How do you decide when to go to work when you're sick?

[Aaaahfuck]

I'm ill at the moment with a cold/virus but it's keeping me in bed/on the sofa so not just sniffles I'm feeling pretty awful. When I'm ill I often end up trying to do too much or go back to work too soon and then get worse or take ages to get properly better. So I'm curious how everyone else decides when you're well enough to go back to work or do things? For example I wonder if in an ideal world I should rest for another day after I can't get out of bed? This is something I wouldn't normally do. What does everyone else do? On the other hand I feel like some people don't even rest up when they're ill and seem to get over it just fine.

I'm lucky in that I get paid sick leave which I know everyone doesn't.

Of course i meant 'if I DON'T go back tomorrow I'll need a doctors note!'

It depends on your job, I would be able to go in easier when sick if I had a desk job than one on my feet all day.

I teach- I go into work if I am physically well enough to get up and dressed in a morning. If I can’t manage that without it causing me significant distress then I don’t go.

Apart from two weeks off after I had elective surgery a couple of years ago, I haven't had a day off sick in the 7.5 years since I left university and started work! I would negotiate with my colleagues to do a quieter/easier role if I felt rotten, I think, and would only call in sick altogether if I were dying.

Additional, there are a certain amount of days off a year I can take sick. If I'm approaching the end of a year and have any left, I will use them as sickness days.

Are you in the U.K.?

I'm an inpatient mental health nurse so going off sick means the ward potentially becomes unsafe so generally people drag themselves in when they shouldnt. I have to feel really poorly to not go to work. And I have to preplan to some extent becasue of I ring in whilst I'm getting ready at 6am there wouldn't be enough time to sort out cover.

Its shit.

If I wake up thinking 'not sure i am well enough to go in' and then i fall asleep again.... I'm off ill.

If my next thought is 'oh, and there is that book i wanted to read' then i know i need to go in.

Bad cold, I work from home.

I would only stay home if I was so rotten I couldn’t stand up.
I’m on my feet all day and I’m a HCP so I work with sick people who don’t want to catch anything from me.
If it was just a cold and I get better after paracetamol I would go to work. I’ve only had 5 days off work in the last 5 years and that was when I caught noro off a patient and I genuinely thought I might not get better, it was rotten.

In my work place if you have 3 absences a year you have to face a disciplinary panel. As a result of this policy, staff come in regardless to avoid being disciplined. This includes sickness, diarrhoea, D&V....etc. They just stick close to the toilet. Yep, all fun and games in my workplace!

If I have dandv then I can't go in (work in preschool) anything else I'd have to be at deaths door to stay off. I don't get paid sick leave.

Even if you feel terrible, get yourself out of bed and sitting up for at least some of the time. It will help.

My workplace is very understanding and while it can be a pain to find cover, we just get on with it to be honest. I do the shower test too and encourage my teenager to do the same. It will go one way or the other!

I cycle-train-cycle to work and that's much harder than the days work. If I'm too unwell to face the journey, regardless of what meetings/tasks I need to do they I stay home.

That does mean it can very according to work diary/deadlines. I have been in, completed something then bolted back home to bed on occasion. I could work from home but I don't usually bring my work laptop home daily.

No sick pay here. I can use holiday if I have it. As a result I've never called in sick in 14 years at the company. Fortunately I don't tend to get sick too often and when I do it's relatively mild. One exception 4 years ago when I had a throat more painful than when I had tonsils out. I went in and really suffered. I would call in sick if I was unable to get out of bed or couldn't stop puking.

If I feel too ill to drive safely, then no point in going to work.

If I don't have a sickness/diarrhoea bug then I go to work.

This is a bit of a annoyance for me, I work from home so if I’m sick I still work, I’m expected to work and told just take it easy. Which is actually ok, however if one of my office based colleagues is ill with the same illness they have the day off sick.

I’ve had no sick days for years.

Surely it depends what you do?
I'm amazed though at a pp saying colleagues go in with d and v ....... I've had norovirus and couldn't have made it downstairs, let alone to work!

Tummy bug - I always stay off, and I'd hope others would too.

Colds - I spend half my day on the phone, which is obviously difficult if there are throat and chest problems. I usually struggle in unless it's a really bad day, and then I find that a day at home is enough to set me right usually. My employers are quite flexible though, we're really not expected to struggle in. We share phones and keyboards too, so obviously things spread. No option to work from home.

Personally if a colleague had a bad cold and was coughing and sniffing all day, I'd rather they stayed off. That's my test. Would I want to sit next to me for 7 hours? If no, I stay home.

@FormerlyFrikadela01 that situation sucks especially as you're doing such an important job. As pp's have said working when you feel you're too ill because of sickness policy is kind of crap. I know people will take the piss but also people are different. For example when I get the same cold as my partner I get way worse symptoms.

Although I also think I might have got this from someone at work so coming in when sick can effect the rest of the office in other ways.

Another one with the shower test for most things.

If it's a migraine though, I already know it's game over a lot of the time. I struggle in for most of them because I am in trouble for my sick leave, but some of them mean I am blind in one eye, or the light sensitivity is too severe to move, or I have stroke symptoms so I cant go anywhere.

I mainly work from home which is easier. However, as I deal with people on the phone all day I couldn't do it with a bad cough. My work are quite reasonable, but we get 7 paid sick days per 12 months and I presume any more than that triggers some sort of formal meeting.

Well I’m a teacher (currently on Mat leave, not a sick day ) so it is greatly frowned upon to have days off. I drag myself in unless I have a sickness bug because that would obviously be incredibly selfish. Battle through colds with lots of lemsip usually, there’s no way I could have time off for every cold I get throughout winter.

If you can't get out of bed or off the sofa then I'd say you're definitely too ill! Colds are tricky though I agree. I'm currently 29 weeks pregnant and on my third cold/virus in a month when normally I never get ill. The previous two, I have gone in to work. This week though I've decided enough is enough, I'm absolutely exhausted and I'm clearly not helping myself constantly putting work first so I won't be going in tomorrow.

The school run standards, really? I will still be dropping my son to pre-school tomorrow morning as all I have to do is drive 2 mins down the road and chivvy him from the car.
Today is my non-working day and I haven't expected my DH to take the day off to look after DS after pre-school this afternoon, but equally we won't be leaving the house, I'll just sit down all afternoon while he plays...

I think if I wasn't in my 3rd trimester I would probably go in though and if it wasn't my third virus in a month (realistically I think it's the same virus that just won't go away as I never get a flippin minute to rest!).