to have a day off work because I have a cold?

[DrDeluxe]

What d'you think MN'ers? Looking forward to the vote outcome.

Depends on how bad the cold is, what kind of job you have (food service? Heart surgeon?) and/or if you are likely to come into contact with and infect immunosuppressed people.

How much of a cold? Streaming cold, headache and sinus pain, the shivers, snot everywhere and a hacking cough then yes. Anything else, get a grip.

Unless someone will die / badly suffer if you don’t go in, bloody stay off! Get your vicks out, hot water bottle filled and Netflix on! You only live once. Stay in bed and feel sorry for yourself! I do and I’m only on mat leave haha

What do you do?
Do you work somewhere you are likely to 'infect' someone who perhaps couldn't cope with it? For example, I work in a nursery with children with compromised immune systems.
Presumably if you are considering a day off you must feel pretty terrible

Posted too soon.
If you're feeling rough, take the day off. No point in burning the candle at both ends

Stay home. Work from home if you can, otherwise take a day off. Nothing worse than a colleague coughing and spluttering all over the office an infecting everyone!
(This is presuming your employer is ok with this)

If it's just a head cold I try and carry on, ask to WFH if I have no appointments but if it's the kind of cold like flu where you feel quite poorly I would take time off.

Personally I think attendance and productivity would actually go up if people took a couple of days off with a cold rather than going in and infecting every one else.

Depends how bad, what you do and how flexible your work is.

I work in an office where home working is not only possible, but encouraged. Most meetings will include dial in or VC. In that environment I view coming in with anything more than a sniffle as fairly unreasonable because it's simply not necessary (and I've been directly impacted by more than 1 old school 'heroes' who came in harbouring pretty bad transmittable bugs when I was immunosuppressed).

Obviously that's not all jobs and all contracts so it's a judgement call based on how well you feel & the impact on yourself and others.

If it’s a really rubbish cold, stay home, your colleagues won’t thank you for spreading germs!

If you can do your job online, stay at home and avoid passing it on.

Of course YABU. If everyone took a day off every time they had a cold workplaces would grind to a halt.

It’s a cold. Take some Beechams and get on with it.

If you work around food, in a hospital, with children etc, then yes absolutely take a sick day.

Depends how bad it is. Full on spluttering, streaming nose, fever, headache...no problem. Moderate sniffle..go in (depending on the job).

Stay off - I hate it when martyr colleagues struggle in to do a half arsed job, while infecting the rest of the team.

There are different types of cold - from a sniffy nose to raging fever. It depends if you feel ill to work really...

It really depends. At the moment I have a minior sinus infection and bit of a scratchy throat. All symptoms will ease with medication. So, I went in this week.

Two months ago my sinus infection was so bad I got dizzy and the pain wouldn't go away with the maximum tablets allowed. So obviously I stayed home. You don't want to know what ended in the tissues all the time.

Stay home. Nothing drives me up the wall more than sitting in an office with someone who's sick who then passes it on to everyone else.

Whats better for the company, one employee taking 3 days off or a whole office taking 3 days each.

You dont know if people have elderly relatives or small children at home, who could potentially get very sick from a small illness. Just stay home, everyone saying man up is being ridiculous.

A cold sounds minor but actually can range from minor sniffles and a bit bunged up, to a really serious respiratory infection where you cant breathe, think or sleep.

If you are having a bad one, then take time off if you need it

Somebody recently went in to DHs work with a cold, he got a mild cold, I ended up with flu and my baby became ill so imo people that are I'll should stay at home.

More info needed
Stuffy/runny nose yabu
The type of cold where your head is all muffled and you feel like death yanbu

Depends on how bad it is.

Bad = stay at home
Light = go in

I've been off most of the week with one, but in my defence it's floored me, and I've had a touch of bronchitis on top as well as sinusitis.

My school takes a dim view of staff or students taking time off for a cold so i never have. Slight sniffles go in. Proper retching cough snot headache and fever stay off (but tell them a flu virus not a cold ).
However it depends on your workplace policy or if you work with ill people /children/elderly. I work in a secondary school and have seen kids virtually lying across their desks with horrible colds just to not be absent.