’Tis the season for ‘sick days’ – but don’t stay inside
THE next six weeks are supposedly the time in the calendar when workers are most likely to take a sick day.
This suggestion comes via a survey which claimed the most effective way to skip work is to send an email at precisely 6.38am on a Tuesday citing stomach problems. Monday is too obvious, the theory goes, and Wednesday leaves fewer subsequent working days to take it easy.
The weather, clearly, is the reason why it’s the season to start spinning lies. This is the start of winter proper, and the prospect of battling to work when you wake with the sleet scudding down your windows is a dubious one.
But instead of staying in bed, these blustery days are, in fact, perfect for exploring the great outdoors.
This Thursday I spent (legitimately, I hasten to add) bird watching in Wakefield, wandering between the stubble fields and old beech woods under skies as purple as a bruise.
My patch was the land once belonging to the naturalist Charles Waterton, who in the 19th century set up a nature reserve on his Yorkshire estate.
Waterton had a special way of coping with the cold. He preferred the floor to a bed, with a block of smoothed oak for his pillow.
All winter he would prowl the grounds of his estate for hours each day, often barefoot regardless of the rain or snow. But still he never fell ill and lived to the ripe age of 82.
I am not intending to hold Waterton up as a titan of industry. Far from it, as mainly he passed his days well away from the world of normal concepts of work.
Rather that if you are going to call in “sick”, better spend the day enjoying a wintry wood than watching box sets at home.
Just make sure you wipe the grin off your face before you stagger back into the office.