People coming to work sick

[MeredithGrey1]

A woman I work with came in yesterday looking absolutely dreadful and saying she’d had a rubbish weekend because her kids had been sick Saturday. After about an hour she threw up in her desk bin and dashed to the toilet, and then went home.

For context, we get paid sick pay and our manager is lovely and doesn’t guilt trip or try to get you to come in when you’re ill.

Am I being fair to be a bit annoyed she came in? She achieved nothing because half the time she was here she had her head in her hands saying how rough she felt. It’s pretty unpleasant to have someone throw up in the office, and she could have passed it on to other people. However, I mentioned this to my other half this morning and he said he didn’t see a problem with it, that it showed a “good work ethic” and that he would do the same! I know I have a slight tendency to be a bit of a germaphobe but am I being unreasonable to feel like you shouldn’t come to work if you’re ill like that?

Sorry about all they typos, phone is smashed!

Yabu, she might have felt dreadful but okish to try and get in to work but once there felt much worse.

I'll often feel dreadful with a cough/cold/virus but once in work feel ok to carry on. She didn't. Meh.

There is no excuse for going to work ill. I'm diabetic, and have had to leave jobs in the past due to selfish ignorant people coming to work with coughs/colds/d&v. The "oh i cant afford to be off" excuse doesn't wash - people can die from a simple virus if they have a compromised immune system. Basically you are prioritising your own importance over everyone else and that makes you an arsehole frankly.

Surely it's down to how the person feels? Like I say I've regularly gone into work with a cough/cold if I've felt ok to carry on ie. not totally ill. Should i really be staying off if I've got the sniffles considering the sniffles are probably as contagious as a full blown cold?

Yanbu, and it shows a rubbish work ethic. Is she going to sanitise her keyboard and mouse? Who had to clean the toilet?

The thing is TomHardysNextWife is that for some people, they may genuinely not be able to afford to take time off. It could be the difference between paying the rent that week, or feeding their children. Some people are at risk of losing their jobs if they take what is considered too many sick days. Yes, people should stay at home, but it's employers that have these policies that are the arseholes that make it impossible people for stay home.

She may have been feeling just a bit washed out before she left the house.
I sometimes feel sick in the morning if I’m really tired.
And a sickness bug can come on quickly.
It’s really hard to make that call some mornings. I often say i’ll see how I go.
My DD was complaining she was feeling sick this morning - she has gone to school.
She always says she feels sick and apart from not eatin much breakfast was not showing other signs of being poorly - and she ran to the classroom.

It's a difficult one because you can't win - if you go to work with a cold you'll get half the people there thinking you're being selfishfor inflicting your germs upon them, but if you take time off for a cold all the office snides will get sneery about how you don't need time off for that. The fact is there are some office cultures that make you scared to call in sick, but of course it's not fair to others. It's a lose/lose situation.

You can feel rubbish first thing in the morning and be fine by the middle of the morning, after some air, food/drink etc. Fair enough to be annoyed about her being sick near you, but not for making the effort to come in to begin with.

YANBU - I was really annoyed last week when my colleague insisted on coming in despite having a stomach bug. I am 32 weeks pregnant and was not impressed. We have a very laid back boss who was also not too happy about her coming in & spreading her germs about. On the plus side, my boss sent me home to work so I didn't risk getting her stomach bug!

This was me yesterday. A few hours broken sleep on the sofa the night before, full of a cold and food poisoning but I really had to go in. We had been working all year to a major deadline that ended yesterday, I had to be in to produce financial reports for our legal team. I went home as soon as I was able to and I'm still off ill today.
Normally I'd stay at home and will in future so YANBU.

My daughter was 23 and had a day off with the most awful earache. It didn't subside until she got an emergency appointment with the doctor and antibiotics. She really wasn't well the next day but dragged herself in and had to have a back to work meeting with the manager. For one day.
This is a well known shop that supposedly cares for its staff (as it says in its booklet).
It's a food shop but the manager wanted them in with streaming colds and tummy upsets coz they were always short staffed.

You can't stay home sick "just in case" you catch a bug. That's ridiculous. She probably just thought she felt under the weather after spending all weekend looking after sick children.

Not everyone who is in contact with bugs gets those bugs themselves. As a childminder I have had plenty of sick children, or siblings of children who are off sick, brought to my house in the past 20 years but we (me,dh,2 children) have very rarely caught anything off anyone. I can count on two hands the amount of days I have had to take off in those 20yrs and they were mostly my own medical issues anyway.

DH spent plenty of weekends mopping up our own two boys puke (I do not mop up 🤢) and he hasn't been sick, or ever taken a day off sick in almost 30 years.

YABU to expect people to think they might be sick after being in contact with bugs.

It's also not realistic for people to be expected to quarantine themselves at the slightest sniffles in case they come into contact with someone immunocompromised.