People who knowingly spread the flu should be put in jail!

The BBQ Pit
1

Fortunately for me, I have had my flu shot, and have been extra cautiously cleaning everything in my work area with bleach, so I have not had it yet, but it has been spreading all around my work place.

So I just want to pit those assholes who come to work, knowing full well that they have a contagious disease.

Cough? Check
Fever? Check
Diarrhea? Check
Vomiting? Check

If you have these symptoms, stay the fuck home from work! Will we be shorthanded? Yes! We will be even more shorthanded when you spread your disease around to everyone else in the goddamn factory! You have sick days for a reason, for fuck’s sake!

If I had my way, y’all would be quarantined in the county lockup if you’re not smart enough to quarantine yourselves at home!

2
3

Sometimes companies do patently stupid stuff like rolling sick and vacation days together into one bucket called “Personal Time Off”. In theory, this makes sense in that if you don’t get sick, you get slightly more time off per year.

But in practice, what it means is that employees view it as vacation time and jealously guard those days, as taking sick days now may mean they can’t take their summer vacation that they planned, or that they can’t see their families at the holidays, etc…

If the company offers work from home, then it’s not so bad- just have them do that until they feel better- everyone’s happy. But if they don’t let people work from home, they’ll come in unless they’re so sick that they can’t function at all.

I know… a single PTO bucket and no work from home was my reality at my last job for a year and a half. Then upper management would get pissy about project deadlines that would be missed because something like 70% of the IT workforce had been out at one time or another over a 3 week span. (I think one week had literally 40% of the department out with the flu)

Slightly changing subjects… the hard part with the flu is figuring out if you actually have it- you may feel cruddy and run a fever a few days before the coughing really kicks in, and you’re almost certainly contagious during that time as well.

4

Careful with your thread title - Bricker may come along and accuse of being a member of the Democrat Party.

5

I hope that whatever he’s got isn’t contagious.

6

Call the D.A. I’m sure they will let you know what a brilliant idea you have.

7

I think you’re pitting the wrong people here; pit the companies that don’t have a sane sickness policy, not the poor sods who try and deal with being sick without losing their jobs.

Maybe your company does have a sensible approach, but even if it does, people working there will likely have internalised the idea that being off sick is a personal failing from other places.

8

Hm, excessive workload, back-biting corporate atmosphere, PTO bucket, coworkers grousing about anyone calling in “sick” (yeah, right, sick of work maybe hyuk hyuk hyuk). Nah, bring that shit in and pass it around. The luckiest will die from it. But seriously, one of the best experiences is going to work barely sane from running a 102 fever, feeling like a truck ran over you and left an axe in your head. I mean, it’s a drag and who wouldn’t want to stay at home in bed, but no way would I want to miss out on an opportunity to miff the CoastalMaineiacs in my life. :slight_smile:

9

I wouldn’t say wrong people, just left some out. (employers)

I don’t know what it’s like for the corporate types, but I’ve had to work Mcjobs a lot as a musician, and they give you a ration of shit for calling in sick.
Most places only have one motivator, we will fire you, and they use it for everything.:rolleyes:

10

What I don’t get is why the masks haven’t taken off here. Hospital workers use it all the time so they can still do their job. It seems to me that, if it’s good enough for hospital work, where they are often in contact with people with reduced immune response, it should be good enough in other settings.

They’ve caught on in Japan, at least, where there is a pretty strong social pressure not to take off from work. They even have masks that are stylized so you can look fashionable or trendy with them.

I’d like to see them catch on the way hand sanitizer did. They may even be more useful.

11

Two things:

1)People who are actually infected with the influenza virus are physically incapable of rocking up to work. Yes, you might be coughing, and blowing snot blocks but you don’t have the 'flu.

2)In the Aus work-place many employees now are contracted under casual awards, which means that the employer does not pay any sick pay/holiday pay or other entitlements. Which means that if you have to pay your rent this week and feed the kids, you will try to work no matter how crook you feel (above example excepted…you won’t get to work if you have the real 'flu).

12

If you live in a place like Germany or France where the government legally mandates a non-trivial number of paid sick leave days (in Germany, it’s 6 weeks per year), I can understand this gripe. People who can realistically leave work when sick should.

But given your name, I bet you live in one of the few western nations that doesn’t have such a policy. Y’know, the fucking stupid one, where workers have the right to go to work, smile, and suck their employer’s cock. In that case, I have to ask - how’s your company’s paid sick leave policy? Do they:

A) Offer a generous number of paid sick leave days, guaranteeing that you will not be fired or otherwise penalized for using them
or
B) Do less than that

Because if it’s not A), nobody is going to take time off work for anything that doesn’t leave them flat on their ass. And I do mean every element of A) - anything less than that will incentivize people to come to work sick.

If the sick days aren’t paid, taking time off means less money in your pocket, and many people cannot afford that.
If the number is some pathetic crap like 10 days a year (the national average for full-time employees, and about 1/3rd of what everyone is mandated by law here in Germany - most people in the US don’t even get that), people are going to hoard that shit, in case a more serious illness or accident comes along, and go to work despite being potentially infectious.
If taking sick days leaves you penalized, nobody is going to want to take them.
If the company doesn’t make it clear that you will not be let go for taking those sick days, nobody is going to want to take them.

Now, maybe you got lucky and ended up in a job with really peachy (read: the kind of thing first-world countries have made legally mandatory) sick leave policies. But if you didn’t, don’t blame your coworkers. They have themselves to look after. Blame your boss for being a greedy shithead, and blame your government for refusing to institute common-sense labor policies that most of the rest of the world has. Oh, and for passing union-busting bullshit laws in many places.

13

At least if you’re showing symptoms, people can tell you’re sick and know to stay away from you.

Therefore, you should only come to work when you’re sick, and stay home when you’re healthy, because you might be infectious with something whose symptoms just haven’t shown up yet.

14

Nope. I own the business and if I don’t show I don’t “get paid”. In addition I still have to pay employees, so I actually lose money. When I am ill I go to work but isolate myself as well as I can. The only days I’ve ever missed were the 48 hours I was in the hospital (heart attack, angioplasty) and I went in to work immediately after discharge from the hospital.

On the plus side, being so over-the-top allows me to take an occasional “mental health day” to go kayaking and/or day drinking.:slight_smile:

BigT: My bank has a sign on the door stating that sunglasses, hats, and masks must be removed before entering. I wonder if they’d call the cops on a sick person wearing a mask…

15

C’mon, you know you wanna test it.

16

:smiley:

I do, however even with a surgical mask the tellers would recognize me. Small town.

I’m going to ask, though, next time I stop there.

17

I don’t have a job. :frowning:

18

That’s not necessarily true; this past spring I had the B strain of the flu and apparently the flu shot made it somewhat milder, so that I only ended up feeling bad enough to stay home for a day or two- up until then, I thought it was just a cold or something mild. When my fever spiked, I headed in to the doctor and sure enough, it was the flu.

So I probably gave it to my co-workers during the stretch when I was coughing and not feeling great, but not godawful either.