Have you ever called in sick when you wanted to punt on the Potomac, or just have a day with the kids?

Have you ever taken a vacation day when you were actually sick? If so, why? Does that make you a bad person? Or a smart one?

When it comes to lots of things, the rule of thumb is: use-it-or-lose-it. That can apply to intelligence and memory, your skill at Morris Dancing, or even sex. And nowhere is the use-it-or-lose-it rule more important than in the federal government.

Many, maybe most private sector employers don’t allow workers to accumulate sick leave or vacation days. It’s use-it-or-lose-it. Uncle Sam does. When feds retire they can cash out their unused annual leave in a lump sum payment. Or apply their unused sick leave toward their service time. That can increase their annuity. In the case of annual leave, that’s why late December and early January are the most popular times to retire. Workers can carry over the max amount of vacation days and get paid for them. That money will be taxed in the first year of retirement when most people will have less income.

In order to get the most out of their sick leave (SL) and annual leave (AL), some feds use only one kind of leave, regardless of the reason. So let’s go to the wisdom of the crowd. What do you think of this reader’s take on the use-it-or-lose-it-rule. And if you do it, which “it” do you use exclusively?

Here’s what one reader has to say on the subject, and it’s food for thought:

“I had a couple of conversations over the past few weeks with co-workers about which leave to use and which to save and the advice was contradictory. The first said he never uses SL and will take AL for everything (even being sick) because it has no cap, doesn’t expire and we get a lump sum payment for unused sick leave at retirement. He views SL as a homemade severance package. The second said he saves AL and uses SL, comp or restored leave whenever he legitimately can because we DON’T get paid a lump sum for SL but we do for AL. He also said that restored leave (leave that was lost due to use or lose, but restored for whatever reason) has a two year shelf life and should be burned up quickly, but Time-Off-Awards and Comp Time last forever, but will not be reimbursed at retirement. Then there is Family Friendly Sick Leave, which seems to come out of a completely different pot of leave. All of us are under FERS and I understand CSRS is different, but I’m not sure how. It might be a helpful topic for your column to map out the pecking order for the various types of leave, what should we save, what should we burn, when should be burn it and which ones we will give us a retirement bonus. Unlike my co-workers, I freely (and legitimately) use all my leave categories throughout the year so I had never given this much thought, until these conversations.” The It Guy

At one point, CSRS employees got full service credit for unused sick and FERS workers didn’t. But that’s changed so that now both groups can apply unused sick leave toward their time-in-service. So what do you think? Which “it” is it?

NEARLY USELESS FACTOID:

By Michael O’Connell

Cousin Itt, Gomez Addams’ hirsute and diminutive relative on the 1960s TV show The Addams Family, was portrayed by two people during the show’s run — Felix Silla and Roger Arroyo.

Source: Wikipedia

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