This is purely out if curiosity. Also boredom. Also procrastination from going to the shops to buy dinner. If you are WFH, do you take sick days? Or do you work from home while sick? I just realised that last week I had a mild cold, but because I have the option of WFH, I did. But if I was required to be physically at work, there’s no way I would’ve been welcome there with cold symptoms, so I would’ve needed the whole week off. Similarly last night I had a random fever. So I WFH today. I debated whether to just say I’m taking sick leave, and return to bed for the day, but just quietly, I kinda did a bit of both lol. I suppose WFH when you’re somewhat sick is a good way of holding onto your sick leave for when you really really need it.

I find the hardest part of working while sick is the commute, generally. So I work while sick and keep my sick leave. There has been the odd day where I am sick enough that all I want to do is nothing and so those days I take a sick day. Several years ago, I was feeling quite sick but had a lot to get done so I let people know I was sick but will be working from home. A couple of people just hammered me with stuff that suddenly needed urgently doing, I don’t know if they thought I was taking the piss or what because I was genuinely working, I just needed a quiet day without a commute and lots of talking to people. Anyway in the end I decided if thats how they are going to treat it I’m just going to take a sick day and took the rest of the day off and let them deal with the fallout.

I do a bit of both. If DD is sick (so no daycare) I usually take sick leave unless I have something urgent on, then I try to work around her. If Im sick I usually just WFH like I did yesterday, unless its something really awful.

All our chronic absentee people at work have been taking double this year as they racked up so much last year. Literally no one took sick leave at our workplace last year while wfh. It was interestIng to say the least.

I have no experience with this myself, but my DH is WFH. It depends on the severity of the illness. He’s currently got a mild cold (a bit tired, a bit of a sore throat, a bit of a runny nose) so that hasn’t stopped him from working. Of course, if he had to go into an office, he’d have been off work for more than a week. However when he had gastro, he didn’t work because he stayed in bed all day. But as soon as he felt well enough, he was back working. I see this as a huge benefit of WFH.

DH has been working from home for over a decade. He rarely takes a sick day - sometimes I have to tell him to take one. The hardest thing is when he has time off (also rare) and still gets phone calls!

For me it depends on illness - migraine then I wouldn’t work as I can only go back to sleep in the dark. Illnesses that slow me down I’d probably take leave as my work micromanage kpi data so I wouldn’t want to be nagged about kpi data when I came in unwell and at least did something. Outside that I would work - I have an achingly sore neck at the moment and if I had to go to drive work I would consider not going as it hurts to turn my head too far but working at home I can manage it.

Yeah generally I just work through it but I got such a bad cold two weeks ago (tested negative) that I simply had to take a day off I was so unwell with a temperature, aches and pains etc.

Would depend on whether it stopped me working. Cold that I could ignore with Sudafed - would keep working. Cold that had me exhausted and needing to sleep for 3 hours midday - day off.

Mez That’s interesting. Do you mean the chronic absentee people are taking more sick leave now, since they can’t WFH? This is why I’m really trying to focus on the productivity of my staff - measuring it and keeping people accountable. I don’t actually care where people are or what they are wearing. But I DO care what they’re doing and what work they’re producing while I’m paying them.

Working from home and sick leave

catbus

This is purely out if curiosity. Also boredom. Also procrastination from going to the shops to buy d...