Death of the Sick Day

This morning I woke up feeling like hell. Actually, that's incorrect. You can't really "wake up" when you never really got to sleep. But the "feel like hell" part is accurate. So, rather than cough my germs all over the office and my co-workers, I chose to just spread them amongst my beloved family. Except the dog. I don't share dishes with him, so he's safe.

I took a sick day.

As I sit here typing this, waiting for the Sudafed to kick in and knock me out, saving me from the indignities of morning TV, I'm struck by how the sick day has really changed.

Already this morning, I've finished and sent two client memos, sent out a variety of e-mail correspondence and reviewed some client-related newsclips. All before 9 am.

What the hell happened to the good ol' sick day -- wearing torn sweats, sucking down orange juice and watching bad 80s movies on the VCR while drifting in and out of sleep on the couch. My personal sick day favorite was "Better Off Dead." The title appealed to my male tendency to inflate my symptoms to near death. A headcold and a slight fever might as well be malaria. Yeah, I'll admit it.

But VCRs became DVD's, cell phones got smaller, Al Gore invented the Internet, everybody got laptops and now we can check e-mail and phone messages ANYWHERE, ANYTIME.

Don't get me wrong. A substantial portion of the time, these are good things. Technology gives us greater flexibility.

But it also killed the sick day as we used to know it. Even when you'e running to the bathroom every 10 minutes with stomach flu, you can still check e-mails in between "driving the bus."

I'm not making any value judgement. But I miss "The Breakfast Club" while comatose on cold medicine.