Comment by TeMPOraL
13 hours ago
> Lots of people go overboard with this, though, like taking flu reduction medicine with every single cold or using medication to go to work sick. American media seems especially accepting of people taking "flu medicine" over rest and recovery.
This is not specific to America; it's a thing in the entire Western world, and probably beyond. Because it's not like we have any other choice.
There is no slack in the system. Most people can't afford to have more than a few sick days in a year, and they prefer to save those up for when painkillers and cough medicine don't cut it anymore. Same with children, because a sick child staying home is usually equivalent to the parent taking a sick day themselves - either way, they're not at work.
We can talk about media or people going overboard once it becomes acceptable to skip work for a week because of sick kid, or in order to not get everyone in the office sick too.
>Most people can't afford to have more than a few sick days in a year
Sick days are unlimited in my country (and of course don’t count as vacation or similar).
I think this is relatively standard for European countries, though not 100% sure.
They may be on paper, but I can't imagine taking one every time you have a runny nose or a sore throat. Everyone from your employer to social insurance[0] will start looking at you funny. It's just unexpected, even though it's how you're supposed to be handling infectious diseases to prevent spread.
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[0] - Or whoever is backing the free healthcare in your country.
Yes, that much is true. Remote working for those in between cases is accepted, but it does reduce the practice to the luckier subset of office workers.
> Most people can't afford to have more than a few sick days in a year
I believe it's true in the USA, but not necessarily in Europe. It's quite normal that you have two infections a year, plus sometimes your kid catches something at a completely different time, so the law protects you in these situations.
Yes, but there's what the law says, and there's process, and there's expectations.
You can't just take a legal sick day each time you have a runny nose (good luck finding a doctor that fast), and even if you could, you'd quickly stand out. "Two infections a year" is an average for adults who power through remaining ones with painkillers and cough meds; if they didn't, we'd be talking 5+, probably closer to 10 if they have kindergarten-age kids.
Sounds like you have a pretty terrible employer. Of course there's an expectation that you're not taking sick leave for every minor cough or sniffle, but "powering through" infections is pretty absurd to expect from your employees.
It sounds like you just have a terrible employer. If I get the flu, I'm taking a few days off. If I feel poorly, I'm not working. Never been a problem with any employer. 5-10 sicks days a year is completely normal. You cannot be fired for this.
1 reply →
But flu isn’t just a cold, it’s a serious disease. If they are sick to the point they have fever then they can’t really afford to not rest as it has a cost in the form of longer health debt. And even short term, by letting the fever run and resting and being 100% operational can be more productive than being a zombie on medications for weeks.
People mix common cold with flu all the time. If you have the flu you usually can't even go out of bed, even with medication.
Not to mention it is an infectious disease that they will spread to other people if they go to work.
By the time they can tell it's "the flu" and not just "a cold", they've been infecting everyone for days already.
Not to mention, cold is an infectious disease too (it's literally the same disease, just a weaker variant caused by strains that evolved their potency away), it too will spread to other people if they go to work.
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"Common cold" is what we call flu/COVID/bunch of other stuff when symptoms aren't severe enough to bother checking. There is no "cold virus", as cold isn't a specific sickness but a destination; it's a catch-all for respiratory pathogens that evolve their potency away.
By the time someone is able to tell they have "the flu", they should've been on a sick leave for 2-3 days already.
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