Have you ever taken a week off work, then gotten sick and had your vacation spoiled? You’ve only got so many vacation days per year—and you’re not getting those back. Unless, it seems, you’re a federal employee. By chance, I was reading through a document published by the Office of Personnel Management on the use of sick leave, which contained this section:

Sick Leave When Using Annual Leave. An agency may grant sick leave to an employee on annual leave for any of the purposes for which sick leave may be granted, but is not required to do so. For example, if an employee becomes sick while on annual leave, the agency may grant sick leave to him or her in the place of annual leave.

So let’s say you head down to Cabo for spring break, you eat some bad fruit and Montezuma gets his revenge. As a federal worker, it may be you who gets the last laugh since you can call in sick for that day. How many private sector jobs offer that kind of benefit?

Now, to be clear, the passage says an agency may grant sick leave to vacationing employees. I have no idea how many do, and I also wonder how many federal workers would have the cojones to actually ask for it.

But one thing I’ve learned in my work with Jason Richwine on federal compensation is that it pays to keep digging—there’s a lot of interesting stuff to be found.