I found out yesterday morning that I have covid. Where I live, there are currently no legal obligations to isolate if you’ve tested positive (which blows my mind). I have one day of sick time I can use, but realistically I would need to be out from work for a week before I’m healthy and not contagious. I work retail, so WFH isn’t an option for me.
Now, this month is a blackout for vacation time at the company because Halloween is a huge money-maker. They also have a policy that vacation and floating holidays (which I have one week of and one day of, respectively) can’t be used in place of sick time. I’ve run into this issue previously when I had some health issues in the spring and was off for two weeks without pay.
I’m the only person in my household working right now, so I absolutely can’t afford to be missing work and not being paid. I could try to get a doctor’s note for the whole week and claim EI for it, but that would still only be about half my usual pay. My only other option is to go to work while still contagious and ill and risk spreading it to customers and coworkers, many of whom are already sick. Does anyone have any ideas how I could possibly talk my bosses (or their bosses) into letting me use my vacation week to recover?