First off, hello and thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this and constructively respond.
A little bit of backstory first, I was homeschooled, and then spent about 10 years out in the sticks taking care of my elderly / disabled grandmother and mother and helping take care of the family business that my grandmother couldn't maintain by herself anymore. My immune system never really had much of a chance to get a workout in my younger years and I'm now dating a school teacher for going on 4 years. When we first started dating I was sick almost after every time that we visited but it was worth it.
Now I just recently started working at an assisted living facility and I'm getting bombarded by germs from both sides. School teacher germs at home and old people germs at work. I wear masks and sanitize my hands all day long, I don't go to questionable places or take undo risks with my health. I take vitamins everyday and try to eat healthy. I don't know what else I can do.
Now the important part:
Before I even received an employment offer for the position that I'm at, I informed the person interviewing me, who would also be my direct supervisor, of nearly everything I just shared with y'all and they still decided that they wanted to hire me because I know what I'm doing and I'm capable in my position.
I've missed 10 days in 4 months from sickness and had to have a talk last Thursday about my attendance and was told that someone higher up in corporate is raising a stink about my attendance. I was pretty much told that my attendance is more important than not spreading germs at work. Even though we've got a bunch of people paying thousands of dollars a month to live here and they've almost all have compromised immune systems.
The distinction here between my position and almost everyone else that works here is that my job duties don't really have any kind of scheduled tasks or things that have to be done on set days. I work maintenance and I take care of work orders as they come in and fix the broken stuff. I don't have people that check in with me or paperwork that has to be done or anything like that. I show up and clock in and just start fixing stuff. Why can't I stay at home and recover and then fix stuff better once I'm recovered?
I don't know what to do. This is the first job I've ever had that I actually liked. It's a step up both in conditions and in pay and it's by far the shortest commute I've ever had. I actually like my job. I've never been able to say that before. I'm writing this while still sick, and still at work.
If anyone has any suggestions other than 'find somewhere else to work', I'd love to hear them š