DILEMMA:
Can you take a sick day even though the only thing you're sick of is work?

DETERMINATION:
Yes, but only if you've exhausted the other options. If you're out of vacation days, if your company deems only house closings and religious holidays worthy of personal days, and if you truly need a mental break from the monotony, then "telling a little white lie about being sick is OK," says etiquette expert Charlotte Ford, author of 21st Century Etiquette ($25, www.amazon.com. ). A Boston sales rep who spent two of her 10 sick or personal days with friends in Martha's Vineyard says, "We had just closed out the quarter, and things were slow at the office. It was time I could justify for helping to get my head back into the game." Of course, be prepared to endure the consequences: If you get sick later in the year and all your sick days are used up, your employer may dock your pay. And don't do it often or obviously: Mondays and Fridays are a giveaway, as is a sunburn or a new haircut.

FROM THE HALL OF SHAME: "I'm notorious for taking sick days when I'm not sick," says a tech-industry employee from San Jose, California, "I've used every excuse; I had to go to a funeral for my great-grandmother, who actually died earlier; I got into an accident; I got a flat tire; I got food poisoning."