Home ownership, with all its problems, is awesome!  Well, so far, anyway.  I love finally having living space!  Even though I lived in a sizeable (for the DC area) 2 bedroom apartment for the last 3.5 years, I shared that space with a roommate for most of the time, which seriously reduces the living space.  We were always running into each other and my bedroom felt a lot like a dorm room, a place where I had to keep all my stuff, not just the things that belong in a bedroom.

The roommate came with me on this move to my gloriously large three bedroom house, but there’s just so much more space that we’re not stumbling over each other all the time.  We also have storage space, so things that were crammed into kitchen cabinets can now be placed on basement shelves.  I’m doing my best to cull through things and have created a “garage sale” box.  (I figure there may be a neighborhood garage sale at some point.)

Now I just have to make sure that I’m not filling up all of this additional space.  It’s nice to be able to spread out, but I don’t want my next move to be ten times worse!  Of course, step one is getting rid of all the still-packed boxes in the living room.

We’re supposed to get another 10-20 inches, according to the National Weather Service, though some of the forecasts are lower.  The snow should start around noon and continue through the night.  It’s crazy.  I’m wondering what’s going to happen tomorrow.  I’m expecting to have to go to work, but we’ll see.

It really has been perfect timing, since I’ve been sick and battling a cold.  Not having to go to work has let me rest up more than I normally would have.  I think today, I need to finally tackle the closet that I’ve been avoiding.

And maybe tomorrow, I’ll be back at work!

I’m one of the lucky ones. As a federal employee, I get court leave to go on jury duty. That means that as long as I have an official summons from a court, I get paid leave that doesn’t count against my accumulated vacation or sick leave. I’m one of the lucky ones. Sure, my boss isn’t exactly happy that I am going to be out of the office for an undetermined amount of time this week, but there’s no chance that I will lose my job or struggle to pay my bills due to my jury service.

I know most people would do anything to get out of jury service, and if you’re at risk of losing your job or not being able to pay your bills, I completely understand that urge. But for someone like me, it’s a pretty exciting prospect. Maybe it’s because I spent three years in law school, but I consider it a privilege. If you’re an American citizen, if you get charged with a crime, you have the right to a jury of your peers. And that means that you need people to serve on your jury. All in all, it’s a pretty cool thing.

But I’m still betting I’ll be back in the office by Tuesday.

Either way, in my office, everyone knows what everyone else in the department makes.  Our organizational chart gives our pay grade, and if you know that and approximately how long someone’s been in the government, you can figure out a salary.  Which means that we all know a little too much about each other.

The standard salaries are nice for fairness and equality, of course, and I’m not complaining.  But the availability of this data led to an interesting conversation the other day.

First off, it’s important to note that knowing someone’s salary doesn’t mean you know their financial situation.  You don’t know what kind of school debt they have, what they owe on their mortgage, or what sort of other expenses that they have.  And a person with four kids is probably in a very different situation than someone like me, who doesn’t have any children.

There are a group of people who often go out to lunch together, but it’s not unheard of to hear someone say “Thanks, but not today.  Trying to save some money.”  And everyone nods in understanding.  Well, apparently, someone said this the other day, and it turns out that this particular person has a whole lot of money.  Family inheritance or something.  I’m not sure how people know, but anyone involved in contracting has to reveal stocks in excess of a certain amount, so it may have come up that way.  This person doesn’t seem the type to reveal that sort of information voluntarily, so I’m just guessing.

Either way, there were some snarky comments made behind this person’s back. “She can afford it.  What does she need to save money for, anyway?  Heck, she should be buying us lunch!”

I was pretty surprised to hear this.  First off, I’m assuming this woman’s money is in stocks.  Which means it’s probably a long term investment.  To me, that means she has a higher net worth, but that doesn’t mean she has money to spend.  And what if she does?  Even if she’s a billionaire, if she wants to not go out to lunch one day and save some money, that’s her choice.  Aren’t there a bunch of people out there who made their first million by doing things like bringing their lunch and using coupons at the grocery store?

It would be one thing if she was cheaping out on something – like refusing to pay her share after agreeing to go in on a group meal, or my personal pet-peeve, splitting a check and not putting in money for tax.  But this seemed like a pretty reasonable situation to me.  In fact, I think she’s the smart one here.  Another member of that lunch group always laments the status of her credit card bills.  She might do well to eat out less and put that money towards those bills.  But I would never say that to her, nor would I say it to coworkers (blogging it doesn’t count – you all have no idea who I’m talking about).  We might be in a much better financial situation as a whole if we all just worried about ourselves for a while.

One problem is that people aren’t staying home.  It’s a tough situation for people who don’t have paid sick leave.  What are they supposed to do?  They need to feed their families and pay the rent.  And to do that, they have to go to work.  Unfortunately, this situation isn’t unique to H1N1 or even the current economic crisis.  This is something that people struggle with every day.

Something that seems to be popping up more is what my friend called “presenteeism.”  Even though people have sick leave available, they are afraid to take that sick leave because they don’t want their employer to think that they (a) are unnecessary to the company or (b) aren’t dedicated to their jobs.  Because for many jobs out there, there’s another person waiting in the wings who would be quite happy to take that job.  So they come to work sick.  They might stay home a day when the illness is at its worst, but on subsequent days, when they are still sick, still contagious, and still feeling bad, just not quite as bad, they go to work.  This isn’t good for anyone – the sick person needs rest to get better and those around him don’t need to be exposed to the illness.

But what do you do?  I’m sure for some, their presenteeism is simply overreaction.  There is no indication that their boss plans to fire them and would really prefer that sick employees stay home and take care of themselves.  But for others, who knows?  Sure, there might be legal issues here, but if you saw a co-worker who had been out sick return only to get laid off due to the economic slowdown, what would you think?

The head of our agency has been sending H1N1 updates, letting us know of any supposed cases and any confirmed cases (none as of yet, but as my friend stated, if people are just sick a few days and then get better, they aren’t tested as there’s no real point).  We’re encouraged to stay home if we’re showing symptoms and to take care of ourselves.  Of course, the whole agency benefits from this – the fewer people exposed, the more people who are at work.

I’m lucky in that I have paid sick leave.  It’s not a lot, but worst case scenario, we can get sick leave advanced to us, and there’s no concern of layoffs due to absence. Of course, that doesn’t mean there’s not always someone in the office with an awful hacking cough, but there’s only so much you can do.

Have any of you seen any cases of presenteeism in your offices?