Got a bad cold? DON'T GO INTO WORK YOU SELFISH ****

OP, Your liable to catch a cold/infection from anywhere..

Is your post really a "At the first sign of sickness contain yourself in a sterile room and don't venture forth until signed off all clear from a quality Doctor" ?

I hope your attitude isn't contagious or everyone who has read this thread is now contaminated and in for a bad time.. Epidemic :(
 
Go into work and make a massive deal about it saying how busy you are and what deadlines you have to meet otherwise the world will collapse.

Always ingratiates one to your fellow employees
 
OP, just do what I did and have 2 parents that have the immune systems of a horse and then you never have to worry about getting ill :)
 
Not everyone can afford to have time off work as most companys dont pay full rate when your sick..a month or so back there was an outbreak of Flu at our work,Lady worker come in with it..and that was it 3 or 4 of us got it..i got it and had 4 days off but i couldnt really have any longer off.
 
Lazder said:
Bottom line is, everyone falls ill and still goes to work same amount of work gets done... Those who dont come, are not good enough and should be made redundant.
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Your predicate is wrong and your conclusion is therefore wrong (and doesn't follow from the predicate anyway).

In other words, you're talking rubbish.

People who are ill don't get the same quantity and quality of work done. Illness also makes a workplace more unpleasant, which has some adverse effect on work, but that's harder to quantify.

Say, for example, someone comes into work with a highly infectious disease. It's not a particularly bad disease (e.g. a cold), but it reduces their effectiveness. In some jobs it would reduce it quite a bit, in other jobs less so. They'll be a bit slower physically and a bit slower mentally and a bit distracted by the sneezing and the mucous dripping out of their nose and the discomfort. It's far from crippling, but it has some effect. They'll have to spend some time dealing with the symptoms - not much time in any one go, but little bits of time quite frequently. Overall, in terms of quantity and quality of work, maybe they're at about 80% of normal.

So if they come in, their employer gets 80% of normal work for their wages. Which is obviously better for the employer than paying them in full to stay home and therefore getting no work for their wages...but while at work they infect 2 other people, who in turn infect 5 other people and now the employer has 8 people working at 80%, a loss of 160% of the work of one person, i.e. more of a loss than the original 1 person staying at home on full sick pay.

In short, it's not obvious and clear-cut which course of action is a smaller cost to the employer.

I'd say that a cold is probably not enough illness to justify time off sick, but I wouldn't completely rule out the possibility that it might be a lesser cost for the employer and it's better for other employees.
 
A relevant tip - if you're coughing or sneezing, consider using your inner elbow to block it instead of your hands. It's more solid than the gaps between your fingers and you don't end up with spit and snot and germs all over your hands, ready to smear onto whatever you touch afterwards.
 
I work in retail, and if you phone up with a cold, they tell you to take some cold medicine and GET TO WORK.
 
D.P. said:
You also spread illness if you take a dump I someone's face but civilizedele don't do that and cover their mouth and once when coughing and sneezing, wash their hands and don't shake hands with people when they know they are sick. That way there no significant risk of infection when you have a cold and is why most work places expect you to turn up to work with a cold.
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Which is pretty much nothing like what you said originally (aside from it being largely nothing to do with the common cold) and basically an attempt at paraphrasing what I have said from the link provided.....:)

The truth is that Colds are primarily spread through nasal excretions, either sneezing or coughing...whether into the air or transferred into surfaces is beside the point...you said, and I quote: "It is also a big myth that sneezing and coughing is some how spreading diseases. Many of your common colds are only spread through physical touch and ingestion"..which is, as someone else said...just plain wrong....the cold virus is primarily spread through the contagious person coughing or sneezing into the air and then either direct infection to a third party or indirect infection through infecting a surface or by physical contact.

Washing your hands etc helps mitigate the spread of the common cold, but to say there is therefore no significant risk of infection is overstating the effectiveness of such precautions...most workplaces simply expect you to work because the symptoms of a common cold are not debilitating or serious enough to take time off for, regardless of infection rates.
 
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Angilion said:
Your predicate is wrong and your conclusion is therefore wrong (and doesn't follow from the predicate anyway).

In other words, you're talking rubbish.

People who are ill don't get the same quantity and quality of work done. Illness also makes a workplace more unpleasant, which has some adverse effect on work, but that's harder to quantify.

Say, for example, someone comes into work with a highly infectious disease. It's not a particularly bad disease (e.g. a cold), but it reduces their effectiveness. In some jobs it would reduce it quite a bit, in other jobs less so. They'll be a bit slower physically and a bit slower mentally and a bit distracted by the sneezing and the mucous dripping out of their nose and the discomfort. It's far from crippling, but it has some effect. They'll have to spend some time dealing with the symptoms - not much time in any one go, but little bits of time quite frequently. Overall, in terms of quantity and quality of work, maybe they're at about 80% of normal.

So if they come in, their employer gets 80% of normal work for their wages. Which is obviously better for the employer than paying them in full to stay home and therefore getting no work for their wages...but while at work they infect 2 other people, who in turn infect 5 other people and now the employer has 8 people working at 80%, a loss of 160% of the work of one person, i.e. more of a loss than the original 1 person staying at home on full sick pay.

In short, it's not obvious and clear-cut which course of action is a smaller cost to the employer.

I'd say that a cold is probably not enough illness to justify time off sick, but I wouldn't completely rule out the possibility that it might be a lesser cost for the employer and it's better for other employees.
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What he said. And in lots of jobs these days the one ill person could work from home on the VPN and get their 80% done without infecting anyone else.
 
The only time I dont go in to work, is if I am vomitting, or have the ****s, or full on flu

A cold is nothing and is usually frowned upon taking days off because of this.
 
DJMK4 said:
The only time I dont go in to work, is if I am vomitting, or have the ****s, or full on flu

A cold is nothing and is usually frowned upon taking days off because of this.
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Exactly this. MTFU.

The number of people at work who have time off for 'flu' which in reality was the sniffles.
 
The only Flu or cold like bug to incapacitate me so far was the nurovirus and that is an acceptable excuse for me all other flu is man up and carry on it's only a cough, Headache(can be dealt with paracetamol) and drowsiness after all not like the NV spewing out of both ends simultaneously for a day or 2.
 
We are encouraged to stay at home when we have an illness which can be passed around, while at the same get grief when we have time off sick.

Impossible to win at my place of work.

Personally, migraine is the only one which stops me working - flu/cold/leg-day etc I'll just work from home.
 
So, a question to the OP.

I've just spent a weekend at home with my poorly toddler, who has wiped his nose all over me and spent most of the day curled up on me (or my partner) sneezing and coughing etc.

Now obviously I've had a shower, have clean clothes on etc. but chances are I'm infectious.

Based on your argument, should I stay at home "sick" for the next 3-4 days, despite the fact I feel perfectly fine, and in fact may not actually display any symptoms whatsoever?
 
I'm sick. I'm in work. Take that! Everyone else will be sick soon, but it's Monday, so they'll be fine by the weekend. I'm doing them a favour by immunising them in time for their weekend frivolity.
 
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