To wonder if boss was being unreasonable here?

[ArethaQ]

Yesterday I felt really unwell with a pounding head, just felt dreadful. It was meant to be my office day and I have a very long commute. I asked my boss with plenty of notice if I'd be able to work from home. The job doesn't require me to be in the office, I can do it on my laptop and I'm easily contactable throughout the day.
She is normally quite reasonable but she replied almost implying that I was taking advantage and that everybody would be doing the same if they could. I don't necessarily think that's true, some people prefer going into the office and feel isolated at home. She said that it should be classed as a sick day.
I ended up going in. I sort of see what she's saying but it's the first time I ever requested to work from home on an office day and I was still going to get the work done, there was no purpose for me to be in the office that day, I'm in a very junior role.

I think she's right that you're either sick or well enough to work - if you're too sick to commute, it should be a sick day surely. If you're ill are you actually going to be able to wfh effectively, especially with a headache so bad you can't travel?

We had a reminder in our all hands call last week that you can still be sick when you're wfh and a sick day still needs to be taken if you're ill - I think too many people have assumed they can just wfh when sick and it's prolonging then being unwell and they're not actually doing much work when wfh and ill.

Yeah, does make sense.

It isn't always as clear cut as that. E.g. I have IBS - if I'm going through an attack, I feel fine in myself, but I have to stay within five seconds of a loo, so travelling to the office is a no-no.

our olive is sick is sick

no wfh for any other reason inc childcare - that would be emergency leave and unpaid

wfh is getting a bit lax i feel

peoppe use it to fit round their lives but resulting in less productivity

OP ended up going in (so kind of proving she was able to) but at the point of the phone call the boss was telling her to be odd sick and hence no work would have been done, rather than a day's work but from home.

@CesareBorgia

Absolutely right - if i knew a team member had a condition, that would be very different. That doesn't seem the case for OP.

I presume OP messaged her manager very early and said 'I feel dreadful, I'm too Ill to travel, can I work from home', to which I would have said 'yes, that's fine, but have the day off sick if you're not well'.

I'm sorry that your Olive is sick, that must be very stressful 🤣

We do this at work - slight sniffle and you stay at home. It’s great - we no longer have the “office cold” that gets passed around.

I cycle to work - there are times that I feel well enough to sit in a comfy chair in my living room and think a bit but I don’t feel well enough to ride a bike.

I have a one hour commute, by train, to work, ending in a 10 minute walk. If i did that I'd get there exhausted right now (chesty cough) so i WFH and make sure i drink lots, and tale a long lunch break where i go away from screens and relax.

and the same for the return journey - instead of leaving early so i have the energy to get home, i can do a whole day, and then just move to my sofa.

This is what i offer my boss when I'm too ill for office but not too ill to work. And the people with tiny babies, and our pregnant colleagues, appreciate it.

My work would have been fine with this as a one off. There is of course a big grey area between 'too sick to work' and 'well enough to come into the office' and adding in a commute and getting ready on top of feeling shit doesn't do anyone any good. Often if I feel like that I can have a longer lie in at home and rest at lunchtime and still manage to work, whereas coming into the office would make me feel worse. Plus if you're coming down with something you're more likely to spread germs around all the other employees. I think in general if companies are more flexible with employees, don't impose rules for the sake of them and allow them to make their own decisions about things like this, then employees are happier, take less sick days, are less likely to leave etc

In my experience, people who can work from home generally have a much better sickness records because they're masking sick days with working from home. Which can cause resentment from those people who if they're sick, have to take a sick day rather than get a chance to work from home and go at a 'slower pace', take more breaks, etc. Not saying all ppl do this but some certainly do

If you're so sick that you can't work in the office then you can't work as effectively as needed from home imo.

If you're so sick that you can't work in the office then you can't work as effectively as needed from home imo.

even though several of us have explained exactly why and how we don't go to the office when we are too sick to travel or have other needs (IBS was one) and working from home is a better alternative (for the company: they don't have someone off sick, the work is still being done)

It's not rocket surgery ;)

Thats exactly my point, if you've got IBS and are going to spend hours back and forth to be toilet (I do know a little about this having crohns) then you're not putting in a full shift, you're working less, not because you're at home but because you're sick.

If you're sick then take a sick day, don't take a day at home doing less than you would if you were fully well.

There's a real significant different in sickness rates between job roles that are fully office based and ones that are WFH and it's masking how sick ppl are, which isn't right. We should have decent sickness policies and if sick take the time off

If your workplace says you're important enough and it won't cause issues if you work to 60%,70%, 80% effectiveness and is happy for that then great but you can't argue that you're too sick to get to work and sit at a desk but as productive as you would be if you weren't

They have been very flexible in my workplace in this regard. They would rather me wfh rather than spreading germs around to everyone else on my floor.

I would generally swap my days around if that was feasible. In fact, since covid I haven't had any sick days because of this.

(Wonders what rocket surgery is... 🤔).

The problem is getting a balance of continuity between staff - in my opinion as an employer - if you’re not well enough to travel then you should take the day off sick. Since COViD started an endemic of people WFH my workforce have a bad habit of saying they are not well enough to travel to see customers but can do emails from home. As an employer it isn’t best practice when people to feel like they can’t take a day off sick - and we pay them for sick days so this isn’t financially driven - you’re either fit to work or you aren’t. I’m at my wits end (with my staff) of half measures just because they don’t appear to want sick days on their record. It could be that your boss is trying to make a clear line between being able to
work and not and doesn’t want to risk getting half a job done when you should be taking the day off. Just my opinion.

I'm undecided here. On one hand, I think there's no point in coming in just for the sake of it so taking the day to WFH seems reasonable - I probably would have asked to swap the office day in your situation too.

On the other hand, all the comments about "spreading germs" and the office cold seem quite melodramatic to those of us who always work in person. I'm in a school, obviously no option to WFH and the idea that you'd not go into work because of something fairly minor just to avoid spreading germs seems weird. But then again in teaching you're either at work, or too ill to work at all. There's no middle ground of sitting on the couch sending emails because you're a bit tired/headachey.
So I don't think YABU here but I can see why some bosses might be hesitant in some situations.

I think businesses have to be really careful about this. There's an extremely line between ALLOWING work from home if people don't want to travel/spread their germs, and PRESSURING people to work from home when they should be off poorly. While it's fine if the employee says they are ok to work from home, there could still be subtle pressures on others. You see others working from home, you know you have a huge workload, and you feel you SHOULD work from home, even if you feel like staying in bed, because maybe not doing so will push your workload onto others who managed to work from home when they had a bug. I think it's very reasonable NOT to allow work from home unless it is a very clear problem where working is fine and travelling is not. "I've broken my ankle, I can't drive, I don't want to risk wobbling around on the bus" is clear "I feel a bit sick and floppy, but probably have the energy to work" is very different.

My manager says that her senior manager doesn't like people working from home when I've asked before. Fine

We're mega busy and the office doesn't open on weekends but she asked us to do overtime from home - on a weekend.

Nope, can't change your mind when it suits. Now she's got the monk on with us. 😂

This isn’t taking the mick on your part and not unreasonable on her part. She has a point. If you’re not well enough to be in the office you’re not well enough to work. If you’ve a terrible headache you shouldn’t be looking at your screen. If you can, go into work and work as expected.

I can see the company side of this if they’re struggling with visibility in the office etc and snowball effect.

Personally I don’t care if my team work from office or home providing work gets done. We have 1 mandatory office day per month where all 12 of us do a team day, training, etc. that’s non negotiable. The rest is upto them. At a company level they were trying to get everyone back in, but it just didn’t work as it’s a London office and recruitment during covid allowed people to recruit further afield so WFH had to stay in place because as a business we can’t ask people to reasonably commute a round trip of 4+ hours per day.

Come in Friday instead would have been a better response.

I know you weren't taking the mick, but she has clearly dealt with some who do. It might also be that you said you were unwell and company policy is that you should take time off to recover.

Those who think that your work can be done at home and it makes no difference whether you're at your workplace or not, it really does, particularly if you support others who aren't sat at a computer all day so can't just drop you a message or call on Teams and continue working while awaiting a response.

My job can't be done anywhere but the workplace, but the office staff and management could work anywhere. For them there is a policy of being present in the building. There is some flex for unexpected issues, and a few people have agreements to wfh on particular days always Fridays . For the rest of us it's very frustrating when we can't get hold of someone quickly because they're wfh, it's so much easier when they're in the building and we can just pop to the office for 5 minutes to speak to them. It's a running joke among the rest of us that the office staff and management think the week ends on Thursday at 5 pm, meanwhile operations continue 24/7 without them, which begs the question, how essential are they?

I realise this is quite a specific example, but it'll be the same everywhere that people are expected to be present in the workplace. Your boss wants you there for a reason, if you're sick take a day off.

Do you get sick pay? If so I would have taken the sick day. By going in you kinda proved your bosses point that you were able to.

My old job was exactly like this. None of us were particularly happy about it. On a day when my period comes for example I don't feel like travelling for an hour to just show my face at my junior office role. My boss was generally unreasonable though and I left and moved to another department where I get treated like an actual grown up and nonsense like this doesn't happen.