Re:Ask HN: Do you have more sick time than you can use?
by greenyoda on Sunday June 29, 2014 @05:02PM
(#7962394)
If you ever have kids, you might be glad to be able to take a day off to care for a sick kid or take them to the doctor.
If you ever catch a nasty case of the flu or are in a car accident, you could easily be out for more than a couple of days. Being healthy isn't a guarantee that something bad won't happen to you.
Sick days are also designed to protect employees who are not sick by keeping sick people out of the office where they could infect others. To make this effective, the company needs to provide enough sick days to cover the illness of an average person, not just the healthiest person. So you're actually benefiting from other employees having more sick days than you yourself could use. (There also needs to be a corporate culture where people are not discouraged from using sick days because there's "too much work to do".)
If you ever catch a nasty case of the flu or are in a car accident, you could easily be out for more than a couple of days. Being healthy isn't a guarantee that something bad won't happen to you.
Sick days are also designed to protect employees who are not sick by keeping sick people out of the office where they could infect others. To make this effective, the company needs to provide enough sick days to cover the illness of an average person, not just the healthiest person. So you're actually benefiting from other employees having more sick days than you yourself could use. (There also needs to be a corporate culture where people are not discouraged from using sick days because there's "too much work to do".)