Meh, I don’t know. I work in a medical clinic stuffed to the absolute gills with sick college kids sneezing and coughing over absolutely everything and I haven’t noticed that I’ve gotten sick particularly often since beginning work there; once last semester and once this semester, or 2-3 times per year which was the same as my prior rate. Given that someone with a typical cold can be infectious for 5-15 days and I don’t think that many people propose that people should have a full month of sick leave every year, I cannot get that worked up over people coming to work simply because of a sneeze or a cough.
With proper respiratory etiquette, frequent handwashing, hand sanitizer, and appropriate personal space, colds aren’t that infectious.
Some people have been scared by crazy college professors or crazy employers, and it’s hard to shake. At my last company, a coworker called our boss from the ER, telling him she had kidney stones and was being admitted for surgery, and he argued with her. The company I worked for before that I had food poisoning so bad I needed an IV and was told I was not allowed to call out sick (and was later fired for doing so anyway).
I think these people are very healthy, and they see sickness as a character failing. It’s not that they want you to come in sick-- they want you to not get sick at all.
When I first came to my current job, I had to be sent home twice by my boss for coming in sick, before I finally caught on that it was ok to call out.
My present employer has a pretty relaxed attitude about coming in sick. By that, I mean if someone thinks that they might be ill in the conceivable future, they will not show up. Especially on 3 day weekends. I also have a co-worker that will not wear makeup if she’s going home early, due to feigned illness. I’m pretty sure that she thinks no one notices here when she does this.
I’ve also seen the other extreme. I had a Rear-End-Ectomy a few years ago. I got out of the hospital on Thanksgiving, and was expected to stay off of my feet for the next 10 days.
I was barely able to get around using a walker the next week, when I got a call from my supervisor.
“Think you can come in this weekend? We really need to ship that last machine you were working on before you left.”
“Are you kidding? Jesus, Richard, I can barely stand up, let alone drive over there.”
“I can come pick you up.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to get up the stairs? Float?”
“I’m calling some extra people in to help you.”
I realized that I’d be screwing some fellow employees who needed the overtime if I didn’t show, so I sucked it up, ate 4 Vicodin, and grimly made my way in.
I once had a boss get pissed off because during lunch a coworker wanted to go visit a friend. We got to his house and he was dead. The police wouldn’t let us leave. He later told me he almost fired me that day. I worked for a cool boss that understood that when we went for lunch to cash our checks at the bank and the bank was robbed, we wouldn’t be back for a while.
In an odd twist of fate, the same boss that almost fired me, is now my husbands boss. He has a cube farm and they call it the TB ward. My husband has worked there for a bit over 6 months and has had 3 colds. I work heavily with the public and have had one cold in the same length of time.
We don’t have sick days, we have PTO time. If you call in sick, even if you have PTO time, you get a write up, 3 days out in 90 days and you are fired. If you come in and have to leave sick, you can not return to work until you have a doctors note. Yes, a pregnant girl had to leave because she couldn’t stop throwing up and I’m pretty sure her doctor’s note said “She’s pregnant, dumbass.” If it didn’t, it should have.
And this is why the city of san Francisco has a shiny new policy requiring all employers to give sick leave at the rate of 1 hour per 30 hours worked if they don’t already have an existing sick leave or PTO policy.
Since last year, our first two “sick” days come from the vacation pool. A doctor’s note is required to begin using sick leave. So, if you’ve got a cold that would benefit from a few days off, you need to spend time spreading your virus in a waiting room to get that sick leave.
I’ve got far too much vacation time saved up, so I’d be inclined to use a few days for something minor. If I can feed myself & watch lightweight DVD’s, I’ll just consider it a low-key vacation.
Right now, a co-worker is coughing, sniffing & bitching. But she’s needed here for an important project. (But–are those phone calls also needed? The ones with detailed discussions of her daughter’s visit to the gynecologist, her son’s soccer career & her mother who’s old & sick & *so * annoying.)
My wife’s workplace is nice. You get sick leave, vacation, personal days, earned time off and emergency time off. You get dinged unless you plan any absences but you don’t get a write up unless it’s over 3 times in a rolling 90 day period… unless you use your accumulated emergency time off, then you can take that with no questions asked and no repercussions even if the books are closed for vacation and personal time. Most of the people who need more than that get covered under FMLA.
Alright, I’m digging this rant back up to complain about one of the very same coworkers mentioned in the OP. Two weeks ago, he started coughing and complaining of a sore throat. Not a nice, dry cough, but one of those double-over type deals that sound very “productive”. The worst part is that our department secretary went up to him one day and asked him how he was doing. “Not well,” he replied, then proceeded to cough on his keyboard. So, he knew he was sick, admitted he was sick, and was still enough of an asshole to be here.
One by one, my coworkers began to fall, with three suffering from similar symptoms by the end of the week. Then, last week, when I finally got to take my long-awaited vacation, what happens? Sore throat on my last day of work, right before leaving. It lasted more than halfway through the vacation.
I’m one of the people guilty of coming to work when I’m ill. We don’t have a set number of sick days per year, and our annual leave days are something separate. Instead, our sickness absence is monitored by management who deem it “worthy of attention” if you are off sick for more than 10 days in any 12-month period. What they don’t tell you is that this also includes any time that you’re signed off by a doctor.
Last year I had a chest infection which turned out to be pneumonia, the doctor signed me off for two weeks. So that was my entire 10 days gone in one fell swoop. The real bummer is that you have to send your sick note to the office so that they know you’re unwell and know how long the doc recommends you should stay at home…but they still count this as part of your documented sickness absence even though the sick note prevents you from coming back to work early if you feel well enough. Our workplace insurance doesn’t cover anyone who’s signed off on medical grounds.
Two weeks at home doing nothing was driving me batty, I was ready to come back to work after a week but I had to stay at home for the duration of that note. Once I came back, I was told that I’d exceeded the number of “unmonitored” sick days and that for the next 12 months my absences would be monitored with the possibility of disciplinary action and/or enforced visits to our occupational health section.
So instead, I have been coming to work with whatever illness I’ve got. I can’t afford the possibility of being hauled over the coals for being off sick again, and as I’m looking for another job I can’t afford to have a poor sickness record at this job even though it’s not my fault because the doctor made me stay away!
I’ve been taking grim pleasure in loudly pointing out the asshole co-worker that infected me with his crud last week, because he was a selfish jackass that couldn’t take a few days off when he was running a fever and coughing like a damn harbor seal and playing it up for sympathy.
He had the gall to be surprised when everybody else blamed him because I took a couple days sick time with the respiratory fever I’d come down with. “Gee, nobody else got sick…” Yeah, jackass, and nobody else has had pneumonia six times like Lightray, either. But of course, somebody else did get sick and took off the day I got back.
It’s a week later, and I still haven’t fully recovered my stamina. And I still haven’t stopped pointing out to jackass co-worker what a jackass he was for not staying home.
Our company is generous with sick time, and there is no excuse for that kind of callous, selfish disregard for your co-workers’ wellbeing.
Three years ago I put a 40 oz. container off hand sanitizer on my desk. I used it after each time I left and then came back to my desk. I’ve been sick twice since then and I’m pretty sure that I picked up the germs outside of the office.
I now work in a very small office and the sanitizer is used by everybody who works here. They have become believers. The boss said to make sure that I put the cost of the sanitizer on company expenses.