The Devil in Details

Check out the December issue of Details (now on stands) with a brilliant article about the use and abuse of sick days from work by NYU dude Ian Daly. Look for these brilliant bits quoting another NYU dude referred to as only "Rick" who sounds vaguely familiar to some dipshit D. Bones once knew:

[A recent study] found that 62 percent of workers are sneaking out of their
cubicles because of stress, personal reasons, family issues, and something
called entitlement mentality. Rick, a healthy 30-year-old who worked in
pharmaceutical advertising until he quit last year to go to grad school, is a
perfect example of the last category. "I had five sick days a year," he says,
"and shit if I wasn't going to use them."

...

Rick (who recommends setting your alarm to go off just before you call the
office for that realistically raspy effect) says he and his overworked
colleagues would simply "conveniently come down with colds" in December.
"Sometimes," he says, "I just needed a day on the couch."

Those days are often hard-won. When Rick was working as a sales representative
for a major New York recruiting firm, a job he describes as a "Dickensian
workhouse," asking for time off was treated as a sign of weakness. "If you
brought up things like vacation, they'd as you, 'Do you really want to work
here?'" he says. "Or they'd point to another guy who hadn't taken a day off
in two years."