So, my adopted parents gifted my family (me, wife, 2 kids) a trip to Disney World. This includes 4 nights in a hotel and 3 days in the parks. We’re super excited about the trip.
I’m a teacher in the state of Georgia. The county I work for provides us with 3 personal days a year, all of which have to be approved beforehand. In my experience, they’re never NOT approved, so that’s whatever. These personal days can be used for any reason you want. These personal days do not carry over to the following year, so it’s best to just use them each year. We also get 10 sick days per year. These days don’t rollover, but any sick days not taken get added onto your retirement. I know many teachers that are able to retire 1-1.5 years early because of the sick days they’ve accrued.
So, I want to take a full week off to take our trip. Our days in the park are supposed to be M-W, and we would drive back home on Th., leaving Friday to be a recuperation day. I spoke with our Bookkeeper the other day, and she told me that I would use my 3 personal days and then the other 2 days that I would miss work would have to be unpaid. I genuinely can’t remember the reasoning, because I was shocked, but it’s either because they wouldn’t qualify as “sick” days OR because they’d be after my requested personal days, which means they’d be like personal days except I don’t have the days to take.
Personally, I think this is bullshit. I have the sick days to take off, and I very rarely take off throughout the year. They are MY days but it seems like I can’t use them. Mental health days are sick days.
Regardless of your opinion of Disney (I get it…), I think we can all agree that getting a free vacation is pretty awesome. I’m going to take the vacation, but I’m not exactly in the position to just lose 2 full days of pay, especially since my salary is the majority of our household income. I want to just call in sick on that Thursday and Friday, but I’m afraid of repercussions due to me already inquiring about the trip as well as me taking the sick days after my personal days, which is bound to throw a red flag up at someone. Someone also suggested me faking Covid, but not sure if that’s something I want to do either.
Any suggestions here? Is this somehow illegal or is there some way I could skirt around this?