Early in my career, I was so careful about not taking time off. First of all, I thought I should save them "just in case." This is not necessarily a terrible idea, but I never ended up needing that large chunk of leave I was so worried about. Secondly, taking a day off requires such a ridiculous amount of work that just the thought of it was exhausting. Lastly, I felt guilty every single time I took a day off, even if it was for an incredibly important reason.
The best example of this was the day I became an American citizen. I was made to feel exceptionally guilty for requesting a personal day because it happened to be a day when an end-of-year standardized test was scheduled. I had no control over when my citizenship ceremony was scheduled and it was one of the most important days of my life. And yet not only was I made to feel guilty because of the state testing, but I was denied my request to take a personal day. You read that correctly, I was not allowed to take the whole day off. I had to go to school in the morning, administer the test, and then only after all of my students had finished the test, was I allowed to take the rest of the day off using personal time.
Did I mention that the day also happened to be my birthday?!?
Can you tell I am still angry about this 17 years later???
As a second year teacher, I was timid and did as I was told.
The current me would love to travel back in time and stand my ground and refuse to go to school that day no matter who would have been "disappointed" in me. All this time later and I am still disappointed in myself, and that's the only person's opinion I should have ever been concerned with.
Having to go to school to administer a test on such an important day in my life was ABSURD. A robot could have administered that test. But that's the culture of schools - teachers should work themselves to death regardless of the cost to them personally.
Several years later when I changed school divisions, they accepted the time I had saved up, but by then, I had realized that I was a better teacher and happier person if I took care of myself - which meant taking time off when I needed a break. And that made the super detailed plans and hours of prep worth it.
When I left that school and division, which I loved, I still had 43 days of leave banked. Because I was resigning, that unused leave was paid out.
At the rate of $20 per day. Before tax.
I won't get into the specific dollar amount, but that leave was worth many, many, many times that amount based on my salary.
As you might imagine, I was not happy.
But I did learn a valuable lesson and I will not be making that mistake again.
I'm currently being very strategic about my personal days, because we are allowed to carry two over to the following school year, so that we can have a max of five. C and I have some big travel plans in the coming years and those plans are dictating when I use personal days (for example, I only used one personal day this school year so that I'll be able to carry two of them over next year).
But when it comes to sick days, I am going to use them. When school divisions recruit teachers, they tout those 10 sick days and 3 personal days as major benefits and yet turn around and make teachers feel badly for using them. Such nonsense.
You know who doesn't feel guilty anymore? This girl! My mom needs me to go with her to an appointment? I need to go to the dentist? I need new glasses? I've got the time and I’m going to use it.
I will never again feel guilty about using sick time.
And I will not be duped into that pitiful payout for unused leave again.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!
Or is it...
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Happy Tails to you!
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