Going to work with a cold

[cheninblanc]

So I have a cold, started this afternoon. Normally I'd shrug my shoulders and get into work no questions (nhs admin community setting if relevant) but it's a week before Xmas and I do have the ability to work from home and complete all tasks apart from a meeting late afternoon that I should be there for. Real dilemma. I have a clear sick record and never normally let bugs stop me but I'm so conscious others could catch it - but equally they could in a shop etc. What would others do in genuinely torn on it

I work in NHS admin.
I find it very difficult to work from home, though. Work from home = no work for me.
I would have missed last whole week off work if I thought a bad cough meant I shouldn't go in.
Even though I can go running, get 15,000 steps/day, shopping, cooking, cleaning with this cough. .but no work on OP's logic?
I can't make sense of that.

Do u work with nhs staff who have direct patient contact? If they catch your cold and pass it on to someone with a lowered immune system (elderly, newborns) it could be fatal. Also those staff who have become unwell would not be at work to look after the patients at such a critical time of year. Make the sensible choice

Many maybe most Clinical NhS staff are around people all day at work, who are shedding lots and lots of germs. It's not like most patients are taking lots of precautions (or their visitors). I doubt OP is the single extra germy person who will make a huge difference.

Yeoletrout yes I can work from home, a work supplied laptop and access to everything I need.

Chenin: do you just work directly on the laptop all day (doesn't that take forever) or do you plug lappy into some kind of configuration to get a proper size screen, external mouse & proper keyboard to work on?

I'm diabetic, and get really pissed off with people's attitude to sharing germs.

Just stay home OP, it's really shit to pass a cold on this close to Christmas.

I'm a cleaner and we don't get paid if we are off sick. A couple of people in my team are often ill with colds, but I just try and stay away from them . We all need to work.for the money and so always work if we are ill.

Yeoldetrout my lap top plugs into our home monitor so I can have a full screen. My work can be varied but a day working at home can easily be filled with stuff I need to do, I'm lucky enough to have a work phone too so can still do a lot of what I need. I'm lucky to have that in the nhs I know.

And this is why I hate the "it's just a cold, who cares if I pass it on" brigade.

It’s not about caring if you pass it on. It’s about you’d prob get sacked if you called in sick every time you got a cold! And the majority of people can’t just work from home.

Sounds like you would be able to do most of your work at home and see how you feel by the time of the meeting? That’s probably the best option and as you say avoid the person who is vulnerable on Thursday.
A few years back a colleague coughed and sneezed and sniffed for a whole day while we all told her to go home. I even politely asked her to please stay away from me (which she didn’t as she kept asking me things within breathing range) as I was a bridesmaid the following week at my brother’s wedding (also Christmas time). Obviously I got her nasty cold but for me being ill resulted in a chest infection that required steroids as well as antibiotics. I couldn’t go up or down the stairs to my flat and I can hardly remember the wedding I was so dosed up. You are kind to consider your colleagues when you have options. I totally understand why lots of people can’t though. I am now immunocompromised and would really appreciate your consideration if I was your colleague.

@Gottalovesummer that email is ridiculous. Advising students to see a GP after just two days of illness and asking for proof of an appointment for any more than five. If you have a bad cold or sickness bug why would you need to see a GP. There's nothing they can do for that so it's just wasting an appointment. No wonder there are no appointments available!

I don't work any more but I am currently recovering from a truly horrendous cold and cough that I came down with two weeks ago. I do get very bad colds and I was most definitely ill.
But many people would have considered it 'just a cold and cough.'
There was absolutely no way I could have gone to work at all in the first week, I could barely stop coughing and sneezing and I was getting through a box of tissues a day.
I was not fit for civilised company at all - if I ever took a cold to work people used to visibly shrink away from me and the daily commute on public transport was a nightmare.
You'll recover more quickly if you rest at home and you won't put anyone else at risk.

OP - stay at home. Gottalove - that email and policy is ridiculous.

I don't think a cold needs time off work unless you are runnibg tempreture or have d and v or an actual flu. I'd be sacked if I took days off everytime i have a cold.

We are also most contagious before the symptoms start, aren't we? So the horse already bolted by then.

OP, if you’ve got the option of working from home I’d do that - in fact that’s exactly what I plan to do tomorrow given I’m awake at 4 in the morning with horrible cold symptoms. I’ll get some decent admin done, i can dose yourself up with lemsip etc, I’ll not be passing on my bug to anyone else and frankly I’d rather not be dragging myself into the office when I feel like crap. I wouldn’t phone in sick for a cold unless I was really suffering but working from home is a good accommodation.

Even the the schools are sending out emails to say they expect pupils in with colds/sore throats/high temps. It's to prepare them for the world of work.

Bullshit, it’s to up their school attendance levels so the school get better Ofsted results. Children are children, they aren’t mini-adults, they’ll be enough years of them dragging themselves into work feeling unwell without starting that in school. As their parent I’ll make the decision about whether I think they need time at home when they’re ill, the school have no part in that decision making process.

The school thing is a nonsense.

I’m a pregnant teacher. My classroom is like a germ incubator this winter.

Leadership are actively encouraging sick kids (vomit/colds whatever) to be in school because of attendance figures and how they look to OFSTED.

It’s ridiculous and I am NOT grateful for the illness that had me worried all week I’d hurt my baby.

Stay home.

@cheninblanc If you have the option to work from home then do it! Yes it might just be a cold but that cold might get worse over Christmas, and no one else would appreciate you going in and sneezing all over them, potentially making them poorly for Christmas too!
I had a stinking horrible cold all last week but I'm still on probation so didn't want to ring in sick- voila, now EVERYONE has it. Consider it my Christmas gift to the office...
Seriously though take it easy and work from home. Get well soon!

Depends how bad your cold is, I suppose. I rarely get ill, but had to take a few days off a few weeks ago because I was totally wiped out. Was the first time in about 12 years that I had been ill enough to need to properly rest. It was just a heavy cold, but previous experience of pushing on through and ending up with bronchitis made me decide it wasn't worth the risk. Loads of my colleagues were off too, and I work somewhere that has an incredibly low absence rate, so none of my colleagues are prone to ringing in sick on a whim.

If you are properly sick, it's not unreasonable to need to rest. If you've just got a bit of a sore throat and a runny nose that's different.

Definitely depends on how bad the cold is. I never take time of work unless I'm incapacitated due to sickness, diarrhoea or injury. Have taken days off for emergency dental appointments. Colds are all around us this time of year, people catch them from their kids, at the shops, at the GP surgery. You just have to get on with it. I try not to spread it around but the world can't stop because you feel under the weather.

You aren’t talking about calling in sick with a cold though. You’re talking about working from home.

I always try to work from home at the start of a cold if I can. I work from home anyway a day or two a week and if it’s possible to juggle things, I will absolutely do it. As do my colleagues. No one wants to be that jerk spreading their germs everywhere when they didn’t have to. We’re all too busy and stressed to be sick, so it’s common courtesy, if you work in a position where this is possible. Obviously not everyone can work from home. I’d call in or just pop in for the meeting.

Work from home as you can, go in for meeting if needed.

You don't call in sick for a basic cold.

Can you phone in to the meeting instead of physically going in?

If you work with me please do not come in. I know it's just a cold but I do not want to pick one up this close the Christmas. I was ill last Christmas.

I had a really early night and feel much better! I'm working from home, the meeting venue has been changed and that means less contact with people so I'll go that, sit well away from colleagues then come home and carry on

I don't know why people have this dilemma. If you feel ill, don't go to work. If you feel ok,....go to work unless it's something really contagious.
If you can work from home there is no reason to go in.
I think you've made the right decision to just attend the meeting.