for one day every week.
I belong to a group of people who would die before I take an MC. In fact, when my mom asks me to take an MC because I have a hacking cough so loud it scares the shit out of birds on my windowsill and more often than not, my mom, I simply tell her "MCs are for the weak!" and go to work anyway. My dad always says I'm going to cough my lungs out but so far he hasn't offered to pay for my MC, which is a good thing. It means he knows its not that serious, it's just a figure of speech. Tough love breeds tough people. I just coughed 3 times typing this paragraph.
MCs are FTW(eak). Should be my new slogan.
Actually, the reason I don't take MCs is more because I'm a miserly son of a bitch who refuses to pay $50 to some quack to give me a piece of paper that excuses me for 2-3 days of work. Do you know it is actually very easy to get a 2 day MC? Most GPs will err on the side of caution and give you two days if you go to them for a headache, stomachache, fatigue or diarrhea because these are almost impossible to diagnose with certainty, they will just take your word for it. And no matter what they prescribe, you don't have to eat it if you aren't sick. If you actually did yes you would be sick and you would actually need another MC. Damn, you could go on a roll!
Did you know you can also get a fever by eating milo powder out of the tin and not drinking water for several hours after that? And if you want diarrhea, just eat a whole box of Ricola or anything sweetened with aspartame in under an hour. The phenylalanine will give you a laxative effect worthy of the best you've ever had, but only for a short period. Perfect for MCs. Yes I just taught you how to cheat your way into MCs. So sue me. I'm also a pirate. Not exactly going to bother with covering myself in glory here.
Now, if somebody were to offer to pay for my MC, you would see me happily admitting that I am in fact, weak, and I will also be curled up nicely under my blanket sipping a hot drink and watching movies. In light of all the charitable causes out there, some more dubious than others, you could try donating to this one. At least you can see some tangible benefit to someone else's life. I will give you a big smile and two thumbs up. If you want I can also wiggle my toes to the tune of "The Lazy Song" by Bruno Mars. I will also sincerely sing your praises and tell the world that kind hearted souls still exist on this planet. You have no idea how much I want time off work if I didn't have to pay for it. Actually, that's precisely what a beggar does, but I'm not that shabby because I just want a day off.
In most other causes, you donate because you feel it may buy you some good karma, but hell you don't even know where the money goes. You may say I'm a cynic but last I heard some of it went into a first-class air ticket somewhere. That dipshit could well take economy, and learning about such shit actually makes you sick. So, not only are you not alleviating someone's sick, you feel sick.
So, in many companies, you get 14 days of paid medical leave a year. At the rate this person I know goes through hers, I would think she would be out of the paid medical leave in 3 months. But that's the amazing thing. If you did not actually give a shit, you could take a hell lot of unpaid medical leave. Sure, you have less money to spend, and all those MCs will probably cost you a bomb after awhile, but it means you work a lot less than a workaholic like me.
While I don't advocate it, she actually teaches me a different way to live. If you really did not give a shit, and you were happy just taking a paycheck, you could get an extra 52 days of leave a year, 14 of them paid. Honestly, that's bloody genius. Sure, you would never get promoted, and some day you might get fired, but you could just go somewhere else and do the exact same thing. If you just did not give a shit.
Can someone teach me how not to give a shit? It doesn't actually sound half bad now that I look at it.