Do You Call In Sick or Call Out Sick?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Heidi. I live in Vermont.

And the question I have is regarding the term call out. That sounds very strange to me because I would use the term call in. I would say I’m going to call in sick.

My daughters who are in their 20s and they work at a cafe, I would overhear them talking and they’d say, oh, so-and-so called out today. And that means that the person was sick and they called into work to say that they were sick and weren’t able to come in.

But they say called out and everybody knows it means that you’re sick and not coming to work. And that just sounds very foreign to me because you’re calling into work.

-huh. Right.

So I’m wondering whether that’s a generational thing or if it’s a regional thing. I grew up in the Midwest, although when I was in the workforce, I’m self-employed now, so I never get to call in sick.

But when I was in the workforce, I worked in Michigan and I also worked in Massachusetts. And I have never heard the term call-out used until just in the past few years hearing it from my daughters.

So wonderful to get the field report. You’ve laid it out so nicely for us with all the details and the descriptions and everything.

We have talked about this before, and I bring that up just to say that lots of people called us and wrote us when we talked about this before with their information and their detail about where they were and how old they are.

And so we know a little bit based on our callers. And it turns out that calling out sick is based in the New York City metropolitan region. It’s not only there, but it’s mostly there.

And so it doesn’t seem to be about an age difference, really. It’s about geography at this point.

And most of the country, by far in a way, a ratio of something like five to one, is likely to say call in. They’ll call in sick. And really, some of it is about perspective.

So are you calling into the office? Or are you calling that you’re going to be out? So that’s kind of what’s happening here.

So does the out describe you? Or does the in describe what you’re doing with the call? See what’s happening there?

I would agree with the latter there. Some people are thinking about themselves being out, and so that’s what they’re calling about. They’re calling about their being out.

Yeah, I’m thinking when I used to work in offices, I would definitely call in sick. But I guess now that I work at home, it’s sort of like, do I call over sick? I call down sick, down to the hall.

Barbara from Maine tells us that nurses and paramedics and firefighters that she knows all say call off sick.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Oh, interesting.

But that’s even rarer than call out sick.

Yeah.

Is that regional too or that’s by vocation?

We don’t have enough information. It’s so rare that we just simply can’t put a tag on that. More information needed.

Always delighted to get more field reports on call off sick.

And there’s another interesting thing here. So in organized labor, there’s a kind of strike where workers use their sick time all on the same days to force an issue with their employers. And it’s called either a sick out or a sick in.

So even in a strike like that, there’s some confusion about in and out. It’s both a sick out and a sick in.

Oh, wow.

So I kind of want to know what the grammatically correct thing is so that I can win the argument with my daughters.

Both.

The problem here is that you’ve got two different phrasal verbs, call in and call out. And so you don’t break them up.

So call out behaves as a unit and call in behaves as a unit. And so they’re both grammatically correct. And they’re both culturally correct and sociologically correct.

They’re correct in every aspect. It’s simply a matter of preference.

And so you can force your use on them by fiat, but perhaps you should marvel at the difference instead and start to take a note of what other people say and see if you can figure out more about it.

Like if you discover that there are people around you who do say call-off stick and, oh, wait, are they all firefighters? Or do they work in a field related to medicine? You know, something like that.

So just put that disagreement and just marvel at the novelty that your children are different than you. They’re not a part of you, although they feel like it, right?

They are. And that’s a great perspective to enjoy, that we can both be right, even though we’re using a different phrase.

Right.

Here’s hoping you all stay healthy anyway and don’t have to do that.

That’s right.

We don’t have to call in or out.

We don’t have to call in or call out.

That’s the best plan.

Thank you so much for your call. We really appreciate it.

Thank you.

It was a lot of fun.

Be well.

Yep, thanks. Bye.

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