Money Moral Dilemma: Should you risk spreading the lurgy to colleagues?

elsien

If you really do have flu, you don't stand a hope in hell of getting out of bed to get to work anyway, however much you need the money.

P.A.T.

My employer, a local Further Education College, has suffered so much lost time due to illness (presumably from a mixture of considerate and lead swinging individuals) that it is thinking of stopping sickness pay after 3 absenses, no matter how short, in a rolling year! If you take time off to visit the doctor it would count as one such absense. If your doctor were to send you for tests (again requiring time off) that would be number 2. To see the doctor to find out the results during normal working hours would count as number 3!

It strikes me that our senior management team plan on turning the college into a hospital for the sick as its employees will not be able to afford to take time off resulting in all ailments being passed around the college such that it will be sick beds that are required in place of desks and chairs for both staff and students!

So, in answer to the question of "would I go in?" has to be a resounding "yes" because I cannot afford not to!

Pound

I've seen some employers make it very difficult for employees to have time off sick. The result is that some people will come in to work no matter how unwell they feel then the next week when they're back to normal three other people have a week off sick with similar symptoms.

brucie24

I work full time for what used to be called a 'blue chip company'. In the past if I was ill I would phone in sick (even though I loose shift pay) without question. Normally recovering fairly quickly and not 'spreading the lurg' to my collegues.

NOW however my company has an 'attendance policy' that means if I take more than two ocassions or however many days in any given time period I am put on a monitoring system. I have regular 'Improvement plans' and interviews. This is a tier based system and if you reach level 4 you're managed out of the business! Once on this monitoring ladder it's very difficult to get off because of it's design.

So now we have the vast majority of staff coming to work full of bugs and viruses they used to keep at home to themselves. We all suffer but at least our employer is happy with percieved attendance improvement figures:mad:

englishmac

If you are well enough to debate whether you should go to work or not, you are well enough to work. The number of people who go on the sick for a minor ailment (ie cold, not flu; feeling a bit off, not passing out, etc.) is shocking. I would go to work because I have a strong work ethic. The money would be a worry factor if I was too ill to attend work - but if I was that ill the decision would be made for me anyway.

I have 2 jobs. At one, there is a strict attendance/return to work interview culture. I'd have to be on my last legs before daring to take time off and if I was dying, I'd probably still be judged harshly. At my second job, the opposite applies. I am frowned upon for coming into work with the lurgy and passing it around. But that is partly because of a couple of individuals who can't wait for an excuse to take time off and partly a decent approach by the bosses who don't like to see their staff working when they are under the weather or even work long hours when they are well. Much as the bosses attitude is appreciated, I still think that if they don't get it from me, they'll just get it from someone else - noone is immune. That's assuming I didn't catch it there in the first place. There is also a strict sick pay element there as they have been taken advantage of in the past.

Miss_Liquorice

I'm in a very untrusting job, where phoning in sick means you have to have a meeting and discuss in vivid detail how ill you were, you are still expected to make your targets for days you're not working, and lose out on bonus etc. I'd go in, and if they didn't want to deal with me being ill & contageous, it's their decision to send me home. If they didn't want to deal with me being ill at work, they should have some sort of sick leave provision set up.

If you have the lurgy, you had to have got it from somewhere - what's to say you didn't get it from work? If you're well enough to debate going in, then I say go in.

Vital_Spark_2

Sadly, truth of the matter is that viruses and bacteria are at their most virile when incubating and that happens before the signs and symptoms appear. Therefore, the "cold" or "flu" has already been spread about before you even know you are unwell. The symptoms are a sign that you're body's reached a point of germ saturation, which threatens it, so it fights back.

The problem lies not in that we spread it around but in that our immune systems are so battered by our lifestyles, environments (working, home and social), and the chemical cures we pump into ourselves that we experience, for the growing majority, a weakness and inability to overcome these darned wee invaders.

Open office windows and switch down (at least,) the heating: wear another or warmer sweater instead of cooking in an stuffy office. Walk to and from work if possible or get off bus stop or two before and walk the rest. Eat health promoting food.

Companies take heed, that means getting back to reasonable lunch hours thus giving employees time to feed their bodies properly. Provide canteens producing fresh (not overcooked 'til all nutrients have left the veg), nutritious balanced meals.

I bet that, if a company did this, they would see a vast improvement in their staff attendance.

The body does not become hungry for a full stomach. Hunger is the body's way of requesting the nutrients it requires to perform it's life sustaining function. One such function is fighting infection/repair.

BY the time your symptoms show, you are merely further infecting those you've already infected: don't feel too bad about it.

Vital_Spark_2

Oh, and staying out of "cough reach" doesn't make much difference as mostly cold and flu bugs are passed by hand to hand via objects, even door handles.

Best getting yourself fit for the fight.

I type this as one who, in recent past, was hospitalised whenever she got a cold/flu which went into her chest and severe asthmatic attacks rendered her unable to argue with attending medical staff or with what treatment doctors were pumping into her.

I'd had enough so I took control. Those younger and fitter (Ha ha ha!) now fall around while, I catch their bugs, when I go to help out, but I am fine the day after symptoms appear and I no longer get knocked down by these colds/flus.

Have had no hospitalisation since I took control, have fought the bugs off without steroid "therapy" or pharmacuetical antibiotics and I rarely need my prescribed inhalers most of which I no longer use or require at all.

Anyone who wants more info on regaining "power to your immune system" can PM me.

I leave you to retire to bed while wishing you good health and sweet dreams.
:-)

tiggybear

Go in to work and say that you really need the money but just look at me - I'm full of cold, can't work too well and risk giving all my germs to others. A good manager with executive powers worth his/her salt would know you're not swinging the lead and would let you go home and make up the hours sometime else.
HOWEVER if you have a (God fordid, younger) 'line-manager, duty-manager,section-leader, team-leader, manager-of-the-day, team-head - or other such pompous meaningless (but-you-have-a-title-so-ergo-the-real-managers-must-think-you-wonderful) boss then struggle till lunchtime, go to TopShop, buy and dress up in some trash cross-gender outfit and return to work with a same-sex friend who's up for workers rights. When you get sent home scream and rant the Equality Act (Same sex) Regulations, go sick, get signed off with stress and the krma pixies will visit your bosses.
In short - if you're ill you shouldn't lose out. If you can't get the 'right and just result' by being honest then go for the right result any way you can.

Taffybiker

I haven't had a day off sick in six years or more. Fortunately, I don't suffer very much from colds and flu - a friend once mentioned it is probably because I am a biker and have thus acclimatized more to cold than non bikers. There may be some truth in this.
But I digress.
I would go to work unless I really, really couldn't. There are far too many people in this country who "throw a sickie" at the drop of a hat.
The only job I ever had where I would stay away under these circumstances was in the catering trade.