Warning: This essay is not intended for those of you who think that leaving work at 8:30 is "sneaking out" or who stop by the office on Saturday for "just" six or seven hours because "it's so much easier to get work done when it's quiet."

This essay is for those of us who spend a significant portion of our workday reading and rereading the company's human resources literature, trying to pinpoint loopholes in office policy. (If I need to recover from a paper cut trauma, say at a little spa in Antibes, France, can I get a paid leave of absence plus expenses?)

This essay is for those of us who constantly deal with Vacation Days Envy whenever we meet Scandinavians who tell us how people in their country get nine weeks of vacation a year. It's for those of us who know that there's a prize known as "Sick Days" just an arm's length away. Ten more days in the sun. Ten more days in bed watching "Martha" and "Oprah" and "Ricki." Those days are there for us, like a golden promise, like an ornately wrapped gift that takes some skill to figure out how to open but, once you do, is all yours.

First, let me say that I've seen firsthand the deleterious effects of excessive corporate dedication. A friend of the family's -- let's call her "Aunt Wanda" -- was an office manager for a janitorial supplies company for 17 years. Aunt Wanda was always the one who arrived late to weekend barbecues. (She had to stop by the office to sign a few "req" forms.) She called in sick only twice in those 17 years (once for an emergency appendectomy and once when her schnauzer died). And she could tear herself away for only one week of vacation a year, so ultimately she had accrued 129 days of paid time off.

Aunt Wanda lived in that office and, unfortunately, she died there too. She suffered a heart attack while scarfing down her lunch at her desk. While she waited for the ambulance to arrive, she signed the week's payroll, typed a memo about the upcoming blood drive and color-coded and cross-referenced her L-to-R files.

So calling in sick is easy, right? Why read an essay on it? Perhaps because doing it the wrong way can be disastrous. Take the following as a cautionary tale. A woman I know -- "Alana" -- called in sick recently because her beloved husband, "Ben," had the flu and she needed to nurse him back to health. Unfortunately, Ben -- a school bus driver -- was returning home from his morning route and decided to make a surprise visit to his wife's office to give her a kiss. Bad call, Alana!

So let the PowerPoint presentation begin:

1. Is calling in sick an art?

Yes.

2. Should I feel guilty for calling in sick when I'm not really sick?

God, no. When you start feeling guilty, ask yourself this: Do corporations ever feel guilty? Do heads of conglomerates lose any sleep after they inform the office that there will be no pay raises this year and that the office Christmas party, usually a sit-down, five-course affair with an open bar at the swankiest hotel in town, is going to be a BYOB at Paul's Pulled Pork and Ribs? I don't think so.