I’m in the United States, for clarification. My job has a hybrid work model, where we work from home 3 days a week & come into the office the other two days a week. For 99% of us in our department (myself included), the job can absolutely be done WFH & actually was during the first almost two years of COVID. They actually shut down an entire office on the west coast & the people who live there DO work 100% from home with zero issues. My WFH days are Tuesdays & Wednesdays, which is relevant here in a second. I went into the office on Tuesday (two days ago) & I was completely fine… it was literally a normal Tuesday.
My husband & I have been lucky to have non-customer facing jobs for the entirety of COVID. He just recently got a more customer-facing job and one of the contractors he was working with during the tail end of last week (pretty sure it was Friday) got him sick. Sore throat, runny nose, headache, fever — the whole shebang. I was completely fine until I woke up yesterday (Wednesday) morning and I went into the office on Tuesday. Thankfully there’s only about 10 people in the office in my department on any given weekday & we’re all spread out over a 100×100 area & social distanced away from every single person in the office.
Anyway, I woke up yesterday with an extremely sore throat, runny nose, and I had to keep clearing my throat. I sent an IM to my boss over my work computer (because fuck them, they’re not getting my personal cell phone number for work matters) about an hour before my shift started & explained the situation. I explained that my husband got me sick with a very contagious illness & was requesting to WFH. I reiterated to him several times that I was NOT calling off, but was requesting to WFH quite literally because I have a contagious illness and my goal is to NOT make other people sick.
He replies to me & says “Call the attendance line & have them change your schedule to WFH for today, but you are going to make it up on Thursday or Friday.” -meaning I am being being mandated to come into the office either today (Thursday) or tomorrow (Friday). When I reiterated to him that I was sick with something CONTAGIOUS (dead giveaway on it being contagious is that I caught from someone) & that I was NOT trying to “get out of coming into the office, just really against getting everyone else needlessly sick.”
He responded by saying “Not saying you are, but a growing number of reps in this department seem to have numerous reasons for not coming in during their in-office days.” Maybe so, but it’s because we’ve realized that the company making us come into the office when it came be done WFH is a power trip by the company’s CEO. I’m already miffed by his responses, but I called our Attendance Line & had my schedule changed. Most of the time the phone isn’t manned by someone so you just leave them a voicemail with your information & why you’re calling out or going to be late. I briefly explained WHY I was requesting to WFH & then quite literally stated on the voicemail “I am reiterating that I am NOT calling off work. I am requesting to WFH because I have a contagious illness that I don’t want to get people sick with.”
I am not coming into the office today. I went to bed feeling a Mack truck ran over my head & a fever that was growing — as in I literally watched the thermometer rise to 99.0* by the end of the night compared to the 97.2* it was early that evening. My throat was getting more sore & I was starting to sneeze frequently. I also went to bed feeling like my head was being smashed in by an arbor press.
I woke up a couple of hours ago to realize that my throat is significantly more sore than it was last night, nose is continuing to run, and my temples feeling like they were being smashed in with an arbor press & feeling like I got smacked in the back of the head with a steel pole.
I am already planning to go to the doctor because evidently I need a DOCTOR to write me a note telling me to keep my ass at home because I’m contagious. Obviously the note isn’t for ME because I am well aware that I should stay home as I apparently have more common sense & courtesy than management does — but because a doctor apparently needs to tell a grown ass man who works from home 3 days a week himself that his very contagious employee needs to keep away from people to prevent them from being sick.
He evidently doesn’t realize that if I go into the office while contagious, he is going to be dealing with more employees than just me requesting to WFH because I am legitimately sick with something very contagious. Wtf is wrong with corporate America?
EDIT: I just took my temp & thermometer just read 99.9*. But yeah I should ABSOLUTELY come into the office while contagious 🥴.