Hmm...I'm too sick to stay at home today

Here's a new (fake) term to add to your vocabulary: half-sick. This is not the kind of sickness that requires a doctor's visit to sort out. It's not the sort of debilitating cold which requires an extra box of tissues as your new favorite side-kick.  It's also not the fake "sick" that people pretend to be when they're sneezing more than usual or have a caffeine headache. No -- half-sick is that odd gray area where you could arguably take the day off work to stay at home or, conversely, go into work and deal with it. I've been half sick for 4 days now.

The recipe for half-sick is fairly simple: (move to SF) + (surround yourself with amazing people you can't get enough of) + (plan on dancing and yelling, a lot) + (a 2-hour daily commute to Mountain View) - (sleep) = inevitable half-sickness.

Even after 4 days of half-sickness, I repeated the vicious pattern last night. I met an old friend from Colorado at 9:45pm in the Haight-Ashbury area to grab drinks and catch up. He has just finished his first year of med school at UCSF and promptly diagnosed me as the all-to-common half-sick I have described. As we chatted more, it occurred to me that during this half-sick phase, I have never once even considered the possibility of taking a sick day from work. Even in my beautiful home in San Francisco, cuddled in bed looking out the Victorian windows, I think I could heal much better while...yeah, at Google. Think about it! There's no strictly enforced dress code, so sweatpants for a day would work. I've been drinking grapefruit juice all week, as well as eating a multitude of fruits and vegetables at all meals. I've used the nap pods at work this week. Twice. The only thing I'm not doing right is modifying my sleep routine in the evenings! And the incentives continue: Google has doctors on campus which will see all employees for free and give basic medical treatment like illness diagnosis, injury treatment, travel consultations, vaccinations, etc. If I can't kick this cold by Monday, I think I'll be stopping by the Wellness Center!

I can hear the angry HR emails filling my inbox already, so let's be clear: I don't think Google is advocating that sick people come into work and spread the illness...but they sure do create a tempting environment to recover!