Sick Day

Woke up before dawn this morning with heartburn, a headache, and a lot of congestion. I guess I have a cold. I didn’t really want to call (read: email) out of work, because it’s Friday, which meant I would be missing the weekly software meeting. This week the SW group was reviewing and discussing the Google C++ Style Guide as part of a recent effort to improve process and communication.

Also on the meeting’s docket was going over the first chapter of a book called Effective C++. The book is broken into 55 smaller “items”, each one dealing with a small and specific concept in C++. I was looking forward to what some people at the office have been calling “Book Club”, but, alas, too sick to work.

Maybe that’s not totally true–I could’ve popped some ibuprofen, driven to the office, and tried to stem the flow of nose-leakage for nine hours. But I really wanted to just stay in bed, and so I emailed my boss to give him the news. I rationalized this decision by acknowledging that even if I had gone to work, I probably would’ve been only slightly better than useless, and I would also run the risk of getting somebody else sick. If I were to infect a principal engineer with my cold, and he then had to take a sick day…well, that would be far more expensive for the company. So, you see, it was really in my employer’s best interest that I stayed home to enjoy the amazing weather nurse a cold.