A few months before the Covid shutdown in 2020, a coworker had cancer. Commuted nearly 2 hours each way to work as much as he could. We literally watched him get skinnier and sicker with every trip into the office. He couldn’t afford to lose his income/health insurance. Soon after, it became too much and he quit. Within weeks he died.
Two months later, the office closed down due to Covid. We were all given cell phones and laptops. The job could be done 100% remote. It’s a government office. We didn’t go back to the office for 6 months.
Realizing the agency had the mechanisms to give hundreds of people the equipment and go online made me so angry for my coworker that passed away. Everyone was mandated to come back into the office 5 days a week. I quit in January 2021. No one should have to work while ill. If accommodations are available and an employer callously chooses not to even offer them, that is not a place I’ll ever work again.