If you had a very important meeting in work ...

[smellycarrot]

Infact if you had two very important meeting this week, one that included flying to Ireland to meet a client but you were sick, would you feel bad about phoning in sick?

How do other people deal with being ill when you are senior in your job and flights and hotels have been booked in advance for weeks?

Was this meant for the OP?

In my case no, you’re either there for the whole thing and give as close to 100% as you can, or you won’t be able to swing it. Think of it as a factory line where one worker assembling a non-key, but still essential part of the product, stops doing so or “half-arsing” it. The whole assembly process is disrupted, and if you take that person off their post, you bring in someone new and have to keep them until the end of the month when there is an assembly competition and only people who have been working the assembly line for the past 4 weeks are allowed to be showcased.

D&V? No
Cold/cough? Yes

Well you ain’t going to get your sale, that’s for sure 😂

Hope your DH is ok.

Nope I get there. That's professionalism

Yes, I can just imagine your tender review meeting:

lloyds? they were ok, highest margin though. Ability to change terms for no fee

morgan Stanley? Not bad, Mid range fee but 10 year fix, not ideal

smelly carrot bank? No forget them, he kept sneezing in the presentation.

It’s that martyrdom attitude that spreads viruses around got everyone else…

So yeah, thanks for that <slow clap>

Yeah, nothing screams professionalism like a flu-ridden person turning up with the shakes, high temperature, struggling for breath, barely able to concentrate on the task and spreading their germs around, especially when there could be vulnerable people at the meeting 🙄

In my job if I had something that important I would just get on and do it and recover later. I have no problem taking time off sick when I need it if I was just going to WFH or do internal meetings/office days but there are some things that are weeks in rescheduling and lost productivity that it’s just too stressful and difficult to cancel and rearrange.

I depends how ill though.
With a fever that doesn’t come down, clearly ill so unable to concentrate and do your job?

Youve wasted your clients time and I doubt they’d be happy about that.
Also for an important visit at high level? I’d expect several people to go so the meeting should go ahead wo you.

If you have a cold? Yes you dose yourself up.

If I was REALLY poorly I might ask an equivalent ranking colleague to do the meeting for me if they could beforehand.

Cancel. It’s not worth the risk. Offer to meet on Teams if possible but don’t feel obligated.

It depends how ill and how important the meeting is.

I’ve gone straight from hospital inpatient to meeting room to deliver a critical report. It wasn’t ideal. There have been very few occasions in my career where I’d have contemplated such an action but sometimes needs must.

There's an awful flu going around. He can't justify getting on a plane and possibly spreading it to everyone on there. He needs to reschedule or do the meeting online.

Depends how much notice you give. If you tell them on the morning or night before it's very unprofessional. You need to allow sufficient time for them to make alternative arrangements if you have known you are under the weather.

I think I would be trying to postpone if he's genuinely bed ridden ill.. these things happen and realistically companies should have contingency plans in place for this whether it's moving to a teams meeting covered by a colleague or sending someone in place who knows the brief of the work, or you postpone.

I think if you're unwell enough to under perform or to pass the illness on to others then the professional thing to do is to cancel. Otherwise you medicate and power through the meeting but decline the social aspects and rest and try to get through it.

If I was moderately ill I'd dose up and trust adrenaline to get me through the meetings.

If I was as ill as he appears to be, I'd either convert it to a conference call or get someone else to go in my stead, or both if required - e.g. sometime else does the main pitch, he's on the line for questions.

If I were a client and someone turned up and gave half my firm the flu I would be fuming. I'd much rather a pragmatic approach was taken - either moving the meeting a week or finding someone else to pitch it or similar.

It's really not. A professional would either pivot to an online meeting, reschedule or delegate to someone else.

Depends a bit on the company culture - in many it’s definitely becoming less acceptable to ‘battle on’ and spread nasty germs to others than it is to call in sick / work from home.

If genuinely floored, rather than at the same level of half of Tesco then I’d stay home and hammer the vitamins and naps, and get a good handover call at the peak of the lemsip.

There’s two reputational issues to manage. One calling in sick. The other being blamed for giving someone else the bug you’ve got. It’s hard to mask flu.

Can emphasise the ‘I considered mainlining lemsip, but wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy’ aspect.

What medication would actually get you out of bed and competent enough for an important meting with the actual flu though? Different if it's a head cold and you can paracetamol, ibuprofen and decongestant your way through the worst of it

My DH has currently got that bloody flu virus too. It's awful. I've never known him so ill and he's already had it for over a week. If your DH is similar he shouldn't go. It's a really nasty one. In the grand scheme of a firms turnover a plane ticket to Ireland and a hotel is very small beer.

If you'd ever had actual flu, or any other illness that isn't a bad cold, then you'd know that isn't always possible. When I had flu I was literally bedridden, I couldn't get up for 4 days. There is no way I could have dosed myself up and gone anywhere. Medication wasn't touching the sides.

I don't know! I mean, if you say you're too sick to get out of bed, I imagine there's nothing to be done. But just like I have never known anyone to miss their own wedding due to sickness (which I am sure also happens!), I have never known high visits to be cancelled because of flu or so. Lemsip, painkillers, caffeine, step outside to throw up?

I rarely get sick and honestly, we are perhaps not a good profession if your body is sensitive. (I mean this in a descriptive way, not a judgmental way!)

The things in my profession where we have to turn up, are so formal though that you don't need to do much thinking during the meeting. You have to turn up and shake the hands and read the notes. But not turning up would certainly require a serious explanation and lots of debate about who would be able (from a protocol point of view) to replace whom.

I've always gone anyway.

Some of my most miserable memories are being very, very ill in a hotel room.

But I made all my meetings.

Not saying that's right, just always what I've done.

Flu? He should stay in his bed for his own sake, not even counting how selfish it would be to get on a plane and spread it around wherever he goes.

Can he change it to a Zoom meeting?

If I had a meeting and the person turned up sick with something like a serious flu, that would be the end of my professional collaboration with them. I don't think it's professional to not understand that life happens and meetings can be rescheduled when it's to the benefit of both people.