To be annoyed by what I call 'Workplace Martyrs'?

[SapphireSeptember]

Because I'm feeling rather cross right now! The ones who come in coughing and spluttering everywhere (for fuck's sake, cover your mouth!) and looking like death warmed up. "Oh, it's only a cold!"
Reasons this annoy me...

1. I work with two people with compromised immune systems. One of them is a WM herself, and made herself really ill by coming into work when she shouldn't have, resulting in a hospital stay. Still hasn't learnt, and still comes into work when she's really ill.
2. Someone I know is currently undergoing radiotherapy. If I get a cold I have to avoid them, because I don't want to pass my germs on.
3. Yes it's only a cold, but colds make me really ill for some reason, and I'm sick of taking time off work because they won't.
4. Where we work requires both handling food and dealing with customers, a lot of whom are elderly. They don't want your germs either.
5. This notion that they're the only reason the place is still running. I'm sure it won't fall down around our ears if you stay in bed for a couple of days. They also like to inform everyone that they haven't been off sick in ages, as though those of us who have are guilty of some moral failing.
6. I blame this lot for my current cough/sore throat. Flanges! If I get properly ill I am NOT going to be happy.

I'm unpaid for the first 3 days and then only statutory. I have to go in if I'm ill. I don't think it's a good culture but I have no choice.

Depends on the sickness and on the job. Colds are viruses so can range from barely a cough to vomiting due to coughing so much.

Some jobs you should stay away from if posdible (working with immunocompromised patients for example) others you would need to go in due to work reaction to sickness.

Martyrs here are given short shift since half our work is working from home. If you chose to come when poorly and you can wfh you are ignored for attention seeking. We are very lucky to get this option as you can dose yourself up, not worry about driving and work your hours all while sick.

Though the vomiting virus is an immediate home and stay there exception.

Yanbu about the mouth covering

• grim.

There are colds and then there are colds. Sometimes a bad one can be pretty close to flu in terms of symptoms. I wouldn't advocate missing work when a coffee, some lemsip and a good attitude will get you through and perhaps even help you get through it (mind over matter etc) but do yourself and everyone else a favour and stay away if you can't stop spluttering and are aching, sweating, shivering etc. Any work you'll get done will be outweighed by the possibility (or probability!) of infecting others and you'll be better value to your employer by taking a day or god forbid two to get back fighting fit.

I'm a lecturer. I've had the cold for about six weeks, feeling constantly rubbish and completely run down, but not quite bad enough to inconvenience my students by taking a day off, or my colleagues who might have to cover my classes. I'm also scared to be sick in case I then need another day off for something else in the next six months. I'll probably crawl on to the Christmas holidays, then be ill in my own time. Half the staff here are in the same boat, and the corridors sing with the sound of coughing.

I think it's so dependent on the culture of where you work, and whether working from home is possible. We're not allowed to work from home, even if we're not teaching, and there's a culture of trudging on regardless. On the flip-side, the organisational culture is very supportive of family needs (eg, flexible hours for parents), and anyone with long-term illness, so it's horses for courses.

If any of my staff come in to work coughing and spluttering they are sent home and informally reprimanded as they will spread their germs to others. They can work from home if they choose. They still get paid

Where I used to work, we'd get a warning after the third incidence of absence in a 12 month period. After I'd had two, I ended up going to work no matter what ailments I had (regular colds weren't that bad, but going in feverish with a terrible headache was awful). I'd much rather have taken the time off, even if it had to be unpaid, but the policy was what it was. Working from home wasn't possible because of the nature of the job.

I had a manager insist on coming in with bronchitis. Guess who they gave it to!

I have asthma so it was chronic but because this twat woman kept dragging herself in I felt like I couldn't take time off either kept draggng myself in for a week because "well she managed to make it in??'"and ended up making myself seriously sick and ended up having to take about 2 weeks bedrest. I wish to god she had taken off a couple of days to just recover or at least get past contagion. She ended up having to get hospital treatment too anyway.

If I took time off for a cold as well as all of my other medical appointments and treatment .... I'd be worried they thought I was a slacker and would t hire me again at the end of my contract

Depends how bad the cold is I reckon. Some can be pretty bad but obv just sniffly is not a reason for being off. If you also have raging headache, dizzy, achey etc. then I'd say it's OK to have a day or 2 off.

Of course bad colds are a reason to be off work, just like any illness that renders you incapable of working is.

However you can’t take time off for a common or garden cold, and I find attitudes like yours really irritating OP. This exact rhetoric is what I’ve heard in almost every sickness disiplinary I’ve ever done “what do you want me to do come in and give it to people?” Chinny chin

The last cold I had came with a chesty cough that lingered for about 4 weeks. Should I have taken a month off work?!

I think you are being unreasonable, however I do agree with you that they shouldn't be coughing everywhere. They should cough into their hands and if they're handling food wash their hands. Colds can be easily contained without being off.

Genuine question, but so what if you get a letter? Does it result in some kind of disciplinary, or is it literally a standard letter expressing concern for so much absence?

Because letters go on record? Because a letter is the start of a disciplinary process? Because when an organisation is re-organising, down-sizing and making people redundant, some of the first people to be pushed will be the ones with poor sickness records? Because your days of sick is something that will be put on a reference for the next job? because not all of us live in a two-adult household and can't afford to lose our jobs?

In my company a letter means any more
Sick leave will trigger disiplinary action and you are ineligible for pay increases or bonus’

So every time you get a cold, you 'stay in bed for a couple of days' and wrap it up as concern for your work colleagues?

Well played OP. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at your HR department

Meanwhile, anyone else with a cold who's well enough to work, should take responsibility for their own hygiene and germ control.

THAT'S the real issue here.

You can be infectious before symptoms even appear with a cold and germs live on surfaces and are air born, wherever you go. Impossible to avoid. People cannot take time off work every time they get a cold. People with compromised immune systems should take extra precautions by washing their hands regularly, using hand gels and avoiding very crowded places. The world cannot grind to a halt because of the common cold. Of course it's different for other more serious infectious illnesses like chicken pox or flu when of course people should stay indoors if they have symptoms.

Would you also while taking time off:
Isolate either yourself from the rest of your family, (DH, DC etc) so they did not catch it and spread your germs around (or isolate them - keep DP and kids at home as if they are in contact with you they will likely also be infectious)?
Not go to the shops, answer the door, pick up parcels from neighbours, do the school run, see a friend for the whole week, (or two)?

If it is a choice of working or not having the money to pay the bills most people would work.

If we all never caught anything we'd never develop any immunity to anything - we'd end up being wiped out by something. Illness is natural.

Unless you have 100% isolation even if the martyrs stay at home you'll be exposed every time you get on a bus or a tube or go to the shops.

I have had a particularly terrible year for illness the past 12 months. I have had salmonella, a burst ear drum, shingles, numerous colds and other than the salmonella I have had to go in as I would of been on a disciplinary if I haven't gone in. I have now started a new job. I have had to take time off for my daughter who had severe hand, foot and mouth and then my grandad died. I am very worried they will be sacking me come end of my probation time, so i will be going in with every single illness I pick up. I need my job!

I feel for you divadee - it is only employees of certain types of organization who can get away with this.

These things are so individual, I don't really thing think you can have a thread about it!

I go in with colds, except during a two year period year when I kept getting repeated ear infections after every cold.

It just depends on the person, the severity and the workplace, surely?

I've got a cold now, trust me I'd much rather be tucked up on the sofa and in bed tonight sneezing and snivelling away to myself than dosing myself up and going in for a Nightshift!
However if I don't work I don't get paid, and I can't afford to not get paid. I would get SSP if I were off longer than a 3 days/nights (which is 3/4 of my working hours) with a sick note but then a doctor is not going to issue one for a cold, and symptoms will likely have cleared before then anyway. I still can't afford to lose one nights pay, never mind 3, and by not afford I mean things like the rent goes unpaid and I can't afford the heating on.
I'll also have that recorded on my file, and 3 incidences in 12 months will trigger a disciplinary - for being ill! This is my 3rd cold so far (summer colds suck!) So if I followed the don't go to work with a cold rule, being employed less than 2 years, I could feasibly find myself unemployed.

The truly shocking thing is that the same rules applied when I worked in care too, with frail and ill people but you've no choice but to turn up cold or no cold.

I had to take annual leave for an operation, because I'd had 3 sick periods (due to the reason I needed the op) and was told that if I put a sick note in for my op, I'd face a disciplinary. I used up my AL and then went back to work against advice because I had no choice. Luckily I have great colleagues that did anything I wasn't quite physically up to until I was.

I don't think that makes me a martyr, I think that the culture of these work places need looking at and changing, because it's those forcing people who are ill and contagious to work most of the time. I find it's the management that implement these policies that crawl in when they shouldn't and play the martyr because it somehow 'shames' other staff into doing the same.

It seems it's an employer's market and they can impose these rules without fear of backlash because there's 10 people desperate for your job behind you.

You could argue the ones who go into quarantine at the slightest sniffle in case they come across someone immunocompromised are martyrs in a different way

In case the develop pneumonia. Or ebola. Well you never know.

No stealth, this is mumsnet. It’s always sepsis

I agree but I'm in this position now. I have no choice but to come to work or face being dragged over the coals for taking time off!

I have a cold and feel terrible so I'm probably at 60% productivity but unless my legs are falling off there's no excuse not to be here 🤷🏻‍♀️ sorry to my co-workers - however pissed off you are I guarantee I am worse!!