"ideal worker"

I've spent the past couple months doing research on paid sick days, why they're important to provide to all workers, why it's important to use them, and how beneficial it is to society as a whole to have them and use them.

So why is it that the one time I'm sick and have to stay home, I feel guilty the whole time?

So guilty that I still got myself out of bed at 9:00 am to sign into my remote desktop connection and work for 5 hours today before finally realizing that this defeats the purpose of taking a sick day?

I've heard references to the "ideal worker," that worker who works tons of overtime without recording the extra hours, who offers to do all of the extra tasks that no one else wants to do, who is constantly busy and overloaded but somehow manages to get most of it done, and never takes any vacation time. While I don't think I am quite in that extreme, I most certainly feel pressure to be that way:

- I felt bad asking for overtime pay when I stayed for 6 hours extra one week to help the president of IWPR with her power point presentations;

- I was uncomfortable asking my boss to sign off on my leave forms when I wanted to take an extra day off to spend with my family during the holidays;

- I habitually stay about a half hour past the end of my scheduled work day;

- When co-workers send out requests for help on projects, etc., I find myself jumping to help them even though I am already working on something else.

Now, some of this is admittedly just me being a giant nerd. I know that. And I'm not saying that I'm actually the ideal worker. I sit on Gchat, I'll take the occasional longer lunch, I chat with my co-worker throughout the day about things unrelated to work.

But some of it must also be the work culture that exists in this country. At competitive universities, students often find themselves in conversations about how much time they've spent studying for this class and that midterm. My co-workers are constantly in the office well past 6:30 pm although most of us are scheduled to work until 5:30 pm. Coming in to work on the weekends is common. Many of us eat lunch at our desks and work while eating.

With all the work I do surrounding work-life balance and work-family policies, I'm beginning to wonder whether all of this will help anyone, if it will mean anything at all if this workaholic culture stays put. A while ago, I listened in on a Department of Labor discussion about how to enforce the breastfeeding protections in the Affordable Care Act, and a number of the people on the call spoke about how it'll be an issue of enforcement, yes, but that changing workplace culture would be the more difficult, and perhaps more important, part.

Just some food for thought.