ethics of coming to work when you know you are very contagious
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Anonymous
How long are you contagious when you have the flu? I had the flu, took Tamiflu, had no fever for 2 days and came to work. This was 2 weeks ago and no one in my 20+ person office is sick. |
Anonymous
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If I stayed home everytime I could some cold or bug
I caught on metro or from my kids, I'd never be at work. I agree some sicknesses should keep you at home, but some of us don't have much PTO to use for sick time... |
Anonymous
Well, yeah, nobody is asking you to stay home with every cold or bug. But, if you have viral conjunctivitis with uncontrollable eye oozing, stay home. Likewise, if you have a high fever. |
Anonymous
| I would just not touch my face, and disinfect my hands every time I use common thing (printer, fax) before I go back to my desk. |
Anonymous
ITA. I'd see about snagging some disposable gloves from janitorial and make a big show of disinfecting anything he touched that I had to come in contact with. I understand being pressured to come into work when you're sick. I've had many jobs like that, and I always feel guilty taking sick days. But when you've got a virulently contagious disease like pink eye, or you're just starting to come down with the flu and you're a fucking dentist or otherwise dealing with public health, that's disgusting. Stay home. If you think you're supervisor is going to give you flak, go see a doctor, get a note, and do as much work as you can from home. |
Anonymous
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A cold is one thing, but the flu? Pink eye? The damage done to your organization from getting everybody else sick is far worse than the couple of sick days you take for your own illness until you're not contagious.
I wish organizations would come up with sick policies just like daycares. You've had a fever in the last 24 hours? Stay home! |
Anonymous
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HR here. I agree that I would talk to HR.
HR can't force him to go home, but should speak to his supervisor. The supervisor should tell him to go home, work from home or take sick leave. |
Anonymous
+1. Bosses want the work to get done, you can't exactly tell clients your employees being sick is the reason that project hasn't been completed yet. |
Anonymous
This is OP here. I'm hearing a lot of support / sympathy in statements like this. Without going into to much detail and giving away exactly who we are, I just have to say that this is not that kind of situation. We have extreme flexibility here, he's at the top level, (same level as me) and I can tell you that we have a ton of autonomy and no boss is pressuring him. Similarly, none of us are that critical that we can't be off for a day or three as needed. And there is nothing major going on right now; we just came off a project and have more downtime than usual, if anything. Anyway, I know why he came in and without going into any detail, it's an ego thing. A big photo op thing with some high level govt. people (who he probably gave pinkeye to, shaking all their hands). Anyway, if he is out for a few days, life will go on. But if 15 people in our office have to take time off because of his careless hygiene and insistence on coming in, that is going to be a problem for us. Fortunately, my employees are generally seated away from him and we're out of the office more than his team. But as for his team, they are screwed. The entire office is buzzing about this - apparently he has all of his employees in his office around his phone for a conference call instead of letting them call from their desks - because he likes everyone in the same room. (we have unlimited lines on our conf. call service). So you get the idea here. It's not just that he's in the office because he has mouths to feed (no kids at home) or because he is pressured by a boss or has make-or-break duties. He's just there because he does not give a shit if he gets others sick, to the degree that he's forcing people to do conf calls from his office just because I guess. As an update, his assistant called off today and told HR specifically she was not coming in because of her concern about his spreading pinkeye. No idea what / if anything the outcome will be there. |
Anonymous
| The other thing here is that (OP again) he WILL be the type of boss who will expect all of his employees to come in if they get pink eye. So now there will be that element going on, as well. Which I think is why this does need to be addressed even though it's clearly too late for HIM not to be spreading the pink eye. Sure the damage is done there. But I hope his employees aren't sitting there with no choice to call off. At least I cannot imagine any decent person being so careless about spreading it. |
Anonymous
| at my company, someone in that situation would be sent home from work and told to bring a dr's note saying he is no longer contagious before returning... |
Anonymous
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"How long are you contagious when you have the flu? I had the flu, took Tamiflu, had no fever for 2 days and came to work. This was 2 weeks ago and no one in my 20+ person office is sick. "
1) everyone cannot get tamiflu -- if u dont' get it within 48 hours - FORGET IT! 2) my husband had the flu for over a week...doctor ended up x-raying him to be sure he did not have pneumonia... 3) you had a mild case -- lucky you 4) people are dropping like flies from the flu -- YOU DO NOT WANT TO SPREAD IT... |