How does “stay home when you’re sick” work with a long minor cold lol

I hate those gray areas of having a long cold with a “starting to feel kinda sick” phase, an “actually sick” phase, and a “still sick but it’s going away” phase, and being told “stay home if you’re sick”? I feel like “sick or not sick” is too black and white. How about a scale based on symptom severity? Unless companies truly do want to pay employees for the entirety of their sickness. But I don’t think they do that lmao