My full time 'salaried' job basically has only 5 PTO days a year including sick time. I've used that already for covid, sick kids, and planned vacation. I've just been taking unpaid time off beyond the 5 days, but they're really weird about that. I think they really expect people to only miss 5 days a year.
The truth is I'm paying for 3 days of training for a certification that will help me find a new job, but I don't want to reveal my exit strategy. I also don't want them to feel entitled to my new knowledge because they 100% would not pay me to do any more work, and I'm paying for this myself.
So can anyone help me come up with a decent excuse? I don't want to fake sickness because of karma, and I also want to plan my work week ahead of time.