I work for a fully remote global company. Prior to 2020, we had an annual meetup where they flew all of our employees in to a single location to basically have a conference for a week and get some face time.
Last week we had our first one since the start of COVID. The only COVID-related requirement was the everyone signed a form 48 hours prior to the start of the conference that they had taken a COVID test and it was negative. No picture of the test or anything.
Well here we are a week later and I’ve tested positive for COVID the day after I got home. I had it once before and I feel terrible – I’ve been extremely tired and achy the last few days, which I had chalked up to having 12-hour days last week between conference stuff and socializing.
I’m in the US and my company does not offer paid sick time for US employees. They only offer it to employees in places like the UK where it is required legally.
We get 15 paid days off a year and the company line (which I had multiple conversations complaining about with coworkers at the conference) is that since we’re remote and “so flexible” that you can just make up any sick time later and not use your PTO. Totally great idea to make someone make up 8 or 16 or 24 hours extra a week after they’ve been sick.
So now here I am deciding to if I want to use a PTO day on Monday because I got sick at this dumb conference, which would mean I’d have to work every day of an upcoming vacation because I’m running low on PTO. In addition, since we were out all last week, I know my company is going to push hard about the need for people to get back to work even if they’re sick. This sucks.