Tested positive for Covid debating how to handle disclosure at work (1 Viewer)

[Terminalxylem]

What is the upside to making them aware?

i guess common courtesy, but a lot of people are going to be visiting family this week, possibly elderly parents, etc. if someone is at risk I don't want to be indirectly responsible for their illness/death.

Common courtesy? Common courtesy would have been to take a covid test when you felt a tiny bit sick before possibly exposing all of those people to covid. In any case, at this point I’d probably send an email to your manager and cc it to HR as others have mentioned.

i don't think most people would've done that in today's environment.

Hard to say. I think there are a lot of people that learned after the pandemic that if you don’t feel well—take a home test or just don’t put yourself around masses of people. Even if you gave people a cold right before Thanksgiving—that‘s still not cool. For example A couple months ago-I thought I had a cold the night before I was scheduled to work the next morning. Took a covid test and tested positive. Immediately contacted my boss and was instructed to not come to the office the next five days.

This. If you're sick, just stay home. I don't care if you have covid, a cold, or ebola. Stay home.

Reasonable stance. But old habits die hard, and it’s pretty ingrained for many to work while sick. For example, I‘ve had a coworker admit patients to the hospital while receiving IV fluids.

And the work environment matters. Just last week, at a meeting for 100+ healthcare providers, a physician asked what constituted “being sick”. This occurred in a backdrop of staffing shortages, after a couple people called in for undisclosed health reasons.

 

[Terminalxylem]

Until you allow me to WFH if I'm sick I will continue to come in not feeling well..... I'm not burning my days if I am slightly under the weather.... Sorry you can blame employers for not allowing this to happen. YMMV

One reason I hate the move to "PTO" (vacation + sick days) is because it encourages exactly this behavior. To be clear, I don't blame @belljr or anyone else who comes in a little under the weather. It's a totally rational response to a dumb policy. And that's not even counting the hourly workers who, if they don't show up to work for any reason, don't get paid at all.

I also think that, in most white-collar jobs, there should be no such thing as sick days. If you're sick, either WFH or take the day off

Why the distinction for white-collar workers? My job has sick days, and we’re campaigning to regain PTO, which was taken away years ago.

 

[Mitchie]

Until you allow me to WFH if I'm sick I will continue to come in not feeling well..... I'm not burning my days if I am slightly under the weather.... Sorry you can blame employers for not allowing this to happen. YMMV

One reason I hate the move to "PTO" (vacation + sick days) is because it encourages exactly this behavior. To be clear, I don't blame @belljr or anyone else who comes in a little under the weather. It's a totally rational response to a dumb policy. And that's not even counting the hourly workers who, if they don't show up to work for any reason, don't get paid at all.

I also think that, in most white-collar jobs, there should be no such thing as sick days. If you're sick, either WFH or take the day off

Why the distinction for white-collar workers? My job has sick days, and we’re campaigning to regain PTO, which was taken away years ago.

think the distinction is most white collar jobs can be done similarly at home vs. office where most blue collar jobs cannot. Maybe if you're sick will be harder to get things done but should be able to get through the day more or less, unless gravely ill in which case then take the day off.

 

[ignatiusjreilly]

Until you allow me to WFH if I'm sick I will continue to come in not feeling well..... I'm not burning my days if I am slightly under the weather.... Sorry you can blame employers for not allowing this to happen. YMMV

One reason I hate the move to "PTO" (vacation + sick days) is because it encourages exactly this behavior. To be clear, I don't blame @belljr or anyone else who comes in a little under the weather. It's a totally rational response to a dumb policy. And that's not even counting the hourly workers who, if they don't show up to work for any reason, don't get paid at all.

I also think that, in most white-collar jobs, there should be no such thing as sick days. If you're sick, either WFH or take the day off

Why the distinction for white-collar workers? My job has sick days, and we’re campaigning to regain PTO, which was taken away years ago.

think the distinction is most white collar jobs can be done similarly at home vs. office where most blue collar jobs cannot. Maybe if you're sick will be harder to get things done but should be able to get through the day more or less, unless gravely ill in which case then take the day off.

Right, I was using short-hand. I don't know if it totally maps to blue vs white collar, but if you can do your job at home, the norm should be that if you're slightly under the weather and/or contagious, stay home.

But @Terminalxylem does have a point that, ideally, all employees should be able to take off sick whenever they're unable to work. Obviously, that's not going to work in every situation -- I would imagine that the owner of a fast food franchise employing minimum-wage teens is not going to trust them to take an unlimited number of sick days -- but the general principle that people shouldn't have to work, and shouldn't be punished, when they are ill holds true

 

[FatMax]

And that's not even counting the hourly workers who, if they don't show up to work for any reason, don't get paid at all.

You don't think that hourly workers have PTO and/or sick pay?

 

[FatMax]

I would imagine that the owner of a fast food franchise employing minimum-wage teens is not going to trust them to take an unlimited number of sick days

This is the exact reason for the PTO shift. People would absolutely take advantage of it. More that you think

 

[jvdesigns2002]

And that's not even counting the hourly workers who, if they don't show up to work for any reason, don't get paid at all.

You don't think that hourly workers have PTO and/or sick pay?

A lot of hourly workers do not get paid time off or vacation days. Many employers will hire 25-30 hour a week workers so that they don’t have to pay full time benefits and don’t have to give a lot of the “perks” that come with working full time. I know that in the state of California—there is some sort of law that does grant most workers 3 paid sick days a year.

 

[acarey50]

And that's not even counting the hourly workers who, if they don't show up to work for any reason, don't get paid at all.

You don't think that hourly workers have PTO and/or sick pay?

A lot of hourly workers do not get paid time off or vacation days. Many employers will hire 25-30 hour a week workers so that they don’t have to pay full time benefits and don’t have to give a lot of the “perks” that come with working full time. I know that in the state of California—there is some sort of law that does grant most workers 3 paid sick days a year.

Yes, California has a pool of 3 sick days per year for employees. In the event that I need to use sick days, I code the time for the CA sick time first as it resets each year. If for some reason I use more than 3 sick days in a year, then I'll code the time for normal sick time which accrues through the company and is separate from the CA Sick Days.

 

[Psychopav]

Had a similar situation a few months ago. Was in the office on a day when the senior leadership team was visiting for a day or two, so there were lots of others visiting that day as well for some face time. We had a 2 hour business review scheduled with the SLT that afternoon. So that morning I came in, saw a bunch of people I hadn't seen in quite some time. There were hugs, handshakes, etc.

About an hour before the meeting, my wife informs me that our kid had just tested positive for Covid (I didn't even realize she wasn't feeling well lol). So I looked up the CDC guidelines and got an N95 mask from our office manager. Put it on, talked to the boss's boss and said I think I should attend the meeting remotely from my office. He agreed. I then walked around masked up, and gave everyone I had come into contact with the information. Spent the rest of the day in my office with the door closed, and skipped the dinner that night. Quarantined at home for the next few days, and WFH. NBD. I never experienced any symptoms - I'm a COVID killing machine imo. A machine!

For those saying Covid isn't a big deal any more, we saw a surge this summer and while most people are vax'd (with boosters even), there are still immuno-compromised people who can be significantly at risk. Covid mortality is real, and like someone said upthread it's more about protecting others than it is about protecting myself. I took care of/am taking care of that with the vaccines.

I'm in group insurance underwriting, and we regularly see flu mortality spikes. It happens every winter, and some years it's particularly bad. Covid mortality absolutely dwarfed the flu. It's the real deal and while I'm not saying we should shut down society again, we are reckless if we don't take it seriously enough to follow CDC guidelines when we've been exposed.

 

[Grahamburn]

What is the upside to making them aware?

i guess common courtesy, but a lot of people are going to be visiting family this week, possibly elderly parents, etc. if someone is at risk I don't want to be indirectly responsible for their illness/death.

Common courtesy? Common courtesy would have been to take a covid test when you felt a tiny bit sick before possibly exposing all of those people to covid. In any case, at this point I’d probably send an email to your manager and cc it to HR as others have mentioned.

i don't think most people would've done that in today's environment.

Hard to say. I think there are a lot of people that learned after the pandemic that if you don’t feel well—take a home test or just don’t put yourself around masses of people. Even if you gave people a cold right before Thanksgiving—that‘s still not cool. For example A couple months ago-I thought I had a cold the night before I was scheduled to work the next morning. Took a covid test and tested positive. Immediately contacted my boss and was instructed to not come to the office the next five days.

Well played.

 

[jvdesigns2002]

What is the upside to making them aware?

i guess common courtesy, but a lot of people are going to be visiting family this week, possibly elderly parents, etc. if someone is at risk I don't want to be indirectly responsible for their illness/death.

Common courtesy? Common courtesy would have been to take a covid test when you felt a tiny bit sick before possibly exposing all of those people to covid. In any case, at this point I’d probably send an email to your manager and cc it to HR as others have mentioned.

i don't think most people would've done that in today's environment.

Hard to say. I think there are a lot of people that learned after the pandemic that if you don’t feel well—take a home test or just don’t put yourself around masses of people. Even if you gave people a cold right before Thanksgiving—that‘s still not cool. For example A couple months ago-I thought I had a cold the night before I was scheduled to work the next morning. Took a covid test and tested positive. Immediately contacted my boss and was instructed to not come to the office the next five days.

Well played.

Not really. Covid ended up kicking my butt for the next 2-3 days. Completely lost my sense of smell and almost completely lost my sense of taste. My sense of taste is probably 75% restored months later, and my sense of smell is maybe at 40-50%. I’m grateful that my bout with it wasn’t worse—but it certainly wasn’t a walk in the park either.

 

[acarey50]

What is the upside to making them aware?

i guess common courtesy, but a lot of people are going to be visiting family this week, possibly elderly parents, etc. if someone is at risk I don't want to be indirectly responsible for their illness/death.

Common courtesy? Common courtesy would have been to take a covid test when you felt a tiny bit sick before possibly exposing all of those people to covid. In any case, at this point I’d probably send an email to your manager and cc it to HR as others have mentioned.

i don't think most people would've done that in today's environment.

Hard to say. I think there are a lot of people that learned after the pandemic that if you don’t feel well—take a home test or just don’t put yourself around masses of people. Even if you gave people a cold right before Thanksgiving—that‘s still not cool. For example A couple months ago-I thought I had a cold the night before I was scheduled to work the next morning. Took a covid test and tested positive. Immediately contacted my boss and was instructed to not come to the office the next five days.

Well played.

Not really. Covid ended up kicking my butt for the next 2-3 days. Completely lost my sense of smell and almost completely lost my sense of taste. My sense of taste is probably 75% restored months later, and my sense of smell is maybe at 40-50%. I’m grateful that my bout with it wasn’t worse—but it certainly wasn’t a walk in the park either.

This was my wife's experience with Covid when she had it about a year and a half ago, though since she chose to marry me, many have argued that she may never have had any real sense of taste.

 

[Manster]

As someone who has had to work around people for most of COVID, I can tell you that things have changed so much that it's been hard to keep up with. The way the entities I deal with (work, kids schools) are approaching it is like any cold/flu type stuff......as recent as this fall our kids school was giving out the wrong information on how to handle positive COVID......they were saying 5 day quarantine, when in reality, it's basically no fever for 24 hours.

Bottom line, your bosses job is to know how to handle these situations

 

[Mitchie]

As someone who has had to work around people for most of COVID, I can tell you that things have changed so much that it's been hard to keep up with. The way the entities I deal with (work, kids schools) are approaching it is like any cold/flu type stuff......as recent as this fall our kids school was giving out the wrong information on how to handle positive COVID......they were saying 5 day quarantine, when in reality, it's basically no fever for 24 hours.

Bottom line, your bosses job is to know how to handle these situations

CDC guidelines are 5 days isolation if symptons improving. If symptons not improving at 5 days, then isolate until no fever for 24 hours.

 

[Scoresman]

I always thought the CDC guidelines were a bit suspect because it was thought they were established to get people back to work ASAP and a bunch of doctors didn't agree with it.

I go by the COVID tests. If you still have symptoms and there is still a line, I assume you are contagious, bottom line. As the line gets fainter, and symptoms start to recede, you become less contagious.

 

[nirad3]

What is the upside to making them aware?

i guess common courtesy, but a lot of people are going to be visiting family this week, possibly elderly parents, etc. if someone is at risk I don't want to be indirectly responsible for their illness/death.

Common courtesy? Common courtesy would have been to take a covid test when you felt a tiny bit sick before possibly exposing all of those people to covid. In any case, at this point I’d probably send an email to your manager and cc it to HR as others have mentioned.

i don't think most people would've done that in today's environment.

Hard to say. I think there are a lot of people that learned after the pandemic that if you don’t feel well—take a home test or just don’t put yourself around masses of people. Even if you gave people a cold right before Thanksgiving—that‘s still not cool. For example A couple months ago-I thought I had a cold the night before I was scheduled to work the next morning. Took a covid test and tested positive. Immediately contacted my boss and was instructed to not come to the office the next five days.

Well played.

Not really. Covid ended up kicking my butt for the next 2-3 days. Completely lost my sense of smell and almost completely lost my sense of taste. My sense of taste is probably 75% restored months later, and my sense of smell is maybe at 40-50%. I’m grateful that my bout with it wasn’t worse—but it certainly wasn’t a walk in the park either.

This was my wife's experience with Covid when she had it about a year and a half ago, though since she chose to marry me, many have argued that she may never have had any real sense of taste.

I can corroborate.