How can I use up my sick hours without being sick?

It’s time to do some research on how the company you work for looks upon sick time. Some might treat it as a benefit, while others do not. In the latter case, it means that if you aren’t sick or on medical leave, it cannot be used for any other purpose.

First do your sick hours accumulate from year to year? If so it would be foolish to use them up, you never know when you are going to be injured or sick and need the extra days.

You can use them up for preventative care or caring for a family member. If employees don’t abuse it, many firms will let you use a half day every now and then, we call it sanity check time here.
I think in the US you only need to show a doctor’s note if it is more than 2 days.

But like @Pied_Pfeffer stated, it is up to the employer how much you can get away with.

Some jobs require a note, some jobs let you take a few days before requiring a note, and some jobs may not ask for a note at all (although I’ve never heard of a job that won’t ever ask for a note at some point). You have to check your contract or handbook. If you are a union worker, ask the union.

Are you planning to quit or might you get laid off? Othewise, it’s not a bad thing to have a lot of sick time in case of emergency.

Does your sick time expire, or do they have a maximum accrual amount?

@Pied_Pfeffer I absolutely right. No one here can really answer this question for you. This kind of thing is a matter of policy, your particular employer’s policies and can very tremendously from company to company. I think you really need to talk to someone in your company’s Human Resources department. Though, I wouldn’t phrase it the same way, “How can I use up my sick hours without being sick?”, as you did in your question. Just ask them about how your sick days/time off work.

If your company has an employee’s handbook you really should probably have a copy of that. You weren’t given anything that spelled out your company’s personnel policies regarding, vacation, sick leave, conduct, that sort of thing, when you were hired?

By lying and pretending you are sick. But then you would be a (time) thief, plus a liar. How do you feel about that?

It is not a good idea to abuse your sick time. It is like insurance that is there to help you if you need it. Also your company may allow you to donate small amounts of your sick time to co-workers suffering poor health. It is nice to be able to help others in genuine need.

People were abusing sick time where I work. This put extra work and pressure on other workers who have to do extra work. So a new sick policy was voted on and approved by all employees that requires that a worker be sick for 3 days in a row before sick time kicks in. In other words you have to take 3 days of vacation time (PTO) in order to start using your sick time. Now hardly anyone ever calls in sick.

Good health to you.

Sick leave is meant to allow you to take paid time away from work when you are sick. Certainly in Australia, it is not meant to be additional leave to be added to your vacation time. If you do get sick, and have used up all your leave, what will you do then? Go to work sick and infect others or can you afford to be off work without pay? Life has a way of throwing up the unexpected. That’s why we have benefits such as sick leave.

If you do take sick leave here, in most cases you would need to provide a medical certificate after between 1–3 days depending on where you work. If you don’t provide evidence you were sick, you are likely to find your pay is lighter for that week.

They have these things called telephones, you can use one to call your boss and tell him that you are sick….it’s pretty high tech shit.

The problem here is that we have very little information to go on in order to provide guidance. For example, @Bellatrix speaks of the rules in Australia, while the bulk of us are referencing what limited information we know personally about how it is handled in the US.

Here in the US, Federal laws set the standards when it comes to employment guidelines. An individual state’s laws can supersede Federal if it is to the advantage of the employee. A company’s policy has to meet state laws unless it makes rules that are to the advantage of the employee.

This is why @Sponge just needs to check with their company first to find out what their rules are. Once ze has this information and provides it to us, then we can help answer the question. It would also help to know what country and even specific area ze lives in.

If the OP @Sponge would return and provide more information, that would be helpful.