Tips for Cold & Flu Season
September 15th, 2008 by Cali & Jody
First, thanks to ABC News for the helpful tips found in What to Do When You’re Out of Sick Days. We will do our best to not shake hands, avoid contact with co-workers and wash, wash, wash.
But is it enough? We don’t think so. Here are some ideas for staying healthy (and employed) during cold & flu season.
Train for it
In an uncertain, hyper-competitive economy, you can’t afford to get sick. Ever. That’s why you need to dedicate your life to staying in top physical condition. Pound the vitamins, get plenty of rest, cut down on the sugar, and work out like an Olympic athlete. You won’t have much of a life, but you’re more likely to have a job.
Invest in protective gear
A quality biohazard suit will not set you back financially as much you might think. We like the service and selection at ApprovedGasMasks.com. Also, if multiple people at the office are already sick, set up a Team-building Quarantine Zone. Isolating cross-functional sick people is a great way to get things done.
Use performance-enhancing drugs
There are going to be days when you’re simply too ill to move. While we’re not advocating illegal drug use, there are a number of over-the-counter (not to mention herbal) solutions to tiredness, fatigue, nausea, heavy sweating, labored breathing, seeing spots, and mental incoherence. Find the right cocktail for you and get yourself back in the game.
Automatically assume your vacation days will be used as sick days
You didn’t have plans for that time anyway, right?
Don’t ask questions
Even if your company’s sick policy is outdated, unrealistic and inhumane, you’re not doing yourself any favors by questioning the status quo. Bottom line: it’s just as important to appear that you’re working as it is to actually get things done. Keep your head down, power through, and look busy. You can look forward to feeling good when you retire.
For several years my company had one of the most inhumane sick policies for salaried workers. Such workers were not allowed to use sick days in single day increments, only in one week increments. If you decided to be out for a couple of days, you had to make up that time so you would meet the magical average hours per week for your department. Management said it was because our HR SAP system couldn’t calculate individual sick days in monthly or weekly salaried paychecks. Huh?!?!?!? That was funny (but not in the ha-ha way) because I had no problem getting my individual vacation days. So, the only way to get sick pay was to get sick on a weekend or a Monday and miss the whole week. Call me crazy, but that doesn’t seem to engender productivity to me. If just fostered the idea that you should ruin your health and the health of other workers just to maintain a weekly hour average. It had nothing to do with getting work done because every study shows productivity falls when people are ill.
What scared me the most while this policy was in place (which was finally repealed this past year) was the foolishness it promoted. Shortly after the policy came into place, the avian flu/SARS scare started. I could just imagine with such a policy in place and an epidemic event, a good number of people would become seriously illl and even die just because people have to ‘make their hours’. Your comment about hazmat suits and gas masks made me laugh because I mentioned investing in such things with our ’sick’ sick policy with the dangers of a contagious environment.
I think your last line is pretty much the basic mantra of business: sacrifice your best years to us so you can retire broken and beaten down. At least you will be able to be sick all you want!
Actually I feel sick this morning from the car dealership shuttle ride. That aside, there have been many days I worked sick because I had to be at work. I would have loved to sleep extra so I would feel better and then work from home to get the essentials for the day taken care of. That would have been much more productive than “making it” through the day.
I once took a sick day when I got food poisoning… a really bad case. Unfortunately it coincided with an important company payroll deadline, so my backup had to take over. Even though i was legitimately sick, I had considered going into work later in the afternoon, but as anyone who’s had food poisoning can attest to, I thought better of being too far away from privacy. I showed up the next day, and was questioned by my management. They thought it was in bad form for me to have made my backup take over for me (even though he actually previously held my job and could do it better than me at that point anyway).
Sometimes I wish I had gone to work that day… the office cleaning costs may have been higher for them. Ewww…
In another case, I had to take a week of sick time for a prolonged illness that I had. At the time, I only had accrued a few days of sick time, but I had almost two weeks of vacation time. Instead of using up all of my sick time, and then dipping into my vacation time, they made me go into “negative” sick time and not use any of my vacation time. I never really understood that one…
Was this a serious post? If we are sick, we should stay home. This entry did not really match the ROWE way.
I think it was irony…
@Persephone K
Been there with the food poisoning. That situation taught me to also see sick pay/time as an opportunity to maintain my dignity. There is only one person in this world that should have to see me at my absolute worst and I am married to her. Nobody at work needs to see me walking around like an undead creature or to have me snapping at them because a fever is pan-frying my brain.
I suggest that the next time anyone is suffering more from Sludge than sickness and ends up at work sick, make sure to make a wrong turn on the way to the restroom - if vomiting is involved - and end up in a manager’s office. The resulting mess should drive home the point that no one should be guilted into being at work when they are truly sick, especially when there is opportunity to do some work at home.