Pissed off at work...

[PearlHammer]

Work has been a nightmare all summer long working me into the fucking bone. There were weeks when I did t even get a day off. Also some crap excuses about short staffed and XYZ excuse and it's just been a piece of shit of a summer. Then work also had me studying too on top of this. If was lucky to get a day off, I had to study too.

I know COVID is wild now and it's everywhere. Many people complaining about have a 'flu' but it's not flue season.

There was an event in work at the weekend that I didn't go to. Now everyone in work is coming down with something and they are beginning to sound not too great. They sound like they have sore, dry throats and some coughs.

This is likely covid brewing. I am fuming how there is appropriate measures taken to minimise the spread of what this is. The sad is is, if I was to become ill, they would likely expect me to work still. If I get sick, I won't work. Simple as that. I really just don't like the sound of people hoarsness.

The event was on Saturday night. Today is Tuesday. Is this too quick of a time frame?

When I got ill last year with COVID, I think my exposure was likely on Sunday, I wasn't feeling well on the Tuesday and it was Wednesday when I was ill.

I am absolutely just furious because there has been nothing done to prevent the spread of what the fuck this dose is. And it's just passed on with no respect or manners. Just psychopaths making small of what they have and dismissing it as sinus or a cold.

It's a time warp...
Psychopaths really? Where are you that Covid, confirmed covid, is wild?!

<checks date>

They were at an event at Saturday night and now they are coming down with the start of an illness and it's no stretch of the imagination that this could likely be COVID. They don't care about passing it on. They mad enough attempt to tell me that they are ill, just expecting me to be still in work, they are not wearing masks or evening using manners for that matter coughing into the open.

I had COVID last year and I got very ill with it?

What pass around sickness with no regard for anyone else?

I agree with you. It's ironic that there is so much dismay over conspiracy theories and whether the coronavirus was manufactured by China when our own government is concealing the truth of covid still circulating.

I was looking for numbers and I found this:

In March 2023, an estimated 1.9 million people in the UK reported that they were experiencing long covid, representing 2.9% of the population. Of these, 1.3 million had symptoms that had lasted for more than a year and 762,000 had symptoms lasting for more than two years. Fatigue was the most common symptom (reported by 72% of those with long covid), followed by difficulty concentrating (51%), muscle ache (49%) and shortness of breath (48%).
Some groups of people are more affected than others. In this survey, the prevalence of long covid was higher for those with pre-existing health conditions than those without them. Long covid prevalence increased with age and level of socioeconomic deprivation and was slightly higher for women than men.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9112/

And this https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-08-01-new-study-highlights-scale-and-impact-long-covid

My oldest daughter has Long Covid. It's taken her several years to get a diagnosis and there is little attempt to offer treatment. It's one of the many despicable things about the UK now.

It’s an inconvenient truth that covid can cause a lot of harm. Agree that it’s downplayed so much - I find it especially sickening how we do absolutely nothing to reduce the risks to children.

I am so sorry to read about your daughter.

I am so sick of people minimising sickness and not even considering the possibilty of a covid infection unless a test tells them while they pass on whatever sickness that they have.

I think it's crazy. We went from 2020 where the majority of people ran from this virus and also tried to do the right thing in order not to pass it onto vulnerable people to people not giving a flying fuck about what they may have who they may infect. Covid is still causing sickness despite vaccines.

I just hate how people are minimising this as of it's nothing and it's their right to pass it on.

I think there should be protections in place in workplaces and in schools.

I also think governments need to act too. Covid is not a normal infection. It's still so scary in that it causes a huge range of symptoms is so many people from nothing to sickness or long covid.

I think there is a new generation of vaccines in development. It's nasal vaccines I think and it's supposed to offer more sterilising immunity against covid. Governments need to back this and roll it out quickly.

I know, it's so bad, isn't it? Children will be affected time and time and time and time again and especially they are still growing. Covid is still relatively new within the past 5 years. Nobody really knows what the long term affects are yet.

Something I find scary is that if you were to read a hiv forum and read about people's experiences about getting infected with hiv, the process of infection in the body is called seroconversion and it causes different symptoms in everyone. Some people have no symptoms, while others have cold like symptoms and other people have full blown flus with sickness for weeks.
Covid reminds me a lot like this.

I just think, it's not right to be so sick all the time. There's no real immunity from covid either. In that you can get it and get it again and again and again and no body knows how you are going to get it. Some people have it mild while others are so sick with it.

I am just so so so sick of the pure and utter callousness of people minimising sickness and passing on their dose.

There is plenty of COVID here in my part of the west country.

And nobody gives a fucking shite about anyone else. The goal for many people is just to pass it on and make other people sick.

I was in a position yesterday where I entered init another person's home for my work. I work within a home and the minute I heard the man that is over the house, he was full of hoarsness and cough. I knew he was out at the weekend so that was likely an exposure for him and all he did was minimise his dose. All he had to do was just fucking text me and let me know that he wasn't feeling the best and to bring a mask. That's all. He couldn't even afford me that much. A complete and utter disrespect and disregard for me and for my own work and family.

I remember seeing something online about this summer's covid and razor blade throat and of course this if fucking COVID from him but it's just minimised. He stayed away a lot today thank goodness but still, there is still a risk of being exposed to whatever he has.

He could have made an effort yesterday to notify me to bring a mask and to isolate himself. That's all.

Half my workplace are out with COVID right now, it's rife. However, unfortunately, it's something we need to love alongside now.

Dp works for the NHS they don't get time off for COVID unless they are too ill to work and need to take sick leave otherwise they are expected to be at work, he works in a clean/sterile environment too. If they have too much sick then they are monitored so it's not worth it.

Ds has cold symptoms this week, he had one day off when he was feeling lousy but he's going to school the rest of the week. I'm not keeping him home any longer as it's his exam year and I don't want him missing too much when he probably caught it from school in the first place.

However if we're ill we still stay away from vulnerable relatives. Dp is immunocompromised due to medication for an an auto immune condition so I'm not naive to the consequences, but we can't keep people at home if the support isn't in place from workplaces, schools and government for that to happen.

Why does living with something mean deliberately spreading it - especially in healthcare? It is frankly absolutely disgusting that it’s deliberately spread in healthcare. We don’t say that about norovirus or anything else we live alongside. Also, how do people know who is vulnerable? There are over 3m with long covid already.

My workplace told us ages ago that we expected to work with Covid unless we are too unwell. It is rightly treated the same as any other illness where if you are well enough to go to work, you go to work.

Id assume that anyone who was still worried would have their own mask available to them just in case they felt they needed it. It honestly wouldn’t occur to me to text colleagues with a covid warning if I had a bit of a sore throat and sniffle.

We were locked up and our lives were messed up for bloody months because of Covid. Most of us are done with it. Who are you to say that other people are minimising their own illness? It is up to them, not you, to say how they feel.

But what are those low paid employees supposed to do? If you can't afford to take anymore time off and hit sickness triggers then you've no choice but to go to work. Unless the 'powers that be' tell people to stay at home and stop penalising for time off, then life goes on. I'm not saying it's right but that's how it is, we can't risk our jobs over it.

To he difference with noro is you physically can't work work with it. For most people COVID is feeling slightly lousy for a few days.

What does too unwell mean? What is their definition of too unwell? Is it a written policy within your workplace because I would be looking for clarification from an employment solicitor. Did your work place draw in any healthcare professionals or policy maker to help them define unwell?

What exactly do they mean by unwell?

Are people expected to go to work with fevers and headaches and the dagger sore throats that's supposed to be common with today's varient? How about diarrhoea and or vomiting? Did they put a timeline on D&V?

Slightly off tangent, but has anyone tried Your Gut Plus supplements for long covid? I tried them after a recommendation at a long covid clinic and within 2 months, my long covid had gone. The NHS clinic o used did start recommending them but not sure how prevalent that is. I would say my long covid was moderate to severe. I hope anyone who ha suit can recover. X

There are different levels of sickness and to be quiet honest extorting staff to work while unwell is negligence of the highest order.

If I had anything going wrong in the NHS I would be going down the route of compo and perhaps an enquiry to establish if staff were even fit for work.

When I had covid last year, my fevers were nearly 39 and they weren't responding to paracetamol or ibuprofen. Covid is far from a walk in the park.

There is so much related to gut health.

I was ill 2 weeks ago and went to the doctor's after 5 days. It was Covid. Slowly I stopped coughing, sore throat got better head and bodyache disappeared, no fever. Then fever came back. Only btw 37°8-38 but I'm just so tired all the time. No Covid anymore but how long will this fever last??

I suppose they treat us like adults and allow us to make our own individual choices over whether or not we feel well enough to be at work. Personally I wouldn’t be going to work with a throat so sore that swallowing was difficult or with the ill feeling that comes with a temperature, because I would not be able to do my job properly. I would be able to do my job fine with a mild headache and sore throat that can be easily masked with paracetamol. Someone else’s threshold might be different based on how physical their job is, how many hours they have to work that day etc.

Like I said, many of us had enough of being dictated to over Covid, so I am happy to go back to being able to make my own choices and to let others do the same.

You didn’t answer the question of what you expect low paid employees to do.

What do you expect people to do when they feel capable of working and genuinely can’t afford to lose money through taking sick leave?

You seem very passionate about wanting compo and an enquiry out of the NHS. Maybe you could channel that into campaigning for the government to pay full wages for anyone who thinks they might have Covid and wants to have a few days on the sofa for the sake of social responsibility?

I take your point. It is unfair that many low paid workers simply can’t afford to stay off sick, and I absolutely agree that the lack of proper sick pay is a major driver of why infections keep spreading.
But to be clear, the situation I was describing wasn’t low‑paid staff forced into an impossible choice; it was people who are financially secure, who do have the option to take time off and isolate, yet still dismiss their illness and carry on as though it doesn’t matter who they pass it on to. That’s a very different scenario.
In both cases, though, the root problem is a culture that normalises turning up sick. For some it’s systemic because sick pay is inadequate; and for others it’s attitude - minimising their illness. Both need tackling: better protections for those who can’t afford time off, and greater personal responsibility from those who can but won’t.
So I suppose my answer is that I expect governments and employers to make it possible for low‑paid staff to actually stay home without financial penalty but I also expect individuals who do have that choice not to ignore the impact on others.

We are expected to work unless we are too unwell to be at work - I’m not sure what you want people to do really. The several times I had Covid I was coughing for weeks or months. When I had long covid last year I was off work for several months as I was very unwell and in and out of hospital so I understand the difference. We can’t tell people to stay off work for weeks if they have low symptoms or just a sporadic cough - for lots of versions and lots of people it’s no more dramatic than a cold so they can certainly be at work with either.

I understand what you’re saying about not wanting to be dictated to and using your own judgement.

The difficulty for me is that whether someone ‘feels well enough to work’ isn’t the same as whether they’re likely to pass on an infection. Covid and other respiratory illnesses can be transmitted even when symptoms are mild or masked with paracetamol, and the people affected might not have the luxury of simply shaking it off — especially in healthcare, caring roles, or where vulnerable colleagues and clients are involved.
So while I respect the idea of individual choice, I wonder where the line falls between personal comfort and responsibility to others? If one person’s choice not to stay home has the effect of five colleagues ending up ill, is that still just an individual decision?”