What’s your barometer for coming in to work when you think you might be sick? Do you have any specific measurements you take into consideration when deciding to just go back to bed?
I ask because I woke up this morning feeling pretty horrid, but had no fever, wasn’t coughing or sneezing or throwing up or anything else. I just had a stuffy nose and some sinus pressure and was kind of tired. Truthfully, I’m not sure how much was pregnancy and how much was an actual illness. So, after careful consideration and taking my temperature multiple times, waiting to see if it would get better (it did), I got up, had breakfast and felt even better, so I showered and headed out to work, vowing that if I got any worse, I’d come back home and go to bed. I’m feeling much more alert and fully functioning, so I’m glad I just came in.
However, if I were sneezing and coughing everywhere, vomiting or even just didn’t feel any better, I would have stayed home. I don’t appreciate when people come to work shooting out bodily fluids through any orifice just because of some misguided notion that they must come in whatever the cost. And I’m trying really hard not to be one of those people. I used to be when I was working in a tougher environment and it was just ridiculous.
How do you decide to come in? Do you wait until you’re violently sick, stay home if you know you’re contagious or get back in bed if you’re just feeling off? I’m just curious - we’ve had lots of people sick around here lately, some of whom have come in within hours of some pretty violent-sounding barfing.
In general, if it’s something I’d see a doctor about, I stay home. If it’s something I wouldn’t see a doctor about, I’d go in.
Allergies can generate a lot of coughing and sneezing and runny noses, but they’re not contagious and symptoms are often pretty controllable. Sometimes barfing takes care of the problem and you feel perfectly fine after you’re done. I wouldn’t let the enthusiasm of the barf be a determining factor. For stomach problems, I’d consider other symptoms (fever?) and how sick I still felt. And colds are, IMHO, just a necessary evil.
True seasonal flu is probably on the edge. A lot of time I wouldn’t go to a doctor for that, but would stay home a couple of days. Right now, I’d probably err on the side of caution if I had flu - we really don’t need any more of that going around, whether it’s H1N1 or not.
First of all, it depends on if I have separate sick days and vacation days. At my old job, they were combined into one lump sum, so I was a lot less likely to use them for days I didn’t feel that well because I didn’t want to use them up.
Otherwise, I’ll generally go by how miserable I am. At my current job, I"m so close to home that I"ll usually go in because if I get worse during the day, I can leave and be home in 10 minutes or so.
I discussed this with my boss once, specifically about migraines. I told her that if I knew I was too sick to work, of course I would stay home, but asked her which she would prefer if I was kind of borderline:
I could come in and tell her I was having a rough day, but that I could get quite a bit of work done if I worked steadily and quietly, with more breaks than usual, and if the office manager would be mindful of the noise level and realize that I would be unable to participate much in meetings.
This would put some people out, because they would have to cut down the usual monkey-mating-shriek level on my behalf. They also would have to realize that I would not be up to my regular production rate and they would have to step it up a bit.
I could stay home and get no work done, and somebody would have to cover for me.
She picked 1. We had another employee who called off regularly because of “sinus” problems. She was mispronouncing “hangover,” so the boss was very pleased to have my earnest efforts to show up whenever possible.
If proximity to a restroom is a consideration, I’ll stay home. If I think I’m contagious (very, very rare), I’ll stay home. Otherwise I’ll be at my desk. I’m going to feel lousy either way - why burn personal time for it? Occasionally, when the migraine is really bad, I’ll stay home long enough for the Maxalt to kick in and the nausea to subside.
The best thing to ever happen to me professionally was when I got a new boss who is a germphobe. There is never any pressure at all to come in when one is sick. If you are sick, even slightly, in the contagious way, you will be sent home once you arrive.
I also feel obligated to model good sick day behavior to my staff, so when I am sick, I stay home. This is aided by the fact that we are set up pretty well in terms of technology to be able to get things done from home for those times when coming to work is challenging (sprained ankle, allergies) but you are feeling well enough to do work.
My thresholds are a.) seemingly chained to a toilet, b.) fever ( even a minor one ) or c.) achey and significantly fatigued. C above usually is a prelude to misery if exertion is suddenly required and I don’t fuck around with fevers at all ( b and c are usually part of a joint package anyway ). Also if I am flat out exhausted from lack of sleep from severe congestion or the like, I’ll ditch a day in the middle of the week, since I have internal relief. Actually that last may be the most common reason for me to sick out - I have a hard time sleeping if I’m badly stuffed up. There are two days a week that would require overtime coverage, so my standards are just a bit stiffer on those days.
I’ve averaged ~3 days of sick leave use/year over the last 3-4 years and have about 14 weeks of sick leave on the books, so I don’t particularly sweat it.
I also factor in the ability to get there and back home. If I’ve a fair commute and been up all night - through insomnia, not browsing the Dope - then while I know I can work through the day, I know I will not be safe to drive.
Well, I’m a teacher so I have some additional things to consider.
-I can’t leave the students alone to leave the room, so I keep that in mind when dealing with any stomach ailments, where bathroom visits are likely to be frequent and unanticipated.
-I have to talk a lot, so I need my voice in pretty good shape. If I don’t have much voice, but am otherwise feeling all right, I usually try to go in and just tailor the day’s lesson to suit.
-Sometimes when I get a cold I have a headache that just won’t go away, so I stay home. Noise is only going to make it worse, and teenagers all have their “time to be quiet” sensor de-activated during puberty.
Any Nausea/vomiting (non pregnancy related): stay home
Any danger of having a bowel accident: stay home
If whatever it is has kept me up a lot of the night before and I feel ill: stay home
Many times if I feel reasonably crappy and it’s the first day of a cold or mild flu I’ll stay home, on the basis that resting for the day will get rid of it faster. I have a lot of leave saved up because I’m rarely sick, so I don’t wait until I’m extremely ill to take it. If I’ve taken a day recently already or have something very important to do, I’ll come in when I’m more ill than if I haven’t had as day off for a long time and there isn’t anything that can’t wait.
When I was pregnant I came in when I was more ill than when I wasn’t pregnant, because I figured I’d save the time in case I felt really horrid, so in the OP’s case I would have come in.
Vomiting/diarrhea/high fever I need to work on bringing down - stay home
Cough/cold symptoms - medicate and go in, maybe leave early if my head is falling over
I got it from the way I was raised - only fever and GI issues go a day off from school. They didn’t even medicate us for colds–I have at least incorporated that.
I stay home if I have a fever, nausea, dizziness, or uncontrollable lung-hacking that isn’t fixed by allergy meds or my inhaler. Or if I have something I know is highly contagious (once it was pinkeye).
I’m a manager at a small company. We don’t have allocated sick days, and sick time doesn’t count against vacation time. Leave is given at the manager’s discretion, but we’re pretty relaxed about it, and I don’t count time for stuff like doctor’s appointments.
My rule is, basically, “Don’t be a jerk.” If you think you’re contagious, stay home. If you’re miserable enough that you’ll be completely unproductive at the office, but you’re not contagious, then stay home. Most of our employees have the ability to work remotely, and they’re expected to do so if they need to stay home but they’re not bedridden.
I get a killer migraine every couple of months. When I feel one coming on, I’ll stay wherever I’m at for at least a couple of hours, because the initial aura makes it dangerous for me to be on the road. Most of the time, I can knock them down to the point that I’m able to function after a few hours, so I’ll at least try to get work done remotely. Other times, it’s all I can do to get up and take a piss, so I’ll spend the rest of the day in a very quiet, very dark room.
Anyway, as a boss, I like to know about any absenteeism as soon as possible, and I want a doctor’s note (or a damn good story) if the absence is going to be for more than a couple of days with no working from home.
I’ve found that the system works really well. Treating people like adults works amazing well - I don’t think anybody on my team of six took more than four full (that is, with no remote work) sick days last year.
Vomiting. That’s pretty much it. I own my own business, so it’s a cold day in hell that I’m not there. I’ve missed maybe ten days in the last twelve years of my life, including MBA school in there - and that includes five days that I was stuck in a hospital NPO FOR FIVE DAYS with a gallbladder surgery sort of gone “wrong”.
Funny story: Once I was vomiting blood at my office/store and called my mom to see if I should actually leave and go to the hospital or if I could stay and hold down the fort (didn’t know if it was that big of a deal). Hospital won out.
My work at the moment is an ICU. I’m not allowed in if I have so much as a bad cold.
When it comes to school, I ask myself a)do I feel good enough to actually learn anything, b)do I HAVE to be there (aka, test day) and c) will I bother those trying to learn around me (constant, loud coughing, getting up every five minutes to run to the bathroom, or contageous).
I work in a medical center, but don’t have direct patient contact very often - maybe on average one patient a day for a visit. I also have a somewhat isolated office.
I stay home for fever, vomiting, diarrhea, or migraine bad enough that it includes: the pain doesn’t get below agonizing after meds/bad nausea/light sensitivity such that I wince on leaving my house.
I’m fortunate in my work situation that I could go to work with bronchitis (and have) and not germ all over my coworkers. (I have worn a mask when I’ve had to interact with people in this situation.)
Me too, though generally-healthy PT patients wander the hallway four feet from where I sit.
I generally don’t like calling in sick; I worked in a supermarket deli before this and if one person called in sick, everyone else was fucked. So I figure that if my desire to not go in is really that strong, I should probably just call in sick.
I’m a teacher and it really, really depends on what I have planned for that day: my lesson plans are all tied together and they don’t shift easily. If (and this rarely happens) it’s something that can be covered by a sub, I’ll stay home with something pretty mild–I am no fanatic. But most of the time one of my three very different classes has something essential going on, so if I am capable of safely going to work, I do. This isn’t selfless: it’s so much more work to miss work and then have to 1) go in and leave lesson plans and 2) play catch up afterwards that it really seems easier to go in. Last week my students were taking AP exams on Wednesday (English) and Thursday (Econ) and I had this really horrible viral bronchitis. I still went in every day because we needed the review. If I had the exact same symptoms this week, I’d stay home 3 days, I suspect (I was really very sick, and everything vital is over now).
If I think I will need frequent access to the bathroom for whatever TMI reason, I will stay home, because my job involves answering the phone and I can’t just put them on hold to run down the hall.
This hasn’t happened, but if I was getting over a cold and my voice was shot, I would call in for a day or so, again since my job involves answering the phone. My voice would have to be pretty bad, though, since when I do lose my voice it’s usually at the end of a cold when I’m feeling fine otherwise. So far, knock on wood, I haven’t had a cold for nearly two years, since I moved here. But it could happen.
I called in once because of insomnia. I had gotten about two hours of sleep and was practically walking into walls here at home. It wouldn’t have been safe for me to go anywhere, really.
I do try to tough out things like headaches (I get what from all descriptions are migraines, though rarely, so I haven’t been officially diagnosed) up to a point, but if I am feeling truly horrible, I either don’t go in or I leave early if I can’t handle it. There’s no point in putting myself through hell to avoid using a few hours of sick time.