To not go to work tomorrow?

[Honeydukes92]

I work for a large multi nat and they are amazing- I love my job.

...but I’m about to graduate uni.

My dissertation is due in on Friday and TODAY at lunch time my tutor emailed me to say that an entire section of it needed to be redone. 😦

I’ve been working on it for weeks to avoid this happening and thought I’d done really well. I’d met with my tutor last week but as he’s swamped with others in the same boat he didn’t feedback until today.

I’ve worked furiously all afternoon and now feel both dizzy and sick from the stress. I simply can’t turn it around in time but ‘I’ve got to go to work tomorrow’ isn’t an excuse the university will accept or offer an extension for.

The things is, work have already let me drop to part time hours in the run up to deadlines, which is amazing of them. So I feel terrible. But I was limited on how prepared I could be as was restricted by data collection dates.

In fairness I do usually go above and beyond and am a pretty good employee- but still!

If I go to work tomorrow I WILL NOT get this dissertation completed to a high standard. I’m already accounting for staying up most of tonight and before/ after work tomorrow.

I don’t know whether to just call in and be straight with them!

Asking for tutor feedback a week before the deadline is cutting it VERY fine. Most students will work on a dissertation for at 6-12 months. The university is not to blame.

OP do you work at a computer? Can you go in and work on your dissertation and look like you're working? Employers often care more about bums on seats than actual productivity...

@Screwy

The section in question couldn’t be completed until data had been collected. I had to follow all the uni deadlines/timescales about collecting this. Once I got it, it was not a quick process to analyse.

The uni realised this and actually extended their own dissertation submission date by 3 weeks (as they realised they were making us submit - before we could physically have done what we needed to 😂🙈)

Yes it’s close but I really couldn’t have avoided it. (Well I could but I’d have had to do a far less ambitious study - I wish I had known)

I could but I think the anxiety of getting caught might finish me off 😂😭

Ring in sick. You won't be in this job forever and its one day FGS. You are obviously a conscientious employee or you wouldn't be thinking twice about ringing in sick unless you are looking for people to reassure you that its the right/only thing to do?

Work for another couple of hours and then sleep and set your alarm to phone in sick. And try to stay off browsing MN if you are short of time because MN is like a rabbit hole and before you know it, an hour or two will have passed by :)

Best of luck with it. Hope you get it in on time.

Just woke up to feed baby and wanted to reiterate that if you mess up your degree out of loyalty to an employer you will regret it for the rest of your life. The employer won't give a toss in a few days.

I am surprised you are not more annoyed with uni. From what you've described the uni are partly to blame for lack of planning over this.You seem to have a great deal of loyalty to organisations and not enough loyalty to yourself!

Obviously call in sick. No brainer

It's no good asking if it's OK to swap your day - what if they say, No?
Much safer to say you're sick - it's not like they'll catch you out on the town when you're claiming to be ill.

Personally I'd call in sick, and to make if convincing not go back until Tuesday or so. Needing 2-3 days is more convincing than one!

Or you cd take a middle path and say your dissertation is due and it's given you stress diarrhoea. Then they'll know you're working on it but that you're ill and need to be hone too. Plus no one wants to ask that many questions about diarrhoea

Call in sick, food poisoning, get it done. Just remember you've done it, its hard to keep a lie, so you really have to believe it happened otherwise you'll catch yourself talking about the last minute stress and forget you were supposed to have it in hand and just came down with d&v.

Best of luck! I remember, in the days before The Cloud, my laptop crashing while i finished off my dissertation. I was living and working in a small town in Africa (my research focus) and had to find someone to just get the thing working again (at vast expense, he knew i was desperate!) and then rewrote most of it.. So stressful..

What I don’t get is why you’re coming back to reply so often when you’ve got this massive, life changing deadline.

Stay or go, but your dissertation needs to be worked on!

PrincessCessy is talking sense. Stop procrastinating on MN!

...I'd take the time out if I was you. You only get one chance and you'll regret not taking the time you need.

Good luck!

@Princess

Honestly I was so wired last night I needed someone to talk sense to me. Plus the statistics software to reproduce graphs made my laptop run slower than my parents dial up used to 15 years ago 😒

I worked SO hard last night and very pleased. Only had 2 hours sleep and feel crappy now though! Also started stress vomiting around 3am, which ususally would make me feel 100% worse, but actually makes me feel much more justified in not being in work today!

Thank you so much for all of your responses! It’s so hard to see the wood for the trees when you’re stress spiralling.

DH asked last night if I wanted to write 2:2 on my CV FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE! When I knew I could have gotten better. Really put it into perspective.

I would be honest with work - take annual leave or suggest a way of making up time. Dont lie when they have been so good and are likely to be now. It will sour it for you and work. Good luck!

Good luck OP.

Bless you! I could feel every word of this.

I can tell you that in 2 weeks' time no one will even remember you being sick.

Good luck - you are going to be fine whatever the result.

The uni have set it up so that you had no choice about things coming down to the wire. This experience, and coping with it, will actually set you up for life well.

YOU ARE GOING TO BE OKAY!!!

@live

Thank you 😊

I rang my boss first thing and was just super honest.

‘Had significant set back yesterday- Need to work on dissertation today- Have made myself unwell stressing out.’

Absoloutley no issue - ‘We’ll put it down as holiday, don’t stress too much, it’s nearly over, good luck!’

😍 God I have a fantastic employer!

Also just had an email from tutor saying the work id done last night (and sent back to him at like 4am this morning) is VERY promising. 🙌🏻 He even used the capital letters for VERY!

^ * @lilboat

Sorry- I meant to include both of you x

That's how employers should be - it should be a give and take relationship.

Well done on getting so much done! Good luck with it all

Ahhh I'm glad. Your Manager sounded good, and in their position I'd have said yes to one of my team no problem.

Good luck!

Great stuff. I’m intrigued what your degree subject is, can you give us a vague idea without outing yourself? Good luck!

So glad you were honest with your employer. And it paid off! I'm glad you didn't phone in sick with D&V, as they might have insisted you stay off for 48 hours, which would have taken the piss. Glad it's all sorted and good luck with the dissertation!

Phew, that's a good outcome OP.