So, I’m not going to go look, because it feels mean to call people out by name (and I’m bad at the mean part of the BBQ Pit), but I have to wonder…
How many of the people in this thread saying that people can’t or shouldn’t stay home with the flu were in the Ebola threads calling for people who had even visited west Africa to be quarantined? For martially enforced quarantine, if need be? For not allowing them back into the country, even?
Because the flu kills a lot more people than Ebola in the US. It’s a lot more contagious than Ebola. If you’re in favor of quarantine for Ebola, it’s logically inconsistent to be against quarantine for Influenza.
As many as 49,000 people in the US die of Influenza every year. (Some years, as few as 3000 people died.) Just since 1976, somewhere between 90,000 and 1,470,000 people in the US have died from Influenza. Number of deaths on US soil from Ebola in all of recorded history: 2
Would you stay home if it was suspected you might have Ebola? Would you figure out how to make it work, financially, if you had Ebola? Then you should stay home if you suspect you have Influenza.
(And yes, I get it. This is 95% the fault of bad bosses. Bosses who would tell you to stay home if you had Ebola, most likely. Because they’re just as terrible at risk analysis as the rest of us.)
I was agreeing with you :). My experience was in bigger companies, yours in smaller. Even in the bigger offices I’ve been in, everyone knows who is most likely to call in, and telling them “I stayed home to protect you” won’t win you any friends around here.
Meanwhile, I open every door with my elbow or sleeve and everyone close to me is aware that they don’t come any closer than the doorway or touch my stuff when they are sick. If our employer insists that they be there, or if they choose to be there, I want to keep that cootie far far away from my compromised immune system.
Which would do you zero good since the flu is contagious longer than that.
I have asthma, yet I have never been told I am at a higher than normal risk for pneumonia. Mine is treated and under control so maybe that is the difference.
You are living in a dream world. This is the same thing as all those folks calling for a raise in the minimum wage - employers in those sorts of jobs don’t give a rats ass about their employees since they are easy to find. So they don’t need to give sick leave and they can easily fire for too many absences.
The last job I had, in 2007, I was making ~ $30,000/year (well above minimum) and those employers didn’t really care about us either. Unless you were dying, you were expected to come to work.
Yes. Actually if you get ANY respiratory infection, you’re at a higher risk of developing pneumonia. Respiratory infections have a habit of causing inflammation in the lungs and bronchial tubes. It’s our body’s way of bringing extra blood and immune stuff to the site and trying to heal it. Even in people with well controlled asthma, this inflammation tends to trigger bronchoconstriction, trapping bacteria in the lungs that causes pneumonia.
The changes in workplace conditions in Australia mean that many of the available work positions are now ‘casual’. This means that even though you may be working full-time, your employer does not pay for sick days, public holidays, or annual leave.
I’ve been a casual employee now for thirty years. It sucks when you get sick. It sucks at Xmas time when the company closes for weeks and you have no work and no pay.
It means that most people who are able to get out of bed to get to work WILL DO SO, regardless of their contagion level. I’m relatively lucky now that I work from home, so if I can manage to sit in my office chair and see the computer, I’m not infecting anyone else. It mega sucked last year when I lost my voice for three weeks though.
So for all you lucky folk who have employers who will pay your way if you’re crook, bully for you! The rest of us somehow still have to put food on the table, pay rent and bills regardless.
I remember if we tried to call in sick to Kmart, they’d be like, “Well, can’t you just come in anyways?” They didn’t give a shit if we were sick either. My first job was at a family owned grocery store where they’d send you home if you came in sick – not KrapMart.
In post production I’ve ran into a lot of dead ends for sick days: try to call out, can’t you please come in? Come late, leave early and get paid a full day! Whee. I vomited air and bile for six hours, can’t hold down a sip of warm water, but here I come.
Many businesses don’t plan on sick days. A skeleton crew is fine, they say. But with two people already slated to do the work of three and leave someone with everything to do is wrong. Hire the people to do the job and if one calls out, others can pick it up. Not so, most of the time.
I had to handle a big account last year entirely by myself in my department. Calling out wasn’t an option. Weekends were to remain “open”. I worked with walking pneumonia, flu, stomach virus, bronchitis and sinusitis. (Not al at once though)
If there’s a complaint on that, go to HR. Don’t come to me and say “you made me sick!” No, this company, my paycheck and my ability to pay bills RELY on being there.
If you’re afraid of being infected with a temporary virus or even deadly flu, find a union. Otherwise, fuck off and let me do the job you’re not trained for. Like I said, complain to HR. Not me.
I’ve got a cold, no pressing projects for tomorrow, and I’m working as usual. Good news is, people have an excuse to work away from me. Good news.
Well, sure, it’s -15 outside right now, of course I wear a mask and gloves when I go out –
Oh, wait, you mean inside, when I’m sick. No, of course not. A mask might disturb the customers, be off-putting, interfere with giving them that required smile. Gloves might be allowed, but they’d probably get shredded during the work day if you’re talking about latex type gloves.
We got hand sanitizers, that’s about it. And I took OTC drugs to minimize the dripping and sneezing.
No. Obviously not. Despite the idiotic claims of some people in this thread, you don’t have the right to prevent ill people from being near you, or for infecting you - except in the very specific case where one identifiable act casued the infection, such as with HIV transmission.
You will spend some of your life ill, and you will have to function more or less as normal during at least some of the time you’re ill. Everybody does, even in places with sick pay.
Yes. That’s right. But that applies to your co-workers too right? They *still have to put food on the table, pay rent and bills *, right? As shown here, when the Flu strikes, many get really sick. Sure death is a rarity, but hospitalization is not rare and being so knocked out that you cant get out of bed is rather common. So, bully for you! :rolleyes: You have to put food on the table, pay rent and bills, and you’re one of the lucky ones that can drag your ass to work during a flu bout. Whereupon you spread it to your co-workers (and client and customers, etc) some of whom will get so sick they cant come to work- and thus cant pay the bills. Maybe have to stay in the hospital, which they cant afford either. Maybe Gramma gets real sick and well…
Because you are a selfish, inconsiderate person who thinks you are the ONLY person in the world who has to put food on the table, pay rent and bills .
Now, dont get me wrong; the short-sighted cheeseparing bastards who wont pay decent sick benefits are to blame also. In the end they pay for that, true, but many companies never figure that out.
I’ll bite the assumption. I’ll admit that I’m a selfish asshole and I really do not give a shit if I get someone else sick when I don’t have sick days. Due to being a human, when it comes down to it I hold my happiness above others. It will suck for them but I will choose me over them in average circumstances every time. I recognize that they need to pay bills too but frankly I don’t care when the choice comes down to me or them. I will not sacrifice myself for them. It will be me every time. Period. End of story. And I absolutely do not resent anyone else for making that choice, because it is a natural and human choice to make. Survival comes first.
I fully hold the shitty bosses that lead to this circumstance as responsible. I fully believe everyone should get sick days and that they should be forced to take them if they want to try and come to work sick regardless. We need to beat it into scum bosses since they obviously won’t give us those sick days without legislative force. We need to stamp out attitudes that people don’t really deserve sick days, that they’re not team players if they don’t work sick, that they’re gaming the system just by taking one, two, or three days off. If given sick days I will use them and you will never see me at work sick. But I am not given sick days and so when I’m sick but not too sick, fuck it, I am going to work and getting paid.
