Monday is a bank holiday in parts of Australia. It is a “picnic day” for those in finance. And, as is often the case with long weekends, Australians are adept at finding ways to extend them. The Friday before, or the Tuesday after, a long weekend is, statistically, at a higher risk of having lower workplace attendance than normal.
Beware, my wife, a seasoned HR executive, has a near-forensic approach to monitoring sick leave patterns. She has little time for coincidence when it comes to employees who mysteriously fall ill just before or after a public holiday. They risk being taken aside and having their leave entitlements politely explained.
The claiming of sick leave when you are not sick is known in Australian slang as “chucking a sickie”. It is well known, widely practised, and only rarely confessed outside one’s close friends.
Chuck
“Chuck” as a verb goes back to the 16th century and is thought to derive from a French “choquer” meaning to shock or strike against. It has long been used informally to mean “to throw,” and, more colloquially, “to vomit” with its synonym “chunder” in Australia while the Americans have “upchuck”.
As a noun “chuck has been used to describe a piece of wood (1670s) and a piece of meat (1723). It is likely a version of chock meaning a block. Chock and chuck are variants of the same word with slightly different overlapping usages. For instance, we use a chuck to hold a drill bit in an electric drill (from 1703) whereas we use a chock to stop a parked aeroplane from rolling away.
Americans also use Chuck as a friendly nickname for people called Charles. Although this peaked in the 1960s it is less fashionable nowadays—Charlie Brown, the Peanuts comic strip character, famously hated being called Chuck.
Chucking a sickie
The full phrase “chucking a sickie” is recorded in Australian usage from the 1970s, although the practice itself is surely much older.
It is a phrase deeply embedded in the Australian vernacular. “Chuck” is central to the phrase. In Australian parlance “chuck” has wider meaning and usage than in standard English. We chuck U-ies (make u-turns), chuck a tantie (have a tantrum), and we chuck sickies.
The noun “sickie” is, of course, a shortening of sick day. The Australian shortening of words and ending them with “-ie” implies something is familiar and friendly.
In this sense, “chuck” implies a kind of effortless casualness. It suggests something done offhand, possibly with minimal planning and limited guilt.
Enjoy your long weekend, bankers
Thus using “chucking a sickie” (as opposed to claiming to be ill so that you can have the day off to go to a football match) implies an effortless and casual action. Using the phrase lessens the guilt from fraudulently claiming medical incapacity and lying to your employer to take leave for spurious reason. Thus chucking a sickie sits comfortably within Australian anti-authoritarianism. I hope you enjoy your weekend.