Chicago College Official Gets $500,000 Windfall For Unused Sick Days

The Great Recession and subsequent fragile recovery have shifted many Americans' view of taking time off from work. Fearing that they won't have jobs upon their return, plenty of workers leave paid vacation and sick days on the table -- and lose them because their employers require those days to be taken within a specified time.

In Chicago, however, the former chief of the city's community college system, Wayne Watson, will be paid for most of the 500 paid sick days he accrued during the last 10 years of his three-decade-long tenure, netting him an extra $500,000, Chicago News Cooperative reports.