I suppose I didn't start the debate properly, in the direction I was attempting.

I was looking for discussion not of "ok, don't call in sick three days a week during notice", but how to deal with the second level effects that often work out to "take sick days when you get them, and if you actually get sick for two weeks, deal with that if and when". I'm trying to form an opinion on this, leaning toward:

- sick days are special, and don't impact your vacation day allowance (you can have 5 weeks of sick time and still accumulate vacation (PTO [unified vacation/sick/whatever] does not allow this) time up to (say) four weeks to take at once.

- however, sick days don't just evaporate if you leave / get laid off / go over the limit, so there's no incentive to be sick of nine-to-five on Friday.

So the response from the host of the column is "don't do that, that's abusing the benefit".

I get that.

I do think there are a lot of other issues though... in some environments, for some people, sick days are another form of PTO. So "'Joe is sick today' ... 'ok, yeah he got allocated a day, we expected that'".

On the other hand, if you don't take them, and retire/get laid off/ etc ... "thank you for your service".

Some organizations do treat unused sick time as a retirement allowance (eg., 0.60 credit). That's an incentive to bank them but maybe not if you run the numbers...?

This seems like a 'hard problem'... I'm interested in stirring up a discussion!

I agree with the response regarding abuse and the impact to other employees.

I’ve been in plenty of places where someone has pulled one form or another of “I’m quitting, I don’t care”. It’s not fun, not professional.

Most places I worked eventually phased out sick days in favor of PTO that gets paid out.

discussion of "should I spend my sick days when I'm quitting".