HEY BABES! Side note: I learned to use the caps lock this week, which is a huge time saver. You should totally check it out.
Anyway, welcome back. I'm sure your holiday plans are all coming along nicely, especially if you were planning to have nobody's gifts ready yet, and no ideas, am I right? Ha ha. Well, I've had lots of great letters asking about how to be better at prioritizing, but I've just been too busy organizing my kitchen utensils by the date I received or purchased them that I ran out of time to read them all. Sorry, I will for sure get to them eventually.
While you're patiently waiting for that, I want to address a note I received from H.K. in Nova Scotia. H.K. writes, "Hey Cassie! You are [my absolute favorite advice columnist and writer, by a mile! Now, I'm making] my first attempt to figure out a solution to this thing I'm dealing with. I was having one of those days last week where I just didn't want to go into work. I called and told them I was sick, and then I got a nice card and flowers delivered that afternoon! I don't know how to describe it, but I've never felt so fiendishly alive. It was such an intense feeling to be cared about, even if it was for a made-up reason. Anyway, long story short, now the whole office thinks I have a chronic illness, and I just can't bring myself to tell them what's up. What do you think I should do?"
Oh my gosh, H.K., what a great question! First of all, namaste to all of you over there. Okay, so I think you've found something great. It is so much work to get people's sympathy for a real reason, that it's almost not worth it. You have to sit there and wait for something bad to happen to you, and then you have to post it all over social media before the outpouring of sympathy comes. I do love those, though. Even total strangers will tell you how inspiring and brave you are, so it can get really addictive. You've found out that you don't actually have to have anything bad happen. As long as you just make it seem like it did, the sympathy should keep on coming. People are suckers, and can't help it.
I do have some advice. First, you need to slowly step up your game. It's all well and good to milk the fake illness for a few days, but pretty soon somebody is going to ask for some evidence. They'll ask who your doctor is, what the prognosis is, what are your specific symptoms, and all of that, so DO YOUR HOMEWORK! Shout out to my caps lock.
Next, you should start actually producing real symptoms. This might take some effort, but it's worth it just to get all that attention, right? That is what it's all about. I hope you chose a chronic illness that is not too hard to fake. Anything needing bleeding or bile gets pretty gross, but if you can just stop eating or something, then you may be in business. The key is to make it look real.
You should also rehearse how you will deal with questions. My personal favorite is to start to answer and seem totally willing to talk, but then get overwhelmed by whatever symptoms you say you have. Those gullible coworkers will drop like flies. If that doesn't work, you can start attacking them. Useful phrases like "How dare you?" and "You think I would make this up?" are golden in these situations.
So do escalate it, but not too quickly. You'll lose their attention if you stagnate, but you need to leave yourself room to get worse so that this can go on for years.
If it goes well, you should have those coworkers, friends, and even some doctors giving you those looks like you are the bravest person around. Let me know how it goes!