To think that people shouldn’t go into the office with a really bad cold?

[Goldengirl123]

I think it’s selfish to spread your germs especially if you travel by public transport

YABU. Work has to be done. You can catch a cold from anywhere and, although it's annoying, it's really not a big deal.

Ideally you would stay at home, but that isn’t an option for everyone.

Depends. If the office has embraced flexible working and the person in question could either work from home or catch up on their hours some other time then sure, they should stay at home.

If they are going to be marked as absent and hauled in front of the boses or lose pay then I can absolutely see why people lemsip up and hope for the best.

This topic has even done to death recently. Is it selfish? Perhaps. Do some people have a choice due to sick pay? No. Do some people prefer to be at work? Yes. Do some people not think they are too ill to work? Yes. Do some people feel too much pressure from an employer to go in even when sick? Yes.
Etc etc.

Most people would probably rather be at home recovering OP. There are lots of reasons why they go to work despite being ill.

I’m on the fence about this, but the other day someone who sits two desks up from me had the most horrendous cough - almost
choke like and it was clearly disturbing almost everyone around him, including me. He definitely shouldn’t have come into the office, it wasn’t fair on everyone else in my opinion! But a mild cold I think is fine. It depends on your symptoms.

Are these threads the new parent/child parking threads?

We seem to have 2 or 3 a week now.

If you've got a kid at nursery or primary school and you took time off every time they brought a cold into the house, you'd be unemployed for the next 7 or 8 years.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5418990-why-oh-why-do-people-turn-up-to-work-when-theyre-poorly
330 replies discussing this very subject, there are more.

At my work if we have respiratory symptoms we can go in as long as we wear a mask (provided you feel up to it and don't have a fever). I think it would be sensible to apply the same principle to public transport.

I think if you can work from home you should.

Oh sorry. I didn’t realise it had been asked before

I’ve had colds that last all winter. I think it depends on your job and if you can do from home.

Not this again.

Most normal people can't just drop everything and stay home whenever they get a virus. I'm hardly ever ill despite working in an office with people coughing and sneezing all around me.

What would piss me off would be having to cover their work every few weeks when they got yet another cold.

In some workplaces, staffing is so shit your colleagues want you in as long as you are capable, germs or not.

When every employee is paid sick pay without question and all workplaces run so efficiently that they can easily cover staff absence without detrimental consequences to someone else, then it might be considered fair to call someone selfish for going to work with a cold. Until then, we just have to accept that human sickness is part of life and carry on with what needs to be done.

Not turning up can have consequences. During teacher training I actually contacted the coordinator to ask if I should stay home and attend online when I had an awful cold to keep my germs to myself. They said yes, but I later found out I had been recorded as absent, even though I was present for the entire thing online and actively took part. Another trainee got put on some kind of support plan for having been absent too much, when she had joined online every single time. Next time I’d just go in and infect everyone rather than risk being penalised for trying to be considerate.

It depends on your symptoms
And this is the problem. I think I’m fine to go in but Jane on Reception is quietly seething every time I sneeze or cough. Should I call in sick every time I feel ill? No! I’d be at home more than I’d be in the office.

I'm glad the replies are sensible and nuanced rather than everyone being accused of being selfish murderers .

Not all jobs and employers are created equally and most can't work from home.

I’m not talking about a mild cold, I’m talking about someone who is really unwell but insisting on battling on

It depends where you work and if the colleague has had a brush with the dreaded Bradford system .

I don't get sick pay so don't have a choice but to go in unless I physically can't.

I would say most teachers in my Key stage were like that in the last week of the half term but we were told very clearly that we were still expected at school-despite temperatures, sore throats, lost voices and feeling generally dire.

I would imagine loads of our children got ill and spread it all around the family over half term!

I have hybrid working (40% at home) but I was really pleased when my manager recently made it clear they didn’t want sick people in the office - they should work from home.

What difference would it make to their colleagues whether the person had a mild cold, or were really unwell but still well enough to work?

A cough is still a cough and a sneeze is still a sneeze.

And facts are still facts, that most people still need to pay their bills.

Severity of symptoms doesn’t really mean anything though. Generally DH and I have totally different reactions to different bugs - the things that leave me sofa-bound give him mild symptoms and vice versa.

I don't think it's us you need to be telling. Please tell my boss that I shouldn't come in to the office with a cold, and that we should also be paid for staying at home with a cold. Thanks