Faking It

I have been sick quite a bit during the past month. I suffered from sinus infections for a large portion of my adulthood until 2 years ago when I had sinus surgery. Prior to my surgery, I had been getting sinus infections about 6 times a year. Post surgery, it's only been once or twice a year...until recently.

The week between Christmas and New Year is a very popular week to take off work at my company (probably at most people's companies). With Christmas on a Sunday, we had Monday off as a holiday and I used my last vacation day of the year to take that Tuesday off as well. I went into work on Wednesday, suddenly feeling like crap. As I was driving to the train station that morning, I kept thinking about turning around and going home. Sitting in the parking lot before getting on the train, I thought it wasn't too late. On the train, I kept thinking how easy it would be to get off at the next stop and take the next outbound train back to my station. Walking from Union Station to my office...I could still turn around. Miserably sitting at my desk with hardly any work to do, I thought I really should go home and rest. My supervisor was off that week, as was my boss, as well as a few other coworkers. There were just 3 other people there on my team that day which meant not a lot of work was going to be generated for me anyway. I was likely going to spend the next three days sitting at my desk pretending to look busy, wasting company time and money. So why not just go home sick already?

It was because I was afraid that people would think I was faking my illness. Even though I was constantly blowing my nose and sounding congested, I was fearful that everyone would be talking about me behind my back, saying that I was just ditching work. With no vacation or sick days left, going home would mean unpaid days. I was willing to do that. I really wasn't feeling well. Congested and even dizzy from all the swelling in my head. But I was so worried about what everyone else might think of me. Slacker. So I stuck it out most of the day. I finally broke down and called my supervisor at home, explaining that I was sick and that there wasn't much work to do anyway, so I really wouldn't be missed at the office. He said that if I was legitimately sick and willing to take unpaid time, I could go home. So at 2:00 that Wednesday, I went home sick for the next four days.

My initial thought was that it just a common cold. It was the right time of year, and it didn't feel like a sinus infection...and I know what sinus infections feel like. So I just slept a lot and drank a lot of water and took a lot of OTC cold medicine. By the end of the weekend, it occurred to me that my congestion was getting a lot better, but the dizziness wasn't going away. WebMD told me it might be an infection and that, regardless of any other symptoms, dizziness is not something you should ignore.

After the New Year, my doctor's office reopened on Tuesday and I made an appointment for that afternoon, causing a need to leave work a few hours early. Slacker. I was diagnosed with a sinus infection and prescribed antibiotics. But after the medicine was gone, I was still pretty congested. The dizziness had gone away though, so I was blaming my congestion on allergies. It's been weird weather here...10 degrees one day, 48 the next, then back down to 15. It seemed like the right kind of weather for allergies to be in full force.

But after a couple more weeks, that congestion hadn't gone away, and I also started a terrible cough earlier this week. My supervisor was out of the office again on business. When he left Monday afternoon, I was feeling pretty well. But all of a sudden on Tuesday, I was coughing a lot more. A coworker suggested that maybe I was still sick and that if I wasn't better by Friday, to consider going to the doctor again. By that evening I was starting to feel dizzy again.

I woke up Wednesday and called in sick to work. I went back to the doctor, who was surprised that the antibiotics I'd been given a few weeks prior hadn't done the trick. So he did a CT scan to make sure it wasn't something more serious. It was still just a nasty infection. I was given stronger antibiotics for a longer period of time.

Thursday morning, I was still dizzy...called in sick. This morning, I was still dizzy...called in sick again. But even though I am legitimately sick, I'm still afraid that it's going to seem like I'm faking it, just to get a 5-day weekend. It's been freezing cold outside the past few days, and today we are supposed to get up to 6 inches of snow. It just seems easy for my supervisor to jump to the conclusion that if I seemed fine on Monday, how do I all of a sudden have such a terrible infection, seemingly out of nowhere, during a week of horrible weather, and just weeks after I was already treated for this same problem?

Seriously, I know I have no reason to worry. If they don't believe me at work, I can easily provide a doctor's note, since I have been legitimately sick, did in fact go to the doctor, did in fact get a CT scan to confirm my horrible sinus infection, have in fact been feeling dizzy...so I'm covered.

But it still just really seems that when you put the whole story together, it sounds like I'm simply just faking it.

Strangers

I work at a pretty large company. I think there's about 2,000 people in my office, spread out among 11 floors. And over the past few weeks, it's become increasingly clear to me that about half the people I come into contact with on a regular basis don't know my name.

It started a couple weeks ago, when the Big Guy's who run my team decided to cater lunch for everyone as a "Happy New Year/Thanks for your hard work" kind of thing. It was buffet style (great...), but it was free food and it was presented to us as kind of mandatory thing. That we would be given lunch and then as we were all eating together in the conference room, the bosses would have a few words to say about the upcoming year.

So at the end of this buffet line stood our project administrator, and our two big bosses. The admin's job in this situation was to introduce everyone to the bosses. Now...I've been with this company for 4 years, and I've had conversations with both these guys, so I assumed they knew me. I got to the first boss while the second in line was still talking to the guy ahead of me. I said, "Thanks for the lunch P." He shook my hand and said, "Happy New Year." My turn was up for the second boss. As we extended our hands toward each other to shake, the admin asked him, "Do you know Lauren?" I started to nod my head that sure, of course he knew me. But he replied, "No. It's nice to meet you. Thanks for your hard work." What a bunch of B.S! That guy must have been horrifyingly embarrassed to be introduced to people who have been working for him as long as I have. I was pretty shocked by it too.

But I am equally guilty of not knowing everyone's name. This week I got an email from a person who's name I didn't recognize, asking for some information to get me special computer access. Later that day, a guy who's always been really friendly to me came over to ask me a question about that computer access, and it occurred to me that the sender of the email who I didn't know was this same guy who I've said Hello to hundreds of times.

A few days later, my supervisor told me to go see J.K. about a file that he should email me. He's an important guy on our project, so I knew who he was and where he sat. I could tell that he recognized me, but when I asked him to send me an email, I saw a moment of fear cross his face when it occurred to him that he wouldn't know who to send the email to. As if he was going to half-ass his way through it, he opened up a new email message, but without making him prompt me, I told him my last name so he could find me in the email directory. You're welcome, Dude, for not making you ask me who the hell I am.

And then Thursday, I was working on an electrical panel elevation drawing that needed a structural mounting detail added to it as well. I was given the name and number of the structural guy who would be doing it, and he and I had to call each other pretty often over the following 24 hours to coordinate the drawing. When it was finally done, I printed the drawing and had to bring it to him to sign off on his part of it. Do you know how a person's name and voice gives you an impression of what you think they look like. Well when I got to this guy's desk, he looked nothing like I'd pictured...Probably because I wasn't picturing anyone that I knew.

Clearly, I don't know this guy very well...but it's a guy who I've had about a dozen conversations with. Just "How was your weekend?" kind of conversations that you have with people in the elevator, or the copy room, or the break room. But I've seriously talked to this guy at least a dozen times. I think we both felt really stupid about it. When I got to his desk, we both looked a little stunned and he said, "Oh. So you're Lauren." I kind of laughed and said, "Yeah. Well now I'll finally know your name the next time I run into you."

I think I need to start introducing myself to people right away from now on, to avoid any more of these awkward moments.