to ask if you go to work when sick?

[CoolToned]

I think I have the flu.

nope SAHM don't get that option

Whereas working parents just let their kids starve and go feral if they're ill

Flu can have mild to severe symptoms.

And I thought the Doctor's Gold Standard test for flu is a viral culture.

Yep. I've been in with fever over 100 before. It's ridiculous, but anything below 100% attendance iis seriously, seriously frowned on at my company. I'm still in my first two years, so I've never been off sick.

The last time I had flu several years ago I felt so ill I thought I might die. No way could I even have got out of bed.

I wouldn't stay off with a cold.

Hmm. When I had swine flu, which I tested positively for, I was in bed for days. I'd still have got that £50 though. People are such arses about flu on MN.

Flu,no - my pet hate is those stupid stupid adverts that suggest taking whatever drug is being advertised will knock the flu on the head and enable you to go to work - yeah,right! That's how you know you have flu,you take the stuff and feel marginally better.Perhaps you can get to sleep,or manage to stagger to the loo...work,not so much.
Throwing up - no.Conjunctivitis,no if it involved lots of icky discharge.
Otherwise,go in.
Though years ago I had an overactive thyroid,and I felt absolutely awful.I kept going into work until the day it got to lunchtime and I had just had it - I burst into tears and said I couldn't go on and was going home

Yes, I do .. but I work from home so no one to infect who wouldn't be infected anyway and I have learned to work from bed using about 10 pillows and a laptop on a beaded lap try (it's a fine art).

Having said that if I am really really poorly I won't work. But working from home when sick is usually easy, much more so than in an office.

I work in retail and deal with customers all day - if I feel a bit meh and unwell then I go to work. If I'm leaking any sort of bodily fluid or look like I should have a crawl-on part in The Walking Dead then I stay home. I'm pretty photosensitive generally but when I have a heavy cold it's awful, my eyes stream and I look like I've been punched even if I feel okayish. Always think it's better to stay home and recover quickly than struggle in and gross out all my customers

I do stay off with a cold because I cough a lot and it's annoying for other people, plus I don't want to spread my germs. Usually, I'll wfh unless feeling really rotten in which case I'll just take a sick day. It's bad form to go in when very ill I think because you just give it to everyone else and you're not productive.

Well done OP. The doctor's actual test for whether you have flu or a bad cold is indeed a throat swab sent to a lab. Anything else is informed guesswork.

All these people who "only had flu once and it was so awful I thought I might die". Did you get viral cultures every other time you had a "nasty cold" and took it easy for a couple of days because you felt pretty crap and DH offered to do the school run? In that case you don't know that those weren't flu.

I've never had flu, I think, but only took time off with horrendous ear ache (the kind where you sob in agony), awful period pains where I can hardly stand up straught and chronic back pain where I simply couldn't put my pants or socks on.

I would go in unless I felt completely dreadful.

I think the modern working culture is that sickness absence is massively frowned upon. Certainly where I work, anything less than perfect attendance is a huge black mark.

But - I am in my 40s and can remember when it was almost expected that you had a week off sick every year (have always worked in public sector).

Until, July, the only time I had off sick in my job was 9 years ago - and that was just one day. This year I dragged myself into work despite feeling very unwell and ended up in hospital on a drip and had to have a week off. Even when I rang my boss from my hospital bed having just been admittted, he said, 'hope to see you tomorrow'!

"Presenteeism or working while sick can cause productivity loss, poor health, exhaustion and workplace epidemics."

YWBVU to go to work whilst sick, spreading your plague around the workplace. Stay at home and draw a cross on your door.

Yes, I go into work when I'm sick.

But I've never had flu.

If I got flu then no, I wouldn't go to work.

When I was office based then yes, I did. Paracetamol is a wonderful invention, as are tissues.

Now, my job is extremely physical and involves biking in all weathers, up steep hills without gears. Then it's deep cleaning for 4.75 hours. Then cycle back. So if I get ill, I don't think I will be fit for physical work and doubt I will go in.

If you develop flu (not everyone who catches it will- 40ish % will be asymptomaic but still contagious) then honestly you will know it.

It's so much worse than any variation on a cold. You are in pain, you will have a very high fever and will be physically unable to walk far or undertake normal daily activities. As pp have said your perceptions may be altered as well.

Yes, in as far as I am able, I do what I can to work through illness. But sometimes you can't work and have to take time off.

Flu can have mild to severe symptoms.
And I thought the Doctor's Gold Standard test for flu is a viral culture.

Come on now, this is a thread about flu on MN, get out of here with your facts!

When I had medically confirmed H1N1 (swine flu) I was able to post online, I didn't have to crawl to get to the toilet, and I wasn't hallucinating. I was definitely too ill to work though.

I go in with a bad cold, have been in with tonsillitis, migraines etc but would have time off for a sickness bug or actual flu. Everywhere I've ever worked there has been a strict and rigourously enforced sickness policy that meant taking sick leave every time you have a cold isn't an option if you want to keep your job.

No not with flu because I have a long driving commute and would risk being that ill in charge of a car. Plus I wouldnt want to infect everyone in there.

I have had actual flu and it was awful. I couldn't work which meant I didn't get paid as I was temping at the time. I was in bed for about a week and it took a good few weeks to recover.

Wouldn't * even

Yes I do, I'm a doctor. I'm never off sick and go in sicker than the patients and without doubt I know other people in a different profession would be off. That's not right but it's the culture of medicine.

Thinking about it the last time I had flu I couldn't even see straight, stand up or put more than two words together so even remembering I had a car, let alone needed to work, wouldn't have happened.

At my workplace, as with a lot of places now, we don't get sick pay (apart from statutory after the first three days off). I had Swine Flu and that was horrendous. I couldn't drink more than an espresso cup of liquid or keep anything down, could barely move and felt like I was dying. I couldn't have worked, I couldn't even walk upstairs!
That said people come into work all the time when they're ill - even with D&V on occasion- and having a severely reduced immune system I catch everything from them. I also cannot afford to have time off work, but sometimes this means I have to (although only 2 days off ill out of 365, so its very rare). You just have to decide whether you're ill enough to need time off or not, and that varies from person to person.