Calling in Sick From the Golf Course

OhMyGov's Bureaupat takes up the tricky issue of sick leave today, addressing the question of whether you can have your spouse call in sick for you if you're not feeling well enough to do so yourself. The short answer is there isn't a governmentwide policy, but the best part of the column is the (presumably apochryphal) story that leads it off:

Bureaupat has heard the story of a time where one of the federal government's fine labor organizations was in the midst of negotiations with senior management at a federal facility. The discussion turned to sick leave abuse, and one of the agency's managers angrily gave union leadership a copy of the local daily newspaper. In the sports section was a photo of a department employee, happily raising a golf trophy he had won at a tournament. "This guy called in sick yesterday! What do you think about this?" the senior manager asked. And the senior union negotiator answered, "Wow, that's amazing! Imagine how well he would have done if he hadn't been sick!"