Im going to preface this by saying I do believe, regardless of how you look at this, I am an asshole for what im about to do.
Two months ago my friends who are still in Uni invited me to a vacation. Now my work you have to request the days off far in advance, bare minimum likely a month. I had missed the cutoff by a week or so when I got invited despite it being a month and a half away. The schedule wasn't even completed at that time for some reason, so there was a chance I could've nicely asked my manager if I could get those days off but the odds of it being approved was up in the air. And if it did get denied, there's no way I could call off “sick” anymore. So I made the decision to wait it out and call out sick the week of because I didn't want to take that risk for a vacation (given this will likely be the last time we'll all have free time like this to go on vacation since they graduate in the spring).
I will be calling out in a few weeks with Covid to go. I am starting to feel guilt for this however. I know it's not right, but when talking with other coworkers long ago they said everyone does it all the time. It just so happens that there's been a lot of unforeseen restructuring at my office and at the moment is low staffed. Now I feel even worse. I don't know what to do. This isn't a job I plan to stay in very long but it's hard to get over the guilt knowing that I will be filling up my coworkers plates even more than it currently is.
What would you do in this situation? Should I have just taken my losses by not requesting the dates nearly two months in advance?