Do you get annoyed when your co-workers come to work sick?

It depends if your employer pays sick pay or not. Most don’t these days meaning if on a low wage and renting it puts your home in jeopardy or you’re unable to eat the following week..even if you’re sick for a day as wages are too low. So this I can understand but if your employer does pay sick leave or you are on a decent wage then yes I’d be pissed!

Extremely annoyed. Especially if they are first coming down with it, when they are most contagious. Really really pisses me off. At minimum they need to warn everyone and do their best not to spread their germs.

I prefer it when they stay off work. I don’t really get sick so can’t speak for myself. My work doesn’t pay sick leave so maybe the people that come in sick, can’t afford to not be.

Not at all, maybe they can’t afford to take a few days off.
What’s a few germs anyway, man up.

Sometimes it isn’t the money, but the employer not being sympathetic.

Some people think it is something to be proud of. “I never miss a day of work.” Or, “I came in even though I was sick.”

Then there are the people who have “allergies” for a week. A week is a GD cold!

Drives me crazy.

@ucme When you give that cold to your kids it won’t be fun.

@JLeslie Ha, i’ve caught dozens of bugs from the kids, it’s inevitable, pointless trying to avoid it.
Whenever they catch a mild bug it’s always over quickly, mine too, been years since any of us have needed a doctor.

When I get a cold, it can easily turn into something very serious because of chronic weakness in my chest (pneumonia at age 2, whooping cough at 14). Your sniffle might be my complete disability for months. So I do everything possible to avoid contagion. I don’t appreciate it when people knowingly bring a virus into a setting where others simply can’t escape exposure. Once I had to sit all day with my face turned away and my nose and mouth covered at a training workshop next to someone who sneezed and snurfed and snarked without letup. Sure, it’s over in a week for him. How about the lingering chest cough that I can’t shake for a year and a half?

No. I feel sorry for them.

If they don’t have a fever, vomiting or diarrhea, then I don’t mind them working in my area. I have a tough immune system. HA!

Yes! What’s better, stay home and keep it contained, or come to work and infect the entire staff?

Some jobs it should be mandatory that workers are NOT sick – like food service jobs. Why the fuck are you sneezing all over the food, idiot? (I have actually seen this) Go home!!!

I’m one of those people that come to work sick. Hey, I’ve got bills to pay! Anyway, sorry for annoying you. I’ll try to be more considerate.

Doesn’t annoy me, mostly because people need their money. You need to provide so much, yet you get so little, so a lot of people don’t see the cold or illness as a reason to not make money, if they think they can hack it.

Perhaps easier for me to say, since I seem to be nearly immunized to the common cold. Every time there’s a wave of sickness at work, I get off scot free, or with some minor sinus problems while everyone else is dying from the plague for like two weeks. Although as a kid, I got sick all the time with nasty colds and flues. Did my fucking part.
I see your point though, it can be frustrating, although I don’t find it necessarily rude, per se. People gotta do what them peeps gotta do, although I admit, would be nice if some thought of the consequences they’re creating.

Maybe the susceptible among you should consider the Japanese way, wear a face mask to keep the bugs at bay. Otherwise watch the economy suffer, imagine if everyone took a day or two off work due to mild ailments.

I stay home now, because I have plenty of sick time and my boss is sympathetic. In my last job, however, I only had a handful of sick days (which I’d use when my daughter was home sick), and my boss did not give a shit.

I assume most people who come to work sick do so because they have little choice. So no, it does not annoy me.

I used to work in positions that didn’t allow for sick leave, so I’d go to work with a cold. When I finally got a job that allowed for sick leave, I was amazed at the difference getting extra rest and sleep did for me. Truly astounded.

I understand that many workers don’t have paid sick leave. They report to work, very ill and in need of rest, because they can’t afford to take off any time.

As for people who do get paid, there are various reasons why they show up when they shouldn’t. I’ve known people who are simply very dedicated and, unless they’re literally too incapacitated to work, won’t miss a deadline, delay a project, or ignore a pressing workload. Then, there are the suck-ups who think they’ll impress the bosses by never taking a sick day and coming to the office when they look like reanimated corpses. There are also the martyrs who want everyone’s sympathy and admiration (I once worked with a guy who showed up with a dreadful flu. He spent the entire workday coughing, sneezing, and gasping for air. He punctuated every incident with a loud, self-pitying sigh of misery. I wasn’t impressed.)

I apologize if I offended anybody. :0(

I’m just irritated because I’ve missed 2 days of work now.
Luckily my boss took pity on me and gave me an extra shift this week to make up for time lost.

No, but I get annoyed about employers who make their employees afraid to NOT come in sick for fear of losing their job.

No, I seem to have a strong immune system as I rarely get colds etc so it hasn’t inconvenienced me so far. When I am ill I will try to work through it myself, I have to be really poorly to take time off.

My last job was one that allowed for a WAH (work at home) solution. In some jobs it’s not possible, but there, it was. If you have your company laptop at home and can connect to the VPN, and you have a setup for dialing into meetings, you can keep your germs to yourself and still stay on the job. You can even take a little nap break and make it up in the evening. It’s a great compromise.

@Jeruba Wouldn’t it be nice if every employer were so reasonable?

@Jeruba my partner recently started a new job and he can do that, in fact he has done already.

I think employers are starting to become more and more reasonable. We just have to get management who started in the 60’s and 70’s out of the way, and open up the field for more progressive thinking.