I have a pile of "Perfect Attendance" awards and I hate them.

 Every single year from kindergarten through 11th grade, I received an award at the end-of-the-year presentations. They all look about these same: printed on thick paper with curly-but-still-readable font, a nice blue border, and my name printed below the words "Perfect Attendance." I still have them in a box somewhere. 

I loved getting those awards every year because it validated that, by simply showing up, I was achieving. Not achieving something specific, but achieving. Being physically present every day and having a teacher mark that I was sitting at my desk meant that I had done something worthy of commendation during an awards ceremony.

Those awards were also a little confusing to me. Why wouldn't I be at school every day? The sniffles don't mean you stay home. A headache doesn't mean you take a break. 

In high school, I went to school with a pack of tissues and a nasty cough. I went to band practice with fevers and headaches.

Just to be clear, my parents never told me to go to school when I was sick. They expected me to make good choices and I just ... didn't. I simply didn't tell them when I was sick because I believed school was where I needed to be. 

College doesn't track "perfect attendance" per se, but I still went to class every day with the same mindset. I still made it to campus when I was sick, and exhausted, and desperately wanted to stay in bed.

There was just something about showing up every day that seemed so important.

Entering a professional workforce was a little offputting. I was suddenly hearing about "paid time off" and "sick time" and "sabbaticals." I understood that other people were taking time off, but I just didn't feel like I should do it. It felt like a reward, not a self-care tool.

So, I went to work when I was sick. I muscled through headaches and fevers, thinking I was achieving by showing up. I only took vacation time around Christmas, when everyone else was gone anyway. Somehow it seemed acceptable to do it then. 

I did end up taking sick time, but only because I worked when I was sick and made whatever I had even worse. But even when I took sick days, I still felt like I shouldn't. Like I had failed by not showing up. By not achieving.

I've done better with this over the years. I take my vacation time and recharge (sometimes). I schedule intermittent days off to give myself a break. When I don't feel well, I consider it differently and I don't feel like I have to ask permission to be sick. Also, I have kids now, so I have to be more flexible with my expectations of myself and my work priorities. I think I have a good lock on it.

Most of the time.

Yesterday, I woke up very sick. Sicker than I had been in years. I couldn't get out of bed. When I realized how awful I felt, my first thought turned to my projects and my deadlines and the work I needed to complete. There were all these things that would be waiting for me the next day if I didn't get any work done. It stressed me out and frustrated me. I was almost in tears. I work remote! Was I seriously considering the idea that I couldn't do anything when my laptop was ten steps away? When I could literally do my job from bed if I had to? Was I going to do nothing? Accomplish nothing? Achieve nothing? Really?

I hope that sounds awful. It should. 

I hope you think that's sad. It is.

I've worked really hard to correct that toxic mindset, but it still whispers to me that my health should always come second, or third, or tenth. I have things to do, after all. People are counting on me. What business do I have being sick?   

But I was literally too sick to work. I was in too much pain. So, I told my boss I was taking the day off and turned on my Out of Office message. 

And then I shut off my laptop and slept until 1pm. You know why? I was really, really sick!

For the record, everyone I work with didn't bat an eye when I took the day off, and my company expects everyone to take care of their mental and physical health. This morning, my email was full of messages telling me to focus on my health. Assurances that projects we were working on together would be fine in my absence. Hopes that I was going to recover quickly, not because these people need me, but because they care that I'm well.

When I woke up yesterday afternoon, I thought about the choices I had made that morning. It didn't feel good to realize that, if I had been a little less sick, I probably would have powered through everything bad I felt with intensely mediocre results.

It frustrates me that, after all this time, that concept of "perfect attendance" still overshadows what is logical and realistic. So, just in case you (or I) need a reminder:

• Showing up is not "achieving." 
• Being physically present doesn't earn you anything if you're not mentally present.
• Working when you're sick isn't an accomplishment. And if you work somewhere that tells you otherwise, you should take a hard look at what sort of culture you work in.
• Perfect attendance is a terrible goal. We should be working on effective attendance.