Throwaway account as to not get in trouble at work.
I've worked for a decently sized tech company for over 3 years, working for a small team of many 7-8 people (4 of which all live in my local area). A year into my working for them COVID hit and we all moved to remote work. While the company has yet to take a stance on COVID outside of “we will see,”, I do appreciate that as a response versus saying we will be fully remote or back to the office and then back peddle – like so many larger companies have done these last few years.
I live in New York State and COVID cases are okay-ish right now. It has been lower but it has been alot higher. We recently got a new VP at work and was asked, entirely optionally, if we wanted to visit the local office to meet him. As everyone else said yes, I decided to go ahead with the visit last Wednesday. I did feel a bit pressured into it as it was “strongly encouraged” but it was up to me so I have no one to blame but myself for going. We are all vaccinated, I wore my mask, tried not to touch anyone to anything I didn't need to. Did what I could with the situation. I mostly interacted with / being in closer proximity with 2 of my direct coworkers (one of which is my boss).
Visit came and went, nothing especially crazy. I felt good about my attempts to stay safe but sure I could have done more. Come in today and my boss, and my other coworker that visited with us, are both out sick. I didn't think anything of it until a different coworker told me that my boss told him that he (boss) has COVID.
I'm obviously furious. I've gone 2 years without getting it so if I get it after all of this time, and from my one and only visit to the office, I'm going to really be upset.
What especially upsets me is that my boss – who I virtually met with twice yesterday – did not mention any of this to me. I found out all of this from someone else. As I was in the same room as him just last week, you'd think he would let me know. Granted he could have not gotten the results back until today but even sending me a message or email to give me a heads up.
I have no idea if he did tell HR or not, but if he did – I'd hope that they would have reached out to me to let me know to get tested as well. But no word from anyone all day.
I've taken a at-home test and it came back negative. I scheduled a PCR test for later today so I should hopefully get better results coming up soon.
If I do have it, I plan to go to HR and explaining that I likely got it from the office on my recent visit but that no one has approached me to let me know they have it and that I should get tested. Had this coworker not told me, I could have gone days without knowing – potentially interacting with others and spreading it to them.
I have no idea if my boss gave it to me but the timeline of events seems to line up, especially with one other coworker also reporting sick the exact same time as my boss.
I'd go to HR now but because I hear my boss has COVID from someone else, I don't want to get them in trouble for telling me. Especially since my boss has a history of lying. So the last thing I want to do is to get anyone in trouble because my boss is both a liar and an idiot.
If I do get it, I'm going to seriously consider quitting. It was my decision to go into the office but had this not been offered and I felt pressured to go, this would not have been a problem. But also, my boss is an idiot and I refuse to work for someone who okay with potentially getting others sick.
I have started to apply to other places due to other issues with my boss but this whole situation is kind of the final straw. I had a phone interview with a company (for a fully remote job) earlier today so fingers crossed.
Edit: HR did finally reach out to me (and unassumingly, everyone who was in office that day) to let us know “someone” tested positive and to get tested. Feels a bit late but happy they reached out to mostly confirm that someone had it and spread it to others.
TL;DR – Might have gotten COVID from work after a 2 years of never going on-site and now considering leaving