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0 pointstolmasky4y ago0 comments

If we lived in a non-influenza world that suddenly experienced influenza for the first time, we would think it's crazy to not only allow, but many times encourage, sick employees to come to work and basically take out the entire office. It's like just committing to losing a week's worth of productivity across the board.

One nice benefit of going more remote is that we can hopefully "personalize" the cold/flu experience vs. making it a de facto office-wide experience, and without the bizarre politics around vaccines/masks/sick-days/etc.

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4 comments · 1 top-level

SketchySeaBeast4y ago· 3 in thread

One would hope. My struggle previously with having a cold is that those can stick around for a week or two - until we set this new precedent for working from home I couldn't just disappear for a week because I didn't feel well so I'd inevitably take a day when it was especially bad, but then I'd come in and spread it around anyways.

tolmaskyOP4y ago

One of the unfortunate parts about colds is that the range of experiences seems to be fairly large for different people. It sounds that like me, you've never experiencd a "24 hour bug," and a cold is at minimum a one week affair. Not sure if you've looked into it, but there is some research starting to develop around why this is the case, namely, it might be bacteria that inhabit our nose that take advantage when our defenses are down from a cold: https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20181001/colds-espec...

SketchySeaBeast4y ago

It seems fairly common for a cold to last a week[1]. They wouldn't be debilitating for the whole time - it'd be a day or two of bad symptoms and then a obnoxious sniffle for another week. But I'd still come into the office and be that guy in the corner who was going sniff sniff sniff the whole day, even with a box of kleenex. Thankfully I haven't had one since I moved to working from home - I've come to realize that I need to be more careful with hand washing and general hand/face hygeine.

[1] https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/your-cold-wont-go-away

yourapostasy4y ago

I count myself extremely fortunate, as [knock on wood] I rarely get the flu. About once every 4 years on average, and most times when I get it, I'm through it in about 48-72 hours. And my clients are always very understanding and I'm able to still deliver while WFH, except in the very worst depths of about 12-24 hours.

There has got to be some genetic component where others have it way worse than I do, and yet still others skate by even better than I do. We know far less about biology than we think we do.

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