Taking a Writing Day
Many of my recent posts have touched on the sensitive subject of cheating.
Yet I, in uncharacteristic fashion, neglected to give any real-world examples. I let you down, and I’m sorry.
Allow me to correct my mistake. I am going to give you one real example about how a person (and I will not name names) might cheat for the betterment of themselves and others.
You’re Looking at It
Tonight, I decided to sneak some writing in, instead of composing a lengthy and fulfilling blog post for your benefit.
Now I know just how much you were looking forward to an in-depth blog post, but there comes a point where the book has to be a priority. So I took my chance, even if it meant giving you short shrift.
What I have done, essentially, is taken a writing day—which we can define as “making time for writing by shirking other obligations”.
But rather than stew about my doing it to you, let’s consider how you might do it to other people.
Taking a Writing Day, Hypothetically
Suppose you work at a job. Suppose that job, like some other jobs in the world, gives you a number of sick days.
Allow me to ask: what happens to your sick days at the end of each year? Are you rewarded for not using them?
Chances are good that you aren’t.
Now let me ask you another question: when you call in sick to your job, is there any way for your workplace to verify your condition. That is to say, how can they be sure you’re actually sick?
Now I realize this is a radical idea—one that I am sure has never been used or even proposed ever before in all of human history—but suppose that, every once in a while, you were to call in sick without actually being sick.
I fear I’ve already laid waste to many tender minds by proffering such an unabashed blasphemy. You are, of course, justified in calling out the heinousness of my transgression.
Nevertheless, the point is there.
Show Me
Earlier in the week, I coined the following observation on Twitter:
I know of no more ruinous vice than the fear of confrontation.
No other failing of character will rob you of more opportunity and happiness. You cannot get what you want from life if you aren’t willing to get into trouble for it.
T. ALAN HORNE
And it baffled me, as I wrote it, just how much I believed that statement. Now I want to see people go through with it.
So I challenge you—you, the one reading this, to take a writing day. I challenge you to cheat your day job, as much as is reasonable.
And, if you feeling particularly confident, send me proof of your misdeed.
If you get in trouble for it, you are welcome to pin the blame on me. I will talk your boss’s ear off if they let me. I will argue in your behalf and accept your employer’s wrath. But only if you do this thing for me.
I can’t promise you won’t regret it. I mean, I will certainly not regret it, but you will get something out of it as well. Every day, your day job takes away time you can never get back. But if you take a writing day, you get to keep time that your day job cannot take away.
Don’t wait to be given time; take it. You can thank me later.
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