To be so fed up with people spreading illness?

But not cancelled eh? Sounds a bit double standards to me does that.

Can you look into moving desks?

Your manager may be able to help you discreetly, if you don’t want to offend this woman.

Coughs and colds are perfectly normal. Other than washing hands regularly and covering mouth/nose to cough and sneeze we need to go about our business. If I took a day off work for a cold my boss would laugh her socks off then given me a stern word - as it should be.

I see all angles of this.

No one wants to work when unwell
People can't afford to take time off
If you are off with every sniffle you'd never be in
You are also contagious before your symptoms show so it's too late by the time you are unwell - you've already shared!
I think a cold or similar carry on, anything worse D&V for example - stay at home.

Public sector? It’s full of people like this who think the place would crumble without them.

consider your own immune system as well, are you doing everything you can to make sure you’re as robust as possible in that regard?

Yeah right 😂

Coughs/colds are perfectly normal to spread, and in fact it's better for your immune system if you are exposed to them. That includes flu/Covid who for most are mild illnesses and those with compromised immune systems are vaccinated against.

However people who spread norovirus are utter pondscum. I went down with this 2 weeks ago, had to isolate in the bedroom as DH is waiting for a heart operation and I was terrified he'd get it, and missed a whole week of work (run own business) so it had a financial impact too. I'm diabetic and it hit me for 6, I can still only tolerate toast/porridge and feel horribly off colour even though I'm not contagious.

She has a sore throat today, she’s been on holiday for a week. How could she predict she would catch the cold?

I am not paid if I call in sick. I am not the only one.
I have savings for exactly this but not all people have.

This sort of thing seems to happen to me all the time! My one time to relax and I feel like crap because someone else is so inconsiderate.

She should have stayed home but why do you keep catching every cold?

You can’t control other people’s actions so have a look at how you can bolster your immune system. I’m in a huge office where people are sometimes ill but I don’t catch all their colds.

And all the people and crew on the plane you went on?

I get chemotherapy every three weeks and work on a supermarket checkout. I don’t expect people to stay at home if they’re feeling unwell, people have to buy groceries and work and it’s completely unrealistic to expect people to stay at home every time they have a sniffle. The only thing I wish is that people would cover their mouth when they cough - most don’t.

All I did was consider others. Your lectures on that won't phase me. I'm never doing it again. My MH was so bad and still suffers so , as I said, the sick and those fearful of getting sick, should stay home. Businesses should be blamed for lack of protocol that makes this impossible and not individuals. The whole divide and conquer thing isn't working, anymore.

I can work from home whenever I like but I really have situations which are better dealt with in person- interviews, appraisals, meetings with senior stakeholders, collaboration on projects, reviewing documents , presentations. The illness and these events don’t always align!

we’re not all just sitting at a laptop tapping away with it making no difference whether we sit at home or at a desk for 8 hours

illness spreading is just part of life.

it makes me laugh when people with house of school/ nursery children who take public transport to work accuse someone in their office of giving them a cold- how close are you getting to them?! Didn’t we alll learn from Covid the types of exposure you need to pick these things up?

I have a cold at the minute I have had for a week. I had various coughs, colds and chest infections throughout winter. You can’t just be off everytime your under the weather you’d get the sack

So, you have PTSD from Covid; but you consider anyone else, who doesn’t want to catch Covid is neurotic - even though high risk groups can still die from it?

We’ve both got Covid at the moment, and I knew from when it started, it was Covid not a cold; and I’d never had it before. It’s been 10 days for me, and 7 days for DH. We are getting worse not better. We are both over 65; and he’s got cardiovascular disease and heart failure, putting him in a higher risk group. He is struggling with his chest.

Considering we both still work, I can’t see how productive people can be, feeling this exhausted anyway; and if this was spread to everyone in the workplace, what would the net effect on productivity be?

This 100%. In not going to wear a face diaper ever, ever again and no corporate intolerance for colds and the neuroticism from others is going to force that on me. I have PTSD from covid and never, ever again. Jobs need to let the sick stay home or those in fear of being sick stay home. Never again.

And if she had phoned in sick no doubt management and colleagues would have been slagging her off. I don’t disagree with you, people should be allowed to stay off when they’re ill but unfortunately due to poor work culture and some people genuinely not being able to afford it, many of us do haul ourselves in. I suspect she’d have rather been home in bed too.

But I do wish masks had stayed and become more of a norm in busy places like the tube etc.