A new
study by the American Red Cross might may you think twice before shaking hands with your coworkers. Among respondents, one in every five households had a family member who has gone in to work sick over the past two months. Additionally, only 20 percent of those surveyed said they had talked to their boss about what sick time is available.
Of course, all of this is super relevant given the current H1N1 (swine flu) scare. The Red Cross advocates covering you cough, keeping a clean house and workplace, using hand sanitizer, and avoiding contact with your eyes, nose, and mouth. And The New York Times published an
article recently about all the ways workplaces are cracking down on cleanliness, like requiring employees to only bring in individually wrapped snacks. But even with these precautions, I think most workers would agree that they'd prefer their sick colleagues to stay at home.
In a way it's a no brainer: You're sick, you don't want to get coworkers or customers sick, so you should stay home. But often it's not so cut and dry.
I was a camp counselor over the summer, and we had a brief swine flu flare-up around early July, which caused several kids and counselors to stay home sick. I got a pretty bad cold about a week after the flu business was over, but I was reluctant to stay home because:
- I didn't want to be a baby. I mean, it was just a cold.
- I'd already used my sick day, which meant I'd be sacrificing a day of paid time. And there were only forty days of camp all summer!
Anyway, when I woke up sick for the second day in a row, I decide to stay home. But when I came back the next Monday, two of my campers were out—I'd made them sick! I felt so guilty, both for the kids and their parents, who'd had to stay home from
their jobs to take care of them.
So I guess the moral of the story is, swine flu or not, it's always better to stay home. Especially if you're working a job with a lot of close contact, be it with customers or coworkers, or kids.
What's your policy on staying home from work? Are you afraid of catching H1N1 at your job?
Comments (4)
i don`t work , but i`m in hs and i`m TERRIFIEDDDDD of catching swine flu . like i keep two bottles on hand sanitizer in my purse and i use it every five minutes (and i`m not exaggerating , i`m dead serious) . so yes , everytime i wanna touch my face or something , i use it . i`m SO paranoid about it :\
I've been out of work a week with a kid with a low grade fever and body aches. Kid #2 came home with a high fever friday. I've had body aches and ickiness all week too. I would have worked through it, but I'm sure not sending my kids to school with even a little bit of sickness. Sure hope I still have a job by the time everyone is well. I missed a week of work early this month with a bad job injury so I'm not really holding my breath.....
@kpsmom3@xanga - I'm sorry to hear that, but at least you've got your priorities in order -- family always comes first.
Staying home is a great policy when you're sick, but at the same time a lot of people can't afford it. Not everyone has sick days, depending on where you work. And some jobs don't pay you for being out sick, although they allot you a specific amount of days you can be sick without worrying about getting fired.
When I was a kid, my mom couldn't afford to stay home with me when I was sick. Or to stay home when she was sick. She wanted to, but if she lost too much pay or lost her job, we'd have been in real financial trouble. And with the economy the way it is now, I'm sure that a lot more families are having this exact same problem. Staying home would be preferable, but you kind of have to look out for number one these days, otherwise you could find yourself in a lot of trouble. I've read many times that a lot more families than we think are just one paycheck away from homelessness. :/