I work in a place that says they have a work from home policy but they don’t actually like when people work from home. I’ve done it here and there, but generally will work from the office. I just got back from holiday last week, and worked from home the day I got back. This is normally fine but I have a new boss and there’s been a new way of asking permission to work from home and they didn’t love the way I did it.
The next day I went to work but had fallen really ill the night before. Because I had anxiety about asking to work from home again I went in, which I know isn’t what we should be doing when sick but it’s the culture here. I was very obviously sick, could barely speak or work. The next morning I requested to work from home because I felt awful. My boss said that was fine. The next day, I felt worse so requested to wfh again. My boss said I should take a sick day instead but I knew I was capable of working/had a lot to catch up on.
I came into work today (Monday) and ended up getting a doctors appointment for tomorrow afternoon so asked if I could wfh in order to attend my appointment. Someone told me they had been discussing my being « out of office » and said I may need to bring in a doctors note, which costs money. Our policy is you may be asked for a doctors note after 3 sick days, not wfh days due to illness.
The shitty part is I got sick because someone else at work came in super sick. We work in healthcare and should know better instead of having a wfh policy just for optics 🙁