I came down with the flu last weekend. I missed two days of work—days when I was supposed to be at Villanova University helping Dining Services work on a project.
I suppose I can be forgiven; I rarely miss work because of illness and my presence at Villanova was not critical. Still, I felt a little guilty. I don’t like not honoring my commitments, even when circumstances are out of my control.
(On a side note, there is nothing quite like a day of daytime television to make me want to crawl out of a sickbed and head back to the office.)
Members of Congress caught a bug last week, too. Or maybe they had a collective anxiety attack. In any event, they also missed a few days of work, even though they had a few commitments of their own—not the least of which was the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act.
Instead of working to pass this legislation by the Sept. 30 deadline, our elected representatives closed shop a few days early to they could go home and convince voters to vote them back into office. I wonder how many of them felt guilty about calling in sick.