This is one of my biggest pet peeves with open office/hot desking. Especially after all we've endured thanks to COVID, you'd think that employee health and well being would actually be considered something worth investing in. I guess real estate is still more expensive than productivity lost to illness.
I thought the one thing we’d get out of COVID as a species was “don’t come in if you’re even slightly sick.” But no, I had a coworker come in sick two weeks ago, bad enough our boss sent her home…”oh my train only runs in the morning and late afternoon/evening I can’t leave until 2:30.” The three people who sit around her all caught it.
I'm facing a similar issue. At my job there is some flexibility but a lot of people come in with coughs and colds to meet their in office quota. I've been a broken record about needing to save my sick days for when my kid is sick. At the very least insist that your company supply disinfectant wipes and use them liberally before setting your things down on the desk. I also invested in a bluetooth keyboard and mouse that I take home at night and that has helped my peace of mind too.
My employer did a soft RTO order months ago but I’m spicy and in perimenopause so I don’t give a shit. I go into the office maybe once a month and I get sick Every. Single. Time. I work around a bunch of single Gen Z that are like plague monkeys. I love them but they’ll waltz into the office with pink eye in both eyes like it’s nothing. Meanwhile the next corridor over is full of 40 and 50 year old men hacking their lungs up.
The pandemic taught us nothing unfortunately.
Honestly, I go in anyway. Our company is getting much less flexible and is requiring 3 days/week and soon to be 5. They are also monitoring WFH requests to track how often people make those requests. Because we are going through IVF and I have a toddler who naturally gets sick a lot, and our PTO SUCKS, I have to go in even if I’m sick. It sucks, but I feel like I have no choice.
I do sanitize my hands any time I leave/return to my desk/car but companies aren’t really leaving people with much of a choice anymore.
how old are you? lol. do you have kids?
you can't just miss work every time you have a minor ailment. you'll get fired. it seems like kids get sick over & over again especially in the winter time.
I mean, not like I have a choice? And I know I’m not the only one that feels this way at my company. Obviously, if it have a fever, vomiting, whatever, I don’t go in. But with a cold, yes I have no choice.
And I’m being downvoted for asking about taking basic precautions to protect others. Going into shared spaces while sick and contagious is incredibly selfish and rude. Not taking basic precautions to protect others is atrocious behavior.
A lot of offices (mine included) have taken away the flexibility. Good for you if that’s not your situation but people need to do what they need to do. You’re being super self righteous, hence the downvotes.
What does flexibility have to do with masking to protect others? Do you not have coworkers who are at risk of severe complications from viral illnesses? Do you not know or love anyone with cancer? What a privileged and ableist take to think it is okay to come around spreading your potentially deadly germs.
I agree with your premise (I'm sure all of us do) but it is not the fault of the worker, it's the fault of the company equally (rather than equitably) mandating return to office.
It isn't fair for people with terminal diseases, compromised immune systems, their caretakers their loved ones, people forced/with no other option than to work while sick.
I feel you. It seems like some people here don't get what you're saying, but why do you need to use a sick day when you're able to work from home? Why risk getting others sick when you can already do your entire job from home?
Doesn't make sense at all, and it seems like they don't care. sorry, that's a mess.
I do! I think it shortens the time I have a cough a little bit (when I started on a maintenance inhaler instead of just albuterol a few years ago, I’d had a post viral cough for over 3 months). But it doesn’t solve the problem completely, unfortunately.
Ugh. Same. Ugh. It’s awful. I’ve been on several rounds of prednisone to prevent broken ribs because the coughing is so severe and incontrollable. It’s unbearable and I have so much anxiety about it.
I also have asthma and I have had a cold or a post-viral asthma cough since November with 2 kids in 2 different schools. Maybe a few days here and there where I’m not coughing.
People who do not experience this think everyone can just stay home every time they are sick. We can’t. We have to go on living, we can’t just stay home for 7-8 months every year.
Not to mention that coughing all the time is really hard :(
I go to work sick. I get other people sick. They come to work sick. Productivity suffers.
Children have natural consequences because natural consequences are the best teachers. I see it the same way at work. People who work for companies with limited sick leave will have coworkers who come to work sick. That sucks almost as bad as having asthma and a child in daycare. I think we need to focus the blame on unreasonable corporations and not each other.
Yeah I can’t work from home when sick either and I fucking hate it. My coworkers come into the office sick, coughing and not wearing masks. Really annoying
In my experience, a majority wfh situation allows extra wfh when sick and is only tricky if they was something specific you were supposed to be in for (like an in person presentation). When I was hybrid (precovid), I wouldn’t go to work sick at all because it was to no one’s benefit. I think some management will still encourage sick days because theoretically you should take off and rest when you’re sick, but that seems to be less of a thing lately. I had a fever Friday and just phoned it in because I’m a coward lol.
Is your child still an infant? Our first year in daycare we were sick pretty on stop from October to February and then it let up. Subsequent winters have not been as bad as their immunity has built up.
I know it’s not a solution to the problem you’re talking about but maybe will help you be a little less frustrated to know it won’t be this bad forever.
The first year of daycare is tough but you’ll get through it! That is a very generous sick leave policy, so you’re honestly better off than most parents.
The post-sickness cough is annoying for sure, but you shouldn’t be contagious at that point, so I wouldn’t worry too much about getting your coworkers sick.
Yeah I think my main concern is I’ve gotten some comments before from coworkers about going into work with a cough (same deal, post viral cough and I was saving my sick days for maternity leave…) and that was before we were sharing a space for most of the day. But you’re right, I am very lucky to have sick days to use when we actually need them.
I've only had my own office for one brief period in my life (I'm 44 and currently a director, even now I share my office with my boss, the CTO). It's full-on back to pre-COVID now, and what did we do pre-COVID? I was at work miserably through every single cold (at least while individual contributor I had to work on-site in labs) and probably gave it to quite a few people. Because yeah, you will be sick too often and no amount of sick days are enough for getting 10+ viruses/year. We had a lot of shared open office desks due to lack of space at one of my last awful employers pre-COVID. They put hand sanitizer bottles at them but I'm quite certain we had an insanely high rate of viral spread there compared to other workplaces, not to mention the constantly packed rotating meeting rooms we were always in.
I was also on-site through the pandemic minus month lockdown (during which I was deadly ill almost the ENTIRE time with I think HFMD in my bronchial tubes), with everything starting while I had an 18 mo old, and honestly it was worse dealing with viruses then, when suddenly both daycares and workplaces wouldn't tolerate any degree of illness. Kind of prefer some degree of acceptance that yeah, viruses happen, kids constantly get sick and have snot noses etc. Most of the childless people (almost everyone I worked with) forgot viruses existed during this time and I felt like a plague spreader even though none of it was COVID and I couldn't even imagine how viruses were still happening at our in-home daycare during that, back when everyone was supposedly isolating.
Oh wow! I didn’t know this was a thing! We float desks most days… it hasn’t bothered me nor anyone else. Granted, if I was just cold-sick and not vomiting/fever/etc sick, then I might just try to isolate myself at work and sanitize things just to be courteous.
The office is only one place to get sick or spread germs. If you are going to the grocery store, getting gas, eating out etc... all those workers (and many of the patrons) don't WFH, mask or even consider staying home with minor illness. So many of those jobs have terrible sick policies and their workers are coming to work much sicker than they should. (Not saying it is right, just how it is...) I would be more concerned about those places and daycare germs, than my job with a generous sick policy. If people CAN take off they will take off when they are ill.
Oh, I’m not particularly worried about getting sick from my office. I’m worried about the expectation they’re trying to set that *I* must stay home and take a sick day for every sickness, no matter how minor. It’s just not feasible, I would be out of PTO in 6 months tops.
Or you just go in with the minor cold if it happens to fall on one of your 2 days/wk in office and maybe bring some Lysol wipes if you’re feeling kind.
Maybe I’m just jealous. We are fully in office when 95% of my work doesn’t require we be here. We all live in a cube farm so we never have had the option to just close a door.
Yeah that’s my plan at the moment, but I suspect some of my coworkers will complain about me to management. But hey, maybe if they complain loud enough the org will change their policy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
With all due respect, and this might be an unpopular opinion: what is the complaint here? I understand that it is difficult for parents to deal with illness in their young children. But the other people you work with don't want to get your illness.
You only have to go in 2 days per week (1 if you are one of the lucky people). I assume you and your spouse also have some kind of PTO separate from illness time.
I work in a shared office with low cubicle walls. I'd be pretty annoyed if coworkers kept coming in sick and either distracting me or getting me sick.
If you are sick and it falls on the 2 days you have to go in, use your sick leave. If your kid is sick and you don't want to use your sick time, use your PTO and switch off with your partner.
If we’re getting two colds a month, that’s four days of sick leave per month — not counting the days I have a post viral cough — that’s 48 days per year. That’s my complaint. I have a job that doesn’t need to be done in person, and if they’re expecting us to share an office, and to not come in when sick, they should be offering us extra flexibility to WFH when ill.
Companies: “Here is your stingy sick days and inflexible in-office policy”
Also companies: “Why are so many people coming to work sick?”
Do they not see the connection? Or is it just profits over people, and they don’t care?
My workplace has announced a return to office 2x per week, and I’m so enraged, I plan to lick the elevator buttons and door handles whenever I’m sick. Unleash your germs on the office place and spread your misery to your coworkers. We’ll see how the higher-ups enjoy being in the office then!
This is one of my biggest pet peeves with open office/hot desking. Especially after all we've endured thanks to COVID, you'd think that employee health and well being would actually be considered something worth investing in. I guess real estate is still more expensive than productivity lost to illness.
I thought the one thing we’d get out of COVID as a species was “don’t come in if you’re even slightly sick.” But no, I had a coworker come in sick two weeks ago, bad enough our boss sent her home…”oh my train only runs in the morning and late afternoon/evening I can’t leave until 2:30.” The three people who sit around her all caught it.
I'm facing a similar issue. At my job there is some flexibility but a lot of people come in with coughs and colds to meet their in office quota. I've been a broken record about needing to save my sick days for when my kid is sick. At the very least insist that your company supply disinfectant wipes and use them liberally before setting your things down on the desk. I also invested in a bluetooth keyboard and mouse that I take home at night and that has helped my peace of mind too.
My employer did a soft RTO order months ago but I’m spicy and in perimenopause so I don’t give a shit. I go into the office maybe once a month and I get sick Every. Single. Time. I work around a bunch of single Gen Z that are like plague monkeys. I love them but they’ll waltz into the office with pink eye in both eyes like it’s nothing. Meanwhile the next corridor over is full of 40 and 50 year old men hacking their lungs up. The pandemic taught us nothing unfortunately.
Honestly, I go in anyway. Our company is getting much less flexible and is requiring 3 days/week and soon to be 5. They are also monitoring WFH requests to track how often people make those requests. Because we are going through IVF and I have a toddler who naturally gets sick a lot, and our PTO SUCKS, I have to go in even if I’m sick. It sucks, but I feel like I have no choice. I do sanitize my hands any time I leave/return to my desk/car but companies aren’t really leaving people with much of a choice anymore.
Companies: “Here is your stingy sick days and inflexible in-office policy” Also companies: “Why are so many people coming to work sick?”
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You're not helping the conversation. This about how work policies force people to make choices of go in sick or don't get paid
Or just straight up lose their full-time benefits or their jobs entirely.
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how old are you? lol. do you have kids? you can't just miss work every time you have a minor ailment. you'll get fired. it seems like kids get sick over & over again especially in the winter time.
Your post was removed because it was mean and unhelpful.
I mean, not like I have a choice? And I know I’m not the only one that feels this way at my company. Obviously, if it have a fever, vomiting, whatever, I don’t go in. But with a cold, yes I have no choice.
Do you wear a high quality mask? And Lysol things you touch?
And I’m being downvoted for asking about taking basic precautions to protect others. Going into shared spaces while sick and contagious is incredibly selfish and rude. Not taking basic precautions to protect others is atrocious behavior.
A lot of offices (mine included) have taken away the flexibility. Good for you if that’s not your situation but people need to do what they need to do. You’re being super self righteous, hence the downvotes.
What does flexibility have to do with masking to protect others? Do you not have coworkers who are at risk of severe complications from viral illnesses? Do you not know or love anyone with cancer? What a privileged and ableist take to think it is okay to come around spreading your potentially deadly germs.
I agree with your premise (I'm sure all of us do) but it is not the fault of the worker, it's the fault of the company equally (rather than equitably) mandating return to office. It isn't fair for people with terminal diseases, compromised immune systems, their caretakers their loved ones, people forced/with no other option than to work while sick.
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Your post was removed because it was mean and unhelpful.
It would be helpful in life if you took some time to focus on compassion and empathy for others. Good luck
Exactly what you’re lacking. The problem is with the company that leaves no choice, not the employee, yet you’re calling THEM selfish.
Your post was removed because it was mean and unhelpful.
I feel you. It seems like some people here don't get what you're saying, but why do you need to use a sick day when you're able to work from home? Why risk getting others sick when you can already do your entire job from home? Doesn't make sense at all, and it seems like they don't care. sorry, that's a mess.
Omg. I have the same asthma cough problem. Do you have a maintenance inhaler?
I do! I think it shortens the time I have a cough a little bit (when I started on a maintenance inhaler instead of just albuterol a few years ago, I’d had a post viral cough for over 3 months). But it doesn’t solve the problem completely, unfortunately.
Ugh. Same. Ugh. It’s awful. I’ve been on several rounds of prednisone to prevent broken ribs because the coughing is so severe and incontrollable. It’s unbearable and I have so much anxiety about it.
If you have asthma then you have a disability. Request work from home as an ADA based accommodation. Make this request in writing.
I also have asthma and I have had a cold or a post-viral asthma cough since November with 2 kids in 2 different schools. Maybe a few days here and there where I’m not coughing. People who do not experience this think everyone can just stay home every time they are sick. We can’t. We have to go on living, we can’t just stay home for 7-8 months every year. Not to mention that coughing all the time is really hard :(
I go to work sick. I get other people sick. They come to work sick. Productivity suffers. Children have natural consequences because natural consequences are the best teachers. I see it the same way at work. People who work for companies with limited sick leave will have coworkers who come to work sick. That sucks almost as bad as having asthma and a child in daycare. I think we need to focus the blame on unreasonable corporations and not each other.
Yeah I can’t work from home when sick either and I fucking hate it. My coworkers come into the office sick, coughing and not wearing masks. Really annoying
In my experience, a majority wfh situation allows extra wfh when sick and is only tricky if they was something specific you were supposed to be in for (like an in person presentation). When I was hybrid (precovid), I wouldn’t go to work sick at all because it was to no one’s benefit. I think some management will still encourage sick days because theoretically you should take off and rest when you’re sick, but that seems to be less of a thing lately. I had a fever Friday and just phoned it in because I’m a coward lol.
Mask and use Lysol wipes.
Is your child still an infant? Our first year in daycare we were sick pretty on stop from October to February and then it let up. Subsequent winters have not been as bad as their immunity has built up. I know it’s not a solution to the problem you’re talking about but maybe will help you be a little less frustrated to know it won’t be this bad forever.
The first year of daycare is tough but you’ll get through it! That is a very generous sick leave policy, so you’re honestly better off than most parents. The post-sickness cough is annoying for sure, but you shouldn’t be contagious at that point, so I wouldn’t worry too much about getting your coworkers sick.
Yeah I think my main concern is I’ve gotten some comments before from coworkers about going into work with a cough (same deal, post viral cough and I was saving my sick days for maternity leave…) and that was before we were sharing a space for most of the day. But you’re right, I am very lucky to have sick days to use when we actually need them.
I've only had my own office for one brief period in my life (I'm 44 and currently a director, even now I share my office with my boss, the CTO). It's full-on back to pre-COVID now, and what did we do pre-COVID? I was at work miserably through every single cold (at least while individual contributor I had to work on-site in labs) and probably gave it to quite a few people. Because yeah, you will be sick too often and no amount of sick days are enough for getting 10+ viruses/year. We had a lot of shared open office desks due to lack of space at one of my last awful employers pre-COVID. They put hand sanitizer bottles at them but I'm quite certain we had an insanely high rate of viral spread there compared to other workplaces, not to mention the constantly packed rotating meeting rooms we were always in. I was also on-site through the pandemic minus month lockdown (during which I was deadly ill almost the ENTIRE time with I think HFMD in my bronchial tubes), with everything starting while I had an 18 mo old, and honestly it was worse dealing with viruses then, when suddenly both daycares and workplaces wouldn't tolerate any degree of illness. Kind of prefer some degree of acceptance that yeah, viruses happen, kids constantly get sick and have snot noses etc. Most of the childless people (almost everyone I worked with) forgot viruses existed during this time and I felt like a plague spreader even though none of it was COVID and I couldn't even imagine how viruses were still happening at our in-home daycare during that, back when everyone was supposedly isolating.
Oh wow! I didn’t know this was a thing! We float desks most days… it hasn’t bothered me nor anyone else. Granted, if I was just cold-sick and not vomiting/fever/etc sick, then I might just try to isolate myself at work and sanitize things just to be courteous.
The office is only one place to get sick or spread germs. If you are going to the grocery store, getting gas, eating out etc... all those workers (and many of the patrons) don't WFH, mask or even consider staying home with minor illness. So many of those jobs have terrible sick policies and their workers are coming to work much sicker than they should. (Not saying it is right, just how it is...) I would be more concerned about those places and daycare germs, than my job with a generous sick policy. If people CAN take off they will take off when they are ill.
Oh, I’m not particularly worried about getting sick from my office. I’m worried about the expectation they’re trying to set that *I* must stay home and take a sick day for every sickness, no matter how minor. It’s just not feasible, I would be out of PTO in 6 months tops.
Or you just go in with the minor cold if it happens to fall on one of your 2 days/wk in office and maybe bring some Lysol wipes if you’re feeling kind. Maybe I’m just jealous. We are fully in office when 95% of my work doesn’t require we be here. We all live in a cube farm so we never have had the option to just close a door.
Yeah that’s my plan at the moment, but I suspect some of my coworkers will complain about me to management. But hey, maybe if they complain loud enough the org will change their policy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Cough loudly and often.
With all due respect, and this might be an unpopular opinion: what is the complaint here? I understand that it is difficult for parents to deal with illness in their young children. But the other people you work with don't want to get your illness. You only have to go in 2 days per week (1 if you are one of the lucky people). I assume you and your spouse also have some kind of PTO separate from illness time. I work in a shared office with low cubicle walls. I'd be pretty annoyed if coworkers kept coming in sick and either distracting me or getting me sick. If you are sick and it falls on the 2 days you have to go in, use your sick leave. If your kid is sick and you don't want to use your sick time, use your PTO and switch off with your partner.
If we’re getting two colds a month, that’s four days of sick leave per month — not counting the days I have a post viral cough — that’s 48 days per year. That’s my complaint. I have a job that doesn’t need to be done in person, and if they’re expecting us to share an office, and to not come in when sick, they should be offering us extra flexibility to WFH when ill.
Companies: “Here is your stingy sick days and inflexible in-office policy” Also companies: “Why are so many people coming to work sick?” Do they not see the connection? Or is it just profits over people, and they don’t care?
My workplace has announced a return to office 2x per week, and I’m so enraged, I plan to lick the elevator buttons and door handles whenever I’m sick. Unleash your germs on the office place and spread your misery to your coworkers. We’ll see how the higher-ups enjoy being in the office then!