Q. The sun is shining and you're itching to spend the day outdoors. Is it acceptable to call in sick when you're not?

A.While it may be tempting to feign illness for a day at the beach, lying isn’t a skill you should practice at work. Employees should take sick days only when they’re really sick, said Loren Ekroth, a management consultant in Las Vegas. “Honesty is one of your most valuable assets, and the moment you break that, there’s a negative halo effect,” said Ekroth, who publishes the electronic magazine Better Conversations.

Q.How do most employers dispense time off?

A.Most companies provide full-time employees with a certain number of days off each year. In addition to paid holidays, this package usually consists of vacation and personal days as well as sick time. Personal time may be used for anything from dental appointments to visits to the local Department of Motor Vehicles to a day at the beach. Vacation time is usually used for, well, vacations. Sick time provides compensation when an employee falls ill. If an illness lasts longer than an employee’s bank of sick days, disability insurance, which serves as a partial salary replacement, may be available.

Jordan Kaplan, a professor of management at Long Island University in Brooklyn, said some companies offered other opportunities for breaks from work, including compressed workweeks and compensatory time.

Q.Why do some people lie about sick days?

A.Employees who wake up and decide that they must spend the workday gallivanting may feel that they have no choice but to feign illness, said Ed Jensen, an Atlanta-based partner at Accenture, the consulting firm. Not all employers offer personal days, and some require advance notice before granting vacation leave. So for some workers, he said, taking a sick day may seem like the only alternative.

“Sometimes sick days are the only way for people to make that happen,” he said of some workers’ motivation.

Bruce Judson, a consultant in Carmel, NY, and author of Go It Alone: The Secret to Building a Successful Business on Your Own (HarperBusiness, 2004), said the behavior might stem from an atmosphere of distrust in the workplace.

“People lie because they’re afraid of what will happen if they tell the truth,” he said. Rather than simply own up to wanting the day off for personal reasons, he said, some employees will embellish excuses in the hope of making the boss more likely to accept them.

Q.What risks do employees run by faking illness to skip work?

A.For one thing, the practice may come back to haunt you. If you fabricate illnesses, you may not have enough sick days available if you catch the flu.

James Wright, a partner at Bridge Technical Solutions, a staffing company in East Greenwich, RI, added that if you missed work on a beautiful day, your colleagues might realize what you'd done and resent you for leaving them with additional responsibilities. “You never know how people will react, but you always want to err on the side of caution,” he said.

If your boss finds that you spent your sick day sunbathing, he may feel betrayed. In some cases, bosses may even fire employees they perceive to be dishonest.

“An employer is relying on its employees to come to work and perform services,” said Jensen at Accenture. “If the boss thinks you have a problem with this, it could be grounds for termination.”