Starting a new job with a legitimate sick leave policy sounds simple enough, until guilt starts creeping into a benefit that was supposed to feel straightforward.

One employee, newly hired with 15 paid sick days a year and no real vacation time until her first anniversary, decided she’d use every sick day as it accrued, prioritizing her physical and mental health without apology.

She knew the company was already running short-handed, the kind of setup where one person’s absence tends to ripple.

So soon an ethical dilemma began to emerge: what did she truly owe her employer, and what did she owe herself?

Keep reading for the full story.

Sick Day Usage for any reason

I just started a job with paid sick leave.

I’m entitled to 15 days a year. Any unused sick leave can be cashed out at 60%.

I only get 10 days paid vacation after a year, so not yet.

This employee started planning ahead for how they planned to use that time,

I plan on taking every sick day basically as it is accrued.

If I have to take unpaid leave for actual sick days, so be it.

I want to prioritize my physical and mental health now.

They acknowledge there may be somewhat of a downside to this.

I’ve never been the person to call in, so this is bothering me because I know I’ll leave people hanging.

The business is choosing to run short-handed, and this is the result, otherwise it wouldn’t make much difference.

They begin to wonder if this is really ethical.

This company acknowledges mental health at least, but I’m hoping that taking the time off to mentally recover doesn’t stress me out.

I’d love to hear from others that also utilize their sick days.

I know tons of people who think this is unethical.

It’s this employee’s time, so why not use it?

Redditors wasted no time chiming in on this one.

This user provides some much-needed validation for the employee.

This commenter has their own mindset when it comes to sick days.

Employees don’t always stand to benefit from following all the rules to the letter.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who received a work email from a place she never even applied.

The whole concept of sick time is a little strange.

There’s a difference between abusing a policy and simply using it as intended, and this situation is clearly the latter.

The discomfort around leaving coworkers short-handed is understandable to a certain extent, but some decisions are better kept for the people actually making money from the business.

We all know employers take their cut, so it’s time for employees to stop apologizing up taking theirs.