What? Another temp conversation? Oh, yeah.

As I pointed out previously, the sick leave policy of the agency I work for, largely driven by District law, is not helpful if you work overtime, as this project has in the past. The agency took advantage of a loophole in the law and set a policy that allows sick days only to bring you up to 40 hours for the week, which is not very helpful if you routinely work more than 40 hours per week. On the other hand, such a policy can -- and will -- lead some people to work fewer hours per week so they can take advantage of the sick days, even under the agency's restrictive policy.

Now that this project has been cut to 40 hours per week, the sick days are back in play with no sacrifice for the temps. Guess what is happening? Yeah, for those of you slow on the uptake, I give you this actual temp conversation:

Temp 1: Now that we can use sick days, I think I'm going to be sick Friday.
Temp 2: You know, you can be sick two days in a row before you have to have a doctor's note.
Temp 1: I know. I have to find out how many sick days I have before I decide how many days I'm going to be sick this week.

Yeah, folks are planning to burn their sick days, and then bail for a better project. Shocker. This might not have happened if the agency and/or client had allowed people to work 40 hours in 4 days, but under the circumstances, it makes total sense for people with stored-up sick days to use them. After all, if you leave the agency, you lose the sick days. I am predicting a mini-epidemic of unspecified illness to hit this project, starting Friday.