I once had a boss who thought it was great that he never had a sick day. First thing I thought was "good job getting everyone else sick". Then he complained because I took sick days.

OK, this is a lame article. It's far too short and vague and makes tenuous associations between punchbowls and viruses.

I hate this kind of advice. The last two jobs I've worked, there were a small number of sick days granted per year (~5). These were also supposed to be used in half-day increments for doctor visits.

Guess what? I get sick enough that I CAN'T work at least 3-4 days per year. Am I supposed to burn through my vacation days every time I get a sniffle?

I've never had a sick day.. but then again, I don't hang around people.

Get away from me. I'm a programmer.

As an employer, I hate it when my employees call in sick. I hate it more when they make me sick. Fortunately, I have an iron constitution, and since I opened my own business, I haven't gotten anything contagious.

@erratapage: So how do you get all that hate out? Yoga? I mean, really, people get sick, it's just how it is. I'd rather they just stay home instead of going to work anyway and infecting everyone else. Same with people in college. My fellow students would just walk in, nose dripping. The only time they were absolutely required to stay in is when they had mono, and a lot of them didn't follow all of those rules either.

If you get the flu, doctors say stay home. Where I work the flu (or cold or probably ebola) is not considered a medical condition worthy of any type of sick leave so you would have to use your "occurance" call outs. You can't substitute vacation time because that has to be put in for two weeks in advance. So if you have the flu or anything else that might be contagious, your best bet is to come in to work and infect everyone around you. If I am out of work with the flu I can usually shake it in 3days to a week. Under these conditions it's usually a minimum of 2 weeks.