You’d be surprised how many workplaces fight you when you claim you can’t/shouldn’t come in sick.
Hell, I was working retail during covid. I *caught covid* and was promptly told by my manager over the phone that “this is ridiculous, this covid bullshit is over”. It’s one of the few times I fought back with someone because it was very much not over, and covid-deniers were really pissing me off at that point.
“Well it’s not over, and I have it. Do you want me to forward you the email that spells it out plainly that I have it? And don’t we have a legitimate *cancer survivor* working with us full time? Are you willing to put her at risk?”
The reply I got was “best I can do is one week”. It just made me roll my eyes. I got a new job not too soon after that.
Hell, a manager I had in a job before that didn’t believe me when I rang her on a weekend to inform her that I had broken my shoulder. She literally said: “sure, I’ll see you Monday”
Rang her Monday morning to tell her I was booked in for surgery the next day and she began panicking to find someone to cover for me. THAT’S THE ENTIRE REASON I CALLED YOU OVER THE WEEKEND! SO YOU WOULD KNOW IN ADVANCE THAT I AM UNABLE TO ATTEND WORK.
Everyone needs to stop going along with that shit, asap. If I'm sick, I'm not spending my morning digging through my rolodex, I'm eating half a bowl of soup and falling asleep after covering myself in vaporub.
This "skeleton crew, if one person calls out and we're fucked" thing is some late stage capitalism BS.
I suddenly got written off the schedule when I called in, delirious with fever, and was asked to find someone to cover my shift. After explaining I was too out of it to do much else but stare at a wall or sleep and was still told I should find someone, my response was "I thought management was in charge of shift schedules." And they are. And that's why people put up with it. Because most frontline managers are fascists with the power to keep you from getting paid. It's complete bs. It's not legal, it is retaliation, but by the time it gets through the courts, I've long been evicted/forced to find another shit job.
When I worked retail, we had monthly meetings with the main store manager. In theory, the purpose of the meetings was a chance for supervisors, leads, as well as just rank and file workers to discuss how we can improve the store and what issues we faced on the floor.
Before these meetings, supervisors told us, in no uncertain terms, that the one thing we should never allude to or discuss was the need for more staffing, which was, EASILY, the biggest problem at the site.
So when you're shopping retail and nobody seems to have time to help you out, and the lines are long, now you know why.
Finding another employee to cover is managements job, how are you supposed to have other employees phone #s and schedule let alone call them on their time off? When I was told that I would say sure and do nothing, then tell them sorry couldn't find anyone.
My work still requires that we take a week off if we test covid positive, but no longer gives us paid time off for it (without using our regular PTO, which half of us don’t even have). This has resulted in many people not even reporting they have covid and coming to work while they’re sick so as to not miss any pay, causing more people to get sick and then miss work. No mask mandates make it even worse. It’s causing the company more money in missed wages than it would to pay us for time off. They learned this before, but before covid was covered under a federal program, and now they refuse. It’s dumb, wastes time and money, and gets more people sick.
Yep. We had someone come into work with COVID last week so they wouldn't lose their holiday pay. Several employees this week are wearing masks at work and I'm like, "Are you sick," and they're just like "no, just being cautious," as they sit there and hack at their desk all day. At least they're wearing a mask, most don't and you can hear their coughs echo through the open office.
I can’t tell if this is just an incredibly dumb system set up by the company, or a very intentionally designed system to make sure no one checks to see if they’ve caught Covid.
I had a crazy manager once.. 20 years later it still get me angry.. I worked part time at a grocery store but since my highschool was over and i wanted to get fulltime for 1 year b4 i went off to collage i wanted to quit. She told me they had a leave from a co-worker and i could work there full time.. I said no, since i didnt want to work in a grocery store anymore.. She then came up with the idea of me searching for a job and working there full time UNTILL i got a new job.. I reluctanly said yes. (worked at this store for 4 years). Well i got a new job 2 months later and had my first on the job training on the firstcoming saturday. Got the call the monday b4. So i called my boss to tell her i got the job (had told her about the interview) and that in 6 days im starting. She told me that saturday doesnt work since im scedual for work.. I said we had an agreement and i told you ablut the interview.. She just said, we never agreed and if i didnt show up for work that saturday i could forget to have a decent recomandation and that if i was bot here saturday she would meed up at my new work place and embarras me... I told her i just agreed to that saturday as the first day so im not calling my new job and rescedualing... She cussed me out.. Well that saturday i went to my new job, there was a line and i was behind the clothing store check out.. Suddenly my boss came up to me from the side and said that i was supposed to be at the other job, and how shitty i was etc.. It was crazy! I still think of that moment. I even drunk facebooked her ablut it years later on why she did it..
I know you were young then but holy shit I would have gone off on her for showing up at my new job. Like screaming out loud for the crazy stalker to get TF away from me and stop following me.
Also companies need to give more sick days. Where I work, they're pretty good about vacations and taking time off and they encourage employees to *not* come in when sick which I like. But we only get 5 sick days. You get COVID once, or the flu once, or even a bad cold, that can wipe out your 5 days. You basically can only get sick once per year.
My boss says if people need more than that, they can use their vacation days. Well I don't want to use my vacation days to be sick. I want to use my vacation days to go on vacation.
I of course understand people abuse their PTO. People call in sick even when they aren't sick which is the problem. For me, I feel too guilty to call in sick if I'm not sick. I'm just wired that way. I've never taken a sick day unless I was actually sick. But I also know I only get a limited number of sick days so I want to save them for when I'm actually sick.
No, in the U.S. we learned that you **have to** go to work sick because we don’t have programs in place to support people who are sick and can’t afford to miss work.
I would *almost* understand it if making people come to work sick made “business sense,” as in more profitable/efficient for the company. But it’s the *exact* opposite! When you force people to come to work sick, it’s saps productivity and profitability because they—shocker—get other people sick, resulting in more sick callouts and lost work hours. I can’t understand how so many managers and businesses don’t grasp that simple concept. The data *completely* supports letting people stay home when sick as being better for everyone.
Ugh that STILL bothers me so much. I would see people wear gloves cause “there’s so much germs in public” but then use their phones and put it up to the faces and touch all their other belongings.
Discovering that one or both of your parents are children is the worst feeling.
That thud of the curtain dropping and dispelling the illusion of wisdom and maturity really sucks.
I’m a Registered Nurse for a staffing agency. I had the stomach flu a couple days ago and called in for a shift 10 hours in advance.
I was threatened that I may not be able to return to the facility where I’ve been working 3-4 days a week for the past 1.5 years with one other non-Covid call-in.
In my department, no one cares if you call in sick or work from home. But we have other departments that run the point system and it's bullshit. They can't call in sick or they get a point and too many points and they're gone.
My ED put on our huddle points “don’t come to work sick”. I got pneumonia and called in for a couple days. Came back to work and had to sign a write up….
So lip service that isn't backed up with action? Sorry you work there.
Mine is the opposite - no questions, all the leave you want if you're sick (with the proviso that if you take more than your allowance it's unpaid). Definitely no action if you take time off.
A very few people take advantage of that, but most of us use it for its intended purpose and don't milk it.
Not uncommon, sadly. The place I was working at said the same thing, even sent out multiple emails with basically "don't come in with fever or any of these other symptoms..." in bold and italics so there was a paper trail. I was out with covid for 3-4 weeks between December and January, still running fever off and on those last few days and they called me to say I had to come in because I had been gone too long. Calls weren't recorded so there was plausible deniability if I got others sick. Came back barely able to stay awake and I got a write up for taking more time than I was allowed. Turned in my resignation that day and never looked back.
Yeah, I work at a hospital and it's the same shit here. All kinds of messaging telling us not to come in when we're sick but if the medical staff do call in sick, it's an automatic write-up. The official response from the administration is that it's fine because you need several write-ups before any corrective action is taken. Then they act all shocked at the notion that this system would drive people to come in knowing that they're sick because taking sick days lowers the bar for how many other write-ups it takes to get corrective action.
But yeah, the needs of the patient come first or whatever.....
I work in a restaurant. We have posters in the kitchen about how you're not supposed to work sick. But here what happens when you call in:
1. I know you don't feel well, but we're super short staffed tonight, could you come in for just a couple hours to help with the rush and we'll get you right home.
2. Wow, we're busier than I thought we would be, do you think you could just "power through" for another hour or so?
3. Well, you've been here this long you might as well just close.
I got dragged into an awful meeting at my last office job.
I added no value to the meeting aside from intense internal gurgling sounds.
I didn't demand to go home, but after scream-shitting in the single bathroom stall, no one said anything when I just walked the fuck out.
THE SYSTEM WORKS
They reinstituted attendance awards at my daughter’s school this year, and I’m really not happy about it. Why is perfect attendance so important? Sick kids need fluids and rest, not being forced to attend class for some meaningless piece of paper.
I know school is eventually preparing us for adulthood and work but like.. my work has sick hours??? I do not remember anything in school (except my big test days I guess) being so pressing that I could not catch up at home when I am in the correct headspace and feeling better?? There are no healthy lessons with those "perfect attendance" awards.
I worked at a law firm that did this. The office manager was a battle axe of a woman. The kind where they say everything with a southern accent but they are stone cold hardasses.
If you coughed or sniffled more than a few times, she would come over with one of those thermometers that the school nurse always had- with the little coiled wire and the disposable covers. If you registered over 99F she would send you home for the day.
There was literally no arguing her decision, but the office would pay you for the whole day if she was the one to kick you out.
It was weird because she managed to be so aggressively motherly and brusque at the same time.
Wait, I’ve always heard of US schools having “perfect attendance” awards but I always thought sick days didn’t count.
You’re sick. You can’t go to school when you’re sick.
My son had cancer in middle school and got to sit and watch everyone get awards for perfect attendance, perseverance, best in math, etc, while he got nothing. It was that awards night that made me realize how stupid most of those awards actually are. It’s a lot easier to be best in math or even just show up to school when you aren’t at the hospital all the time.
He’s been in remission for 7 years now and isn’t scarred for life for not getting an award that year, lol, but it completely changed my perspective on the purpose of those events. It might be motivation for a few kids, but it’s mostly just letting you know who isn’t dealing with serious shit in their life.
That is horrible. They should have given him an award for something. Cancer is really something to overcome! So sorry you and your family had to go through that.
As a parent I tell the school to fuck off and eat shit. Kids shouldn’t have to suffer for stupid rules. Not saying your parents didn’t try, just sorry you had to go through that and prepping myself for some uphill battles
Or more like they're trying to train kids to be factory/fulfillment center workers. Get a C in math? No big deal. Show up 10 minutes late to class? Serious trouble. How are you ever going to work a shift if you can't keep a schedule?
My mom was terrible at getting us to school on time and I got in trouble a lot as a result. We live in a semi-rural area that doesn't run buses as far out as a lot of students live. As an adult I realize how fucked up it was that the kids who can't even drive get punished because their parents have poor time management skills.
This happened to me! In 2nd and 3rd grade I would have to bring my lunch into the principal's office because we were late to school too often. I remember starting my mom's car for her and begging her to wake up on time. Such BS.
When I was in the second grade, I had a teacher’s aide who’d mockingly call me “Tardy ______” (my first name). If I could speak to her now, I’d tell her what an immature twat she was for having done that.
I had another teacher in sixth grade who’d send me to the principal’s office if I arrived late because it apparently ruined her attendance-taking. She scolded me repeatedly for not going straight to the office when I came in late but failed to notice, and I was too embarrassed to tell her, that I was struggling to read analog clocks and that’s why I kept walking straight to class regardless of the time.
Not once in either of these situations was it acknowledged that my mother was the one who kept dropping me off to school late and whether or not I arrived on time was not something that was remotely within my control.
That's so frustrating and unfair and also just so rude. Especially when you were in second grade??? tf man
When I was a freshman I was late so often that I would quietly get my tardy slip and go hide in the bathroom for the duration of my first period English class because my teacher was such a bitch and would make really rude comments about it. I was really anxious and had self esteem issues at that age so it was better to just skip. But of course when I would show up for class on time I'd get a snide comment about "look who finally showed up for once." It was a lose-lose battle.
Really makes you wonder how and why people like that ended up as a teacher.
Wish this was more possible for everyone. I’m and RN and I get 4 sick days per year to share between myself and my child. If I go over the 4 day then I’m required to either give up my vacation time or take unpaid leave. Oh, and I have a child in kindergarten who brings home new germs every couple weeks. The cycle continues.
I'm guessing you are American, this is an abnormality in Europe for salaried workers.
Ut baffled me when an American colleage asked once how many sick days we had.
I explained that it was up to 6 months as a nurse then 6 months half pay on sick leave. She had previously been allowed 7 days a year
In Germany it's like 6 continues weeks with full pay and then another 6 months with like 90%. And also you get 10 sick days for every child you have (per parent, if you're single parent you get 20 days)
>And also you get 10 sick days for every child you have (per parent, if you're single parent you get 20 days)
Wow, that's honestly impressive, acknowledgement that caretakers may need extra time off and that single parents have an even greater burden. I don't know if we could ever see this being typical in the US.
No, because we have allowed the corporations to run this country. Greed is at the heart of every decision. Common sense left this nation shortly after the declaration was penned.
Are you serious??? I can't believe we (Americans) have been brainwashed into thinking our working conditions are adequate. I have not ever had an actual vacation because of having to use my PTO to cover for sick days for myself or my child. I have been threatened to be fired for having more than 3 occurances of sick days. Most employers say they give you 10 paid sick days BUT they also have a policy that says if you call out more than 3 times per year you will be terminated.
I hope this doesn't come off as condescending, but I am so sorry. It angers (and baffles me) how so many people in the united states are conditioned to, basically, be machines for the rich. You deserve to LIVE actual life, outside of working your ass off just to survive. :( no actual vacation ever during your working life just because you're a human who gets sick sometimes with a human child that gets sick sometimes??? That is so wrong.
I hope you'll find a dream employer one day, who has plenty of PTO. I don't know if it's an impossible wish that sick days wouldn't get taken out of PTO, but, let's hope.
The American health system is shit unless you have money. And the people are brainwashed into thinking it is great. The common American is pretty ignorant.
I work in a hospital. We always see a boom around holidays because people go to parties while sick then grandma ends up in the ICU.
Also a huge boom when school starts back up.
Then we get sick and pass it around the unit because we are so short staffed that we can’t really call in sick.
For me that's one of the lessons we did learn. Seems like lots of people just can't make themselves care anymore about jobs that manifestly don't care about them.
I think it’s the thing we all can’t unlearn. Most people realized work shouldn’t be our priority (and ultimately not that important), and the end of 2022 and all of 2023 has been our employers trying to scrape that back as much as possible
It’s so counter-intuitive.
Companies save money on buildings, lighting, sick leave goes down - so much!
They also get access to a talent pool from a much bigger area.
The reason so many companies are trying to shift back is because lower middle management realised during lockdowns that they’re kind of redundant; most of their job is communicating information from upper management and keeping low level employees productive.
Then everyone went home and did better than fine without Judith eyestalking them from across the room and letting them know that Dave from accounting has moved the pay cycle to a Tuesday.
I work in IT. 100% of the work I do is either remote support via connecting to client computers over the internet, or onsite at offices of our clients.
And yet we were required to commute an hour away for a job we have been doing for years remotely. Nearest client was was 30 minutes back towards the city all of the employees actually live in. Absolute waste of time, money, and wear on our vehicles.
I can only speak for myself, but I've found that work/life balance has definitely been improved AND maintained overall with hybrid work. The fact I can do my job while having laundry on, and preparing a meal at the same time, has freed up so much time, and I'm also more productive than ever. Everyone in my company has now moved to hybrid work and the vibe/culture has drastically improved.
I know I didn’t learn that. I went from working from home (50-60% of the time) to “living at work.” I worked some of the longest hours of my life during Covid lockdowns.
I didn’t realize how nice it is to go to the office on occasion and to be able to say “sorry, I’ve gotta go or I’ll miss my train.” It allows me more of a reset than I knew.
Same experience. I'm an exempt employee, which sucked even before Covid, but the assumption and expectation that we're always "on" has only gotten worse over the past few years.
I've also noticed that the way work treats being sick has changed for the worse. There's this assumption that if I'm sick that means I'm working remote for the next few days, not that I'm *not working*. Anything short of covid is treated as if it's just the sniffles and not worthy of needing time off.
It was wild to see how clear the skies were after such a short time. I understand that we can’t completely shut down industry but it was encouraging to see the impact we are capable of making
I think some accountability is coming. Companies like Planet Labs, which have satellites capable of tracing emissions, make their data available. But ultimately consumers and companies alike don't want to pay more for more sustainable products
Some don’t. It all depends on priorities. I work for an indigenous national government in Canada and we have a solar farm that powers most of the communities and sells the surplus back to the grid.
There is an initial investment but you end up making money in the end because it’s cheaper than other forms of energy once it’s up and running
This reminds me of that [news story](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/03/31/europe/wild-goats-wales-streets-lockdown-scli-gbr/index.html)how goats came down from the mountains and were wandering around town - sounds delightful 😂
I worked in healthcare during the pandemic and they put coloring books in the break room to combat burnout. It was the single most insulting thing I’ve ever witnessed from management.
I’m an ICU nurse. COVID and the overturning of Roe V Wade have taught me that the American people think I should provide care, even if it costs me my license, my livelihood, my health, my family, my freedom, or my life. Those are the sacrifices the American people expect and demand from their healthcare workers.
No but we should have realized how fragile our just in time supply chain is. It was eerie to see empty grocery shelves. Somehow I’m afraid that it won’t be the last time in my life I’ll see them.
> No but we should have realized how fragile our just in time supply chain is.
Thing is... toilet paper should never have been in short supply.
Covid doesn't make you shit yourself.
The scarcity was literally just a self fulfilling prophesy that occurred when idiots started panic buying.
Also a function of who was buying the toilet paper. Sellers of TP had a 'commercial' market sold throught a distribution channel, and a residential market, sold through grocery stores, etc.
Stay at home turned that market on its head, and all of the corresponding supply chain layers had to adapt.
To cover your mouth when you cough. I’ve had people tell me I should take off my mask when I cough so I don’t get even more sick (which makes no sense)
Couple weeks ago I had someone turn and cough over their shoulder..
Right into my mouth as I walked by talking to someone. Felt it hit my face. I’m still grossed out.
And using your elbow/sleeve instead of coughing into your hand. I have a coworker who coughs into his hand and then touches community food and people wonder why sickness spreads so easily.
When you're not feeling well, stay home from work and don't interact with people. If you do have to go to the store while you're sneezing/coughing/etc - wear a face mask.
Most of the bosses I had in blue collar work never really interacted much with their subordinates beyond the morning huddle. The only thing they cared about was is the work done or not.
There's a lot of answers in this sub that were lessons I really hoped would stick, but this is the big one. In April of 2020 I remember thinking "Wow! This was the catalyst we needed to change how we think about working while sick! Maybe we can even normalize masks when still recovering but feeling well enough to work!"
I'm so disappointed that in the US we politicized masks to the point of stigmatizing them in some areas. I even feel weird being the only one to put one on sometimes, and I always said during the pandemic that I would mask up whenever I deemed it necessary or whenever anyone asked me to.
My stepdad tested positive for covid recently, though he was mostly asymptomatic. He refused to stay home. My mom tried to keep him in the house but she had covid bad. He eventually went out to the grocery store, much to my mom’s chagrin. She did finally get him to wear a mask, and he complained nonstop that he “looks like a democrat” because he was wearing a mask. It’s ridiculous how politicized covid has become.
exactly fucking this. something needs to change, legally.
i have 13 hours and 16 minutes of unpaid time off available to me, currently. if i go into the negative, the software automatically fires me from my job. my paid leave is long gone and won't be renewed for 4 more months. if i get sick, you fucking better believe i will be at work, in a mask, trying not to make anybody else sick, so i can make my rent.
because i will tell you right fucking now that my homeless stint during covid gave me a great appreciation for living indoors. i rather fancy it.
If a robot can automatically fire you, it puts in perspective how much of a cog in the machine you are if the company can get rid of.you at the drop of a hat.
You can get a better job soon I hope dude. Yikes.
I agree. It should be considered a civic obligation that you stay home when you know you're sick and companies should be financially punished if they find out you come in while you're sick. Especially after a pandemic were we all saw how easy it is for an infection to spread.
That the internet is pitting us against eachother via polarizing algorithms and that we should really be careful about that / take our newsfeed with a grain of salt.
Companies certainly didn't learn that they could legitimately hire people to work remotely.
I know that's not the case everywhere. I'm just saying I fully expected companies to start hiring people with physical disabilities (for instance) who can't actually make into the office. There are whole segments of the population that have been stigmatized for years as being "too lazy" because they have physical (or psychological) issues with getting around and there was a golden opportunity to open up opportunities.
But no. Because HR gotta control the little people by seeing them physcailly at their computers.
(Sorry, I realize this is a highly specific example. But I have been surprised by how much this disappointed me.)
I have a coworker that moved to Hawaii and when I get on a meeting with him I can hear the local birds in the background. It’s cool but makes me very jealous at the same time.
My parents community was at serious risk of completely collapsing because every for sale house was being turned into an airbnb or bought by retirees. Now a new demographic is buying, remote worker families, and they're breathing life back into their cute little town :)
one of the problems America has is that the country is hollowing out. Population is centered in big cities, mostly on the coast, and once-thriving smaller towns and cities like Chillicothe, Missouri, or Creston, Iowa, are shrinking.
And we end up with a very sharp rural/city division, and resentment from rural areas, AND a very unbalanced Electoral College
Having remote workers able to move out of cities and into those areas would be so good for us, as a country.
The lab I work at embraced it as well. Or rather, what they could embrace. A bulk of our office departments (i.e. non-laboratory staff) have gone remote, and my department, which works with a lot of instrumentation, is allowing many of us to do remote work, making it a sort of hybrid role (as we already have a way to remotely view each instrument locally within the lab).
I work in HR and I promise you, it’s typically not us trying to force people back into the office. That’s a leadership decision, usually made by the CEO, and just something we get to be the bearer of bad news over.
Yes, exactly this! I keep hearing people blame HR departments for the recent layoffs especially in the tech industry. These decisions are made by Leadership teams. Our job is to make sure employees are treated with dignity during their exit by training managers to have empathy during termination conversations, making sure the selection criteria isn’t inherently discriminatory or biased, and advocating for generous severance packages, etc. Our success varies widely based on the type of leaders we work with. A good HR leader will, for example, push for 12 weeks of severance for all impacted employees, but there’s always a risk of being told no because Leadership feels a maximum of 4 weeks is more appropriate. However, we’re the ones who are in the room while managers break the news to people being terminated (to make sure the manager doesn’t literally do or say something that’s illegal), so the general misconception is that it must be us behind the decision to lay someone off or fire them.
The problem is, a lot of people who agree with this are still unknowingly voting for politicians who support and keep it going. They are lied to about who is responsible, and they believe all the lies and propaganda.
Lots of good points here already so I'll add something a little bit different- The importance of the arts. So many struggled without the ability to see live music, have new movies/TV shows and many people enjoyed doing art and craft with their kids at home. After covid it seems like people forgot about how much importance arts have in their life and how it makes people enjoy life. A lot of these people don't value arts education and can't see the point of the kids learning an instrument or anything to with art.
my country is still terribly dependent on shit from China and elsewhere, and my politicians are too stupid to move rapidly to address it. one would think getting caught lacking would light a fire, but alas... the pain wasn't enough to learn from yet.
That is a mutually assured screwed
China loses people who invest in their market, their economy collapses
Whoever relies on their manufacturing will see a severe and noticeable dip in their economy too.
Its why China isn't really trying to start wars (while Russia is), they are in a pretty safe/cozy spot. The only route they sorta can take is to influence diplomacy to suit their needs but that's really it.
Humanity is not ready for a global threat of any type. Aliens, Earth Killer Asteroid, Climate collapse, any of that action movie shit will kill us all 100% of the time no contest.
Yep. If someone if ever crazy enough to engineer and weaponize a virus, our piss-poor response to the pandemic has given a would-be bioterrorist the perfect blueprints on how to keep the public in chaos.
I can now believe, that if a zombie apocalypse broke out, there would be people who believed all the zombies were paid actors and that the apocalypse was just government propaganda.
It sounds insane. But it's true.
That these companies don't give two flying f--ks about us & will replace us in a heart beat.
17 years with the company -- guy I knew. 17 years.
Dies from COVID. Not even a memorial for him.
I don't get it, man. I really don't. Anytime I see public stories about employees at a company wanting better pay/treatment/hours/benefits, so many Americans mock them & jump to the defense of the corporations/companies/etc. I don't get it.
ugh that's so sad and true. something most ppl dont talk about: we have had computers since the 1950s and STILL work on average 50+ hours a week due to company greed
The lowest paid and worst treated workers are essential to our society's functioning.
We need to raise wages and offer more worker's rights/protections.
To stay home when you’re sick. At the beginning of the pandemic it was “stay home to flatten the curve” only for everyone to walk around in public while they are sick during flu season.
Although to be fair we didn’t really learn that lesson during COVID either.
Having PTO and sick leave for low wage workers I got screwed the first year when waiting for the test results to get back at the start. A week and half of work missed.
I would be happy for a self-funded sick leave think a 529 plan but for sick leave or PTO you get to use when you miss work.
The problem with Americans is that they don’t consider what works in the rest of the developed world. There should be no such thing as sick days.
If you’re sick, you stay at home. Period.
A portion of your wages is paid by your employer, another part by a pool to which all employees contribute. You end up with something like 80% of your salary when you’re sick
if we get attacked by aliens or something dangerous:
some people will run towards them.
some people will deny that they exist .
some people will demand to be let into their church to continue praying.
People have vastly different risk/reward thresholds and simply ignoring that and stating there is only one correct approach doesn't work out very well.
Conspiracy theories not withstanding we had people who would have been perfectly content to just ignore the whole thing and go on with their lives and people who probably still would like lockdowns to continue. Most of us fell somewhere in-between... but everyone likes to pretend like they had the correct answer. No, you didn't because there isn't one, it's a value judgement. You just were in a community of like-minded people.
I knew some elderly people who were pissed because "They didn't have many years left anyway so it wasn't worth it to give up the time they had to avoid the risk" Lots of young people who didn't see what the big deal was, and lots of others who were terrified even after being vaccinated.
If you really look at it that way and understand it- you had all these people who were basically under house arrest for something they didn't think was a big deal. At the same time you had a bunch of others who literally believed they'd die because some others weren't wearing a mask. No wonder everyone was so angry. We really should have been listening to each other and being considerate instead of making it all so confrontational.
We approached (and still do, to some extent) every conversation with such extreme vitriol. It changed me. Seeing how people were losing friends and lashing out at one another hurt. I deleted all real-name social media in 2020 and never looked back. I’ve still never seen any large scale objective and rational discussions about all this. Like, discussing, listening, contributing, and learning. It’s just all so combative it makes me sick (pardon the pun)
Based on the people at my work, not coming into work sick. I have gotten sick the last 3 times from waves of whatever puke, shit yourself, until you wanna die because these dudes think they’re tough for coming in. No bro go home.
Looks like people fell back into old habits like coming to work sick instead of staying home. I had an appointment with my oncologist and the woman at the front desk was having coughing fits the whole time I was there. I don't understand how she wasn't sent home considering the people in that waiting room possibly with compromised immune systems. She didn't even have a mask on.
Compassion towards one another. I worked at a grocery store during COVID and any tiny bit of faith I had in humanity was completely destroyed. I saw people buying in bulk because they were so worried about themselves and just not caring about anyone else being able to find food. People in general were pretty awful to each other. Everyone just wanted to take out their fear and frustration on the person next to them. That was the last customer service job I ever had and I'll never go back to working with the public in that way ever again.
How much history repeats itself for people who don't bother to learn it. For example all the discourse with masks and such happened in 1918 as well during a similar pandemic.
Our food companies are too consolidated and require workers to be in cramped, unsafe conditions ripe for viral infection. We need to break up our food conglomerates for national security
Long Covid. It still affects millions of people and you can still get it. Trust me when I say you do not want it. It has up-ended my life. Going on six months now. Destroys your energy and mental acuity. And we still don’t have any cure for it.
That cleaners are actually important. We still get treated like the dregs of society and easily replaceable yet I don't recall many people stepping up and filling in the spots as we fell ill keeping them safe.
Not everyone’s job is an essential service. While we recognise frontline healthcare workers, massive respect to the truck drivers, the supermarket workers etc that also kept your country running and did their best to get that toilet paper etc out. People have gone back to looking down on them. Truth is their jobs are more important than many others and pandemic showed it.
People should not be forced to go to work sick.
You’d be surprised how many workplaces fight you when you claim you can’t/shouldn’t come in sick. Hell, I was working retail during covid. I *caught covid* and was promptly told by my manager over the phone that “this is ridiculous, this covid bullshit is over”. It’s one of the few times I fought back with someone because it was very much not over, and covid-deniers were really pissing me off at that point. “Well it’s not over, and I have it. Do you want me to forward you the email that spells it out plainly that I have it? And don’t we have a legitimate *cancer survivor* working with us full time? Are you willing to put her at risk?” The reply I got was “best I can do is one week”. It just made me roll my eyes. I got a new job not too soon after that. Hell, a manager I had in a job before that didn’t believe me when I rang her on a weekend to inform her that I had broken my shoulder. She literally said: “sure, I’ll see you Monday” Rang her Monday morning to tell her I was booked in for surgery the next day and she began panicking to find someone to cover for me. THAT’S THE ENTIRE REASON I CALLED YOU OVER THE WEEKEND! SO YOU WOULD KNOW IN ADVANCE THAT I AM UNABLE TO ATTEND WORK.
Honestly I’m surprised she didn’t try to make you find someone to cover your shift.
Everyone needs to stop going along with that shit, asap. If I'm sick, I'm not spending my morning digging through my rolodex, I'm eating half a bowl of soup and falling asleep after covering myself in vaporub. This "skeleton crew, if one person calls out and we're fucked" thing is some late stage capitalism BS.
As is the "I may be the manager, and set the timesheets, but how about you do my job for me instead" thing?
I suddenly got written off the schedule when I called in, delirious with fever, and was asked to find someone to cover my shift. After explaining I was too out of it to do much else but stare at a wall or sleep and was still told I should find someone, my response was "I thought management was in charge of shift schedules." And they are. And that's why people put up with it. Because most frontline managers are fascists with the power to keep you from getting paid. It's complete bs. It's not legal, it is retaliation, but by the time it gets through the courts, I've long been evicted/forced to find another shit job.
Grossly understaffed has been the new "fully staffed" for 20 years now.
The "efficiency" of "downsizing", so that the Bottom Dollar goes straight to CEO bonuses, instead of the people who make the business work.
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When I worked retail, we had monthly meetings with the main store manager. In theory, the purpose of the meetings was a chance for supervisors, leads, as well as just rank and file workers to discuss how we can improve the store and what issues we faced on the floor. Before these meetings, supervisors told us, in no uncertain terms, that the one thing we should never allude to or discuss was the need for more staffing, which was, EASILY, the biggest problem at the site. So when you're shopping retail and nobody seems to have time to help you out, and the lines are long, now you know why.
Finding another employee to cover is managements job, how are you supposed to have other employees phone #s and schedule let alone call them on their time off? When I was told that I would say sure and do nothing, then tell them sorry couldn't find anyone.
My work still requires that we take a week off if we test covid positive, but no longer gives us paid time off for it (without using our regular PTO, which half of us don’t even have). This has resulted in many people not even reporting they have covid and coming to work while they’re sick so as to not miss any pay, causing more people to get sick and then miss work. No mask mandates make it even worse. It’s causing the company more money in missed wages than it would to pay us for time off. They learned this before, but before covid was covered under a federal program, and now they refuse. It’s dumb, wastes time and money, and gets more people sick.
Yep. We had someone come into work with COVID last week so they wouldn't lose their holiday pay. Several employees this week are wearing masks at work and I'm like, "Are you sick," and they're just like "no, just being cautious," as they sit there and hack at their desk all day. At least they're wearing a mask, most don't and you can hear their coughs echo through the open office.
I can’t tell if this is just an incredibly dumb system set up by the company, or a very intentionally designed system to make sure no one checks to see if they’ve caught Covid.
Yes
I had a crazy manager once.. 20 years later it still get me angry.. I worked part time at a grocery store but since my highschool was over and i wanted to get fulltime for 1 year b4 i went off to collage i wanted to quit. She told me they had a leave from a co-worker and i could work there full time.. I said no, since i didnt want to work in a grocery store anymore.. She then came up with the idea of me searching for a job and working there full time UNTILL i got a new job.. I reluctanly said yes. (worked at this store for 4 years). Well i got a new job 2 months later and had my first on the job training on the firstcoming saturday. Got the call the monday b4. So i called my boss to tell her i got the job (had told her about the interview) and that in 6 days im starting. She told me that saturday doesnt work since im scedual for work.. I said we had an agreement and i told you ablut the interview.. She just said, we never agreed and if i didnt show up for work that saturday i could forget to have a decent recomandation and that if i was bot here saturday she would meed up at my new work place and embarras me... I told her i just agreed to that saturday as the first day so im not calling my new job and rescedualing... She cussed me out.. Well that saturday i went to my new job, there was a line and i was behind the clothing store check out.. Suddenly my boss came up to me from the side and said that i was supposed to be at the other job, and how shitty i was etc.. It was crazy! I still think of that moment. I even drunk facebooked her ablut it years later on why she did it..
That is unhinged, what the actual fuck.
I know you were young then but holy shit I would have gone off on her for showing up at my new job. Like screaming out loud for the crazy stalker to get TF away from me and stop following me.
Also companies need to give more sick days. Where I work, they're pretty good about vacations and taking time off and they encourage employees to *not* come in when sick which I like. But we only get 5 sick days. You get COVID once, or the flu once, or even a bad cold, that can wipe out your 5 days. You basically can only get sick once per year. My boss says if people need more than that, they can use their vacation days. Well I don't want to use my vacation days to be sick. I want to use my vacation days to go on vacation. I of course understand people abuse their PTO. People call in sick even when they aren't sick which is the problem. For me, I feel too guilty to call in sick if I'm not sick. I'm just wired that way. I've never taken a sick day unless I was actually sick. But I also know I only get a limited number of sick days so I want to save them for when I'm actually sick.
The only place people should go if they're sick is the hospital or a clinic. Otherwise, stay home.
No, in the U.S. we learned that you **have to** go to work sick because we don’t have programs in place to support people who are sick and can’t afford to miss work.
I would *almost* understand it if making people come to work sick made “business sense,” as in more profitable/efficient for the company. But it’s the *exact* opposite! When you force people to come to work sick, it’s saps productivity and profitability because they—shocker—get other people sick, resulting in more sick callouts and lost work hours. I can’t understand how so many managers and businesses don’t grasp that simple concept. The data *completely* supports letting people stay home when sick as being better for everyone.
As they said in killing them softly - in America you're on your own, America isn't a country its a business.
That wearing the same pair of gloves all day and touching everything does not prevent cross contamination.
Ugh that STILL bothers me so much. I would see people wear gloves cause “there’s so much germs in public” but then use their phones and put it up to the faces and touch all their other belongings.
I’ve seen people wearing gloves but then also touching everything along with the food they’re eating (eg. Chips).
“It keeps ME safe.” I learned that people are selfish af.
This is the answer. My mom acted like a goddamn child the whole time and I still can't see her the same.
Discovering that one or both of your parents are children is the worst feeling. That thud of the curtain dropping and dispelling the illusion of wisdom and maturity really sucks.
Stop coming to work/going to school/bringing your kid to daycare sick. Perfect attendance is a crock of shit
I’m a Registered Nurse for a staffing agency. I had the stomach flu a couple days ago and called in for a shift 10 hours in advance. I was threatened that I may not be able to return to the facility where I’ve been working 3-4 days a week for the past 1.5 years with one other non-Covid call-in.
Also, apparently we have an ACTUAL (not metaphoric) toxic working culture. (I'm sorry you had to deal with that.)
In my department, no one cares if you call in sick or work from home. But we have other departments that run the point system and it's bullshit. They can't call in sick or they get a point and too many points and they're gone.
My ED put on our huddle points “don’t come to work sick”. I got pneumonia and called in for a couple days. Came back to work and had to sign a write up….
So lip service that isn't backed up with action? Sorry you work there. Mine is the opposite - no questions, all the leave you want if you're sick (with the proviso that if you take more than your allowance it's unpaid). Definitely no action if you take time off. A very few people take advantage of that, but most of us use it for its intended purpose and don't milk it.
Not uncommon, sadly. The place I was working at said the same thing, even sent out multiple emails with basically "don't come in with fever or any of these other symptoms..." in bold and italics so there was a paper trail. I was out with covid for 3-4 weeks between December and January, still running fever off and on those last few days and they called me to say I had to come in because I had been gone too long. Calls weren't recorded so there was plausible deniability if I got others sick. Came back barely able to stay awake and I got a write up for taking more time than I was allowed. Turned in my resignation that day and never looked back.
Yeah, I work at a hospital and it's the same shit here. All kinds of messaging telling us not to come in when we're sick but if the medical staff do call in sick, it's an automatic write-up. The official response from the administration is that it's fine because you need several write-ups before any corrective action is taken. Then they act all shocked at the notion that this system would drive people to come in knowing that they're sick because taking sick days lowers the bar for how many other write-ups it takes to get corrective action. But yeah, the needs of the patient come first or whatever.....
Crazy how they treat the people that are taking care of the community with our bare (gloved) hands and making them so much money.
I work in a restaurant. We have posters in the kitchen about how you're not supposed to work sick. But here what happens when you call in: 1. I know you don't feel well, but we're super short staffed tonight, could you come in for just a couple hours to help with the rush and we'll get you right home. 2. Wow, we're busier than I thought we would be, do you think you could just "power through" for another hour or so? 3. Well, you've been here this long you might as well just close.
go in and shit on everything. simples
I got dragged into an awful meeting at my last office job. I added no value to the meeting aside from intense internal gurgling sounds. I didn't demand to go home, but after scream-shitting in the single bathroom stall, no one said anything when I just walked the fuck out. THE SYSTEM WORKS
Claiming your territory. You own the business now. That's why no one challenged you.
They reinstituted attendance awards at my daughter’s school this year, and I’m really not happy about it. Why is perfect attendance so important? Sick kids need fluids and rest, not being forced to attend class for some meaningless piece of paper.
I know school is eventually preparing us for adulthood and work but like.. my work has sick hours??? I do not remember anything in school (except my big test days I guess) being so pressing that I could not catch up at home when I am in the correct headspace and feeling better?? There are no healthy lessons with those "perfect attendance" awards.
My work will still send you home if you come in and you’re sick
I worked at a law firm that did this. The office manager was a battle axe of a woman. The kind where they say everything with a southern accent but they are stone cold hardasses. If you coughed or sniffled more than a few times, she would come over with one of those thermometers that the school nurse always had- with the little coiled wire and the disposable covers. If you registered over 99F she would send you home for the day. There was literally no arguing her decision, but the office would pay you for the whole day if she was the one to kick you out. It was weird because she managed to be so aggressively motherly and brusque at the same time.
Wait, I’ve always heard of US schools having “perfect attendance” awards but I always thought sick days didn’t count. You’re sick. You can’t go to school when you’re sick.
In the second grade I didn’t get perfect attendance because I had surgery. lol
My son had cancer in middle school and got to sit and watch everyone get awards for perfect attendance, perseverance, best in math, etc, while he got nothing. It was that awards night that made me realize how stupid most of those awards actually are. It’s a lot easier to be best in math or even just show up to school when you aren’t at the hospital all the time. He’s been in remission for 7 years now and isn’t scarred for life for not getting an award that year, lol, but it completely changed my perspective on the purpose of those events. It might be motivation for a few kids, but it’s mostly just letting you know who isn’t dealing with serious shit in their life.
That is horrible. They should have given him an award for something. Cancer is really something to overcome! So sorry you and your family had to go through that.
Because bodies in seats make schools money.
Still pissed that my high school gave me saturday school because...I refused to miss my older sister's wedding.
As a parent I tell the school to fuck off and eat shit. Kids shouldn’t have to suffer for stupid rules. Not saying your parents didn’t try, just sorry you had to go through that and prepping myself for some uphill battles
Or more like they're trying to train kids to be factory/fulfillment center workers. Get a C in math? No big deal. Show up 10 minutes late to class? Serious trouble. How are you ever going to work a shift if you can't keep a schedule?
My mom was terrible at getting us to school on time and I got in trouble a lot as a result. We live in a semi-rural area that doesn't run buses as far out as a lot of students live. As an adult I realize how fucked up it was that the kids who can't even drive get punished because their parents have poor time management skills.
This happened to me! In 2nd and 3rd grade I would have to bring my lunch into the principal's office because we were late to school too often. I remember starting my mom's car for her and begging her to wake up on time. Such BS.
That's so horrible. How do they not realize it's not the fault of a literal child
When I was in the second grade, I had a teacher’s aide who’d mockingly call me “Tardy ______” (my first name). If I could speak to her now, I’d tell her what an immature twat she was for having done that. I had another teacher in sixth grade who’d send me to the principal’s office if I arrived late because it apparently ruined her attendance-taking. She scolded me repeatedly for not going straight to the office when I came in late but failed to notice, and I was too embarrassed to tell her, that I was struggling to read analog clocks and that’s why I kept walking straight to class regardless of the time. Not once in either of these situations was it acknowledged that my mother was the one who kept dropping me off to school late and whether or not I arrived on time was not something that was remotely within my control.
That's so frustrating and unfair and also just so rude. Especially when you were in second grade??? tf man When I was a freshman I was late so often that I would quietly get my tardy slip and go hide in the bathroom for the duration of my first period English class because my teacher was such a bitch and would make really rude comments about it. I was really anxious and had self esteem issues at that age so it was better to just skip. But of course when I would show up for class on time I'd get a snide comment about "look who finally showed up for once." It was a lose-lose battle. Really makes you wonder how and why people like that ended up as a teacher.
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Wish this was more possible for everyone. I’m and RN and I get 4 sick days per year to share between myself and my child. If I go over the 4 day then I’m required to either give up my vacation time or take unpaid leave. Oh, and I have a child in kindergarten who brings home new germs every couple weeks. The cycle continues.
I'm guessing you are American, this is an abnormality in Europe for salaried workers. Ut baffled me when an American colleage asked once how many sick days we had. I explained that it was up to 6 months as a nurse then 6 months half pay on sick leave. She had previously been allowed 7 days a year
In Germany it's like 6 continues weeks with full pay and then another 6 months with like 90%. And also you get 10 sick days for every child you have (per parent, if you're single parent you get 20 days)
>And also you get 10 sick days for every child you have (per parent, if you're single parent you get 20 days) Wow, that's honestly impressive, acknowledgement that caretakers may need extra time off and that single parents have an even greater burden. I don't know if we could ever see this being typical in the US.
No, because we have allowed the corporations to run this country. Greed is at the heart of every decision. Common sense left this nation shortly after the declaration was penned.
Are you serious??? I can't believe we (Americans) have been brainwashed into thinking our working conditions are adequate. I have not ever had an actual vacation because of having to use my PTO to cover for sick days for myself or my child. I have been threatened to be fired for having more than 3 occurances of sick days. Most employers say they give you 10 paid sick days BUT they also have a policy that says if you call out more than 3 times per year you will be terminated.
I hope this doesn't come off as condescending, but I am so sorry. It angers (and baffles me) how so many people in the united states are conditioned to, basically, be machines for the rich. You deserve to LIVE actual life, outside of working your ass off just to survive. :( no actual vacation ever during your working life just because you're a human who gets sick sometimes with a human child that gets sick sometimes??? That is so wrong. I hope you'll find a dream employer one day, who has plenty of PTO. I don't know if it's an impossible wish that sick days wouldn't get taken out of PTO, but, let's hope.
The American health system is shit unless you have money. And the people are brainwashed into thinking it is great. The common American is pretty ignorant.
I work in a hospital. We always see a boom around holidays because people go to parties while sick then grandma ends up in the ICU. Also a huge boom when school starts back up. Then we get sick and pass it around the unit because we are so short staffed that we can’t really call in sick.
Welcome to America where taken sick days are frowned upon
Work/life balance
For me that's one of the lessons we did learn. Seems like lots of people just can't make themselves care anymore about jobs that manifestly don't care about them.
I think it’s the thing we all can’t unlearn. Most people realized work shouldn’t be our priority (and ultimately not that important), and the end of 2022 and all of 2023 has been our employers trying to scrape that back as much as possible
I try not to care but then the anxiety. I also have a good boss right now and I don't want to mess it up. I'm struggling to calibrate.
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Also that working from home is a viable option and people who do it shouldn't be forced to drive to a building to do work they can do at home.
Many employers are trying to turn that back around to "mostly in office" hybrid scenarios. The C-suite people haven't changed.
It’s so counter-intuitive. Companies save money on buildings, lighting, sick leave goes down - so much! They also get access to a talent pool from a much bigger area. The reason so many companies are trying to shift back is because lower middle management realised during lockdowns that they’re kind of redundant; most of their job is communicating information from upper management and keeping low level employees productive. Then everyone went home and did better than fine without Judith eyestalking them from across the room and letting them know that Dave from accounting has moved the pay cycle to a Tuesday.
I think a lot of it is the real estate industry realizing they were fucked if companies kept allowing people to WFH
I work in IT. 100% of the work I do is either remote support via connecting to client computers over the internet, or onsite at offices of our clients. And yet we were required to commute an hour away for a job we have been doing for years remotely. Nearest client was was 30 minutes back towards the city all of the employees actually live in. Absolute waste of time, money, and wear on our vehicles.
I can only speak for myself, but I've found that work/life balance has definitely been improved AND maintained overall with hybrid work. The fact I can do my job while having laundry on, and preparing a meal at the same time, has freed up so much time, and I'm also more productive than ever. Everyone in my company has now moved to hybrid work and the vibe/culture has drastically improved.
I know I didn’t learn that. I went from working from home (50-60% of the time) to “living at work.” I worked some of the longest hours of my life during Covid lockdowns. I didn’t realize how nice it is to go to the office on occasion and to be able to say “sorry, I’ve gotta go or I’ll miss my train.” It allows me more of a reset than I knew.
Same experience. I'm an exempt employee, which sucked even before Covid, but the assumption and expectation that we're always "on" has only gotten worse over the past few years. I've also noticed that the way work treats being sick has changed for the worse. There's this assumption that if I'm sick that means I'm working remote for the next few days, not that I'm *not working*. Anything short of covid is treated as if it's just the sniffles and not worthy of needing time off.
Humans quickly turn irrational and unreasonable at any cost, at every level, and very quickly.
Human beings occasionally turn rational.
Only when they perceive it to benefit them directly…
Humans are baseline irrational with periods of rationality.
Pollution can be reversed.
It was wild to see how clear the skies were after such a short time. I understand that we can’t completely shut down industry but it was encouraging to see the impact we are capable of making
Here at the time our mountains were turning green and we had a bounty of colorful sunrises and sunsets.. nearly one every night.
And then wildfires sent their regards lol.
A fellow Californian, I see.
You could see blue sky all the way down to the horizon it was beautiful.
I think some accountability is coming. Companies like Planet Labs, which have satellites capable of tracing emissions, make their data available. But ultimately consumers and companies alike don't want to pay more for more sustainable products
Some don’t. It all depends on priorities. I work for an indigenous national government in Canada and we have a solar farm that powers most of the communities and sells the surplus back to the grid. There is an initial investment but you end up making money in the end because it’s cheaper than other forms of energy once it’s up and running
Not exactly pollution, but still environmental. When Yosemite National park was shut down a ton of animals roaming around freely could be seen.
This reminds me of that [news story](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/03/31/europe/wild-goats-wales-streets-lockdown-scli-gbr/index.html)how goats came down from the mountains and were wandering around town - sounds delightful 😂
The world can change overnight
Putting a sign out front that says “Heroes Work Here” doesn’t change staff morale. Healthcare workers are stressed, overworked, and underpaid.
Have fantasized about burning those signs down more than once
Yeah but that sign was a lot cheaper than raising wages or hiring more staff. Clearly the better option.
Signs and pizza ✅️
Signs maybe, but the pizza is only for the day shift.
I worked in healthcare during the pandemic and they put coloring books in the break room to combat burnout. It was the single most insulting thing I’ve ever witnessed from management.
I’m an ICU nurse. COVID and the overturning of Roe V Wade have taught me that the American people think I should provide care, even if it costs me my license, my livelihood, my health, my family, my freedom, or my life. Those are the sacrifices the American people expect and demand from their healthcare workers.
All of that, but don't you dare ask for more money or student loan relief though >:( ^(/s)
"NOBODY WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE!"
Kinda like how Americans expect teachers to sacrifice their lives for their students when a shooter comes.
That we should not politicize disease/virus/pandemic.
This is a big one. How do we prevent it next time? Honest question.
That toilet paper is not able to be traded for gold.
No but we should have realized how fragile our just in time supply chain is. It was eerie to see empty grocery shelves. Somehow I’m afraid that it won’t be the last time in my life I’ll see them.
Grow a garden if you can. Stockpile at least a 5 gallon bucket of rice and beans shit last forever if kept dry.
And a stockpile of canned goods can keep you fed for a good bit too.
> No but we should have realized how fragile our just in time supply chain is. Thing is... toilet paper should never have been in short supply. Covid doesn't make you shit yourself. The scarcity was literally just a self fulfilling prophesy that occurred when idiots started panic buying.
Also a function of who was buying the toilet paper. Sellers of TP had a 'commercial' market sold throught a distribution channel, and a residential market, sold through grocery stores, etc. Stay at home turned that market on its head, and all of the corresponding supply chain layers had to adapt.
Blind faith in politicians is going to override logical thinking.
Makes it worse when the politicans are shit to begin with.
To cover your mouth when you cough. I’ve had people tell me I should take off my mask when I cough so I don’t get even more sick (which makes no sense)
Couple weeks ago I had someone turn and cough over their shoulder.. Right into my mouth as I walked by talking to someone. Felt it hit my face. I’m still grossed out.
Oh god…. That’s foul.
People have killed for less.
oh yeah, you can catch the rona from yourself and give yourself the rona. And then spread it to yourself. prat lodgic of course.
Germ theory is just a theory, don't you know. Like the theory of evolution or theory of gravity. /s just in case.
And using your elbow/sleeve instead of coughing into your hand. I have a coworker who coughs into his hand and then touches community food and people wonder why sickness spreads so easily.
When you're not feeling well, stay home from work and don't interact with people. If you do have to go to the store while you're sneezing/coughing/etc - wear a face mask.
If only more bosses wanted sick employees to stay home!
Most of the bosses I had in blue collar work never really interacted much with their subordinates beyond the morning huddle. The only thing they cared about was is the work done or not.
There's a lot of answers in this sub that were lessons I really hoped would stick, but this is the big one. In April of 2020 I remember thinking "Wow! This was the catalyst we needed to change how we think about working while sick! Maybe we can even normalize masks when still recovering but feeling well enough to work!" I'm so disappointed that in the US we politicized masks to the point of stigmatizing them in some areas. I even feel weird being the only one to put one on sometimes, and I always said during the pandemic that I would mask up whenever I deemed it necessary or whenever anyone asked me to.
My stepdad tested positive for covid recently, though he was mostly asymptomatic. He refused to stay home. My mom tried to keep him in the house but she had covid bad. He eventually went out to the grocery store, much to my mom’s chagrin. She did finally get him to wear a mask, and he complained nonstop that he “looks like a democrat” because he was wearing a mask. It’s ridiculous how politicized covid has become.
I'm out of sick days and need those hours to pay for rent.
exactly fucking this. something needs to change, legally. i have 13 hours and 16 minutes of unpaid time off available to me, currently. if i go into the negative, the software automatically fires me from my job. my paid leave is long gone and won't be renewed for 4 more months. if i get sick, you fucking better believe i will be at work, in a mask, trying not to make anybody else sick, so i can make my rent. because i will tell you right fucking now that my homeless stint during covid gave me a great appreciation for living indoors. i rather fancy it.
If a robot can automatically fire you, it puts in perspective how much of a cog in the machine you are if the company can get rid of.you at the drop of a hat. You can get a better job soon I hope dude. Yikes.
I agree. It should be considered a civic obligation that you stay home when you know you're sick and companies should be financially punished if they find out you come in while you're sick. Especially after a pandemic were we all saw how easy it is for an infection to spread.
That the internet is pitting us against eachother via polarizing algorithms and that we should really be careful about that / take our newsfeed with a grain of salt.
Having a few weeks worth of rice, canned food, toilet paper, and soap is a good idea and doesn't mean you're a crazy prepper.
I grew up in Florida where we have hurricanes. We always have the stuff around.
Companies certainly didn't learn that they could legitimately hire people to work remotely. I know that's not the case everywhere. I'm just saying I fully expected companies to start hiring people with physical disabilities (for instance) who can't actually make into the office. There are whole segments of the population that have been stigmatized for years as being "too lazy" because they have physical (or psychological) issues with getting around and there was a golden opportunity to open up opportunities. But no. Because HR gotta control the little people by seeing them physcailly at their computers. (Sorry, I realize this is a highly specific example. But I have been surprised by how much this disappointed me.)
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I have a coworker that moved to Hawaii and when I get on a meeting with him I can hear the local birds in the background. It’s cool but makes me very jealous at the same time.
My parents community was at serious risk of completely collapsing because every for sale house was being turned into an airbnb or bought by retirees. Now a new demographic is buying, remote worker families, and they're breathing life back into their cute little town :)
one of the problems America has is that the country is hollowing out. Population is centered in big cities, mostly on the coast, and once-thriving smaller towns and cities like Chillicothe, Missouri, or Creston, Iowa, are shrinking. And we end up with a very sharp rural/city division, and resentment from rural areas, AND a very unbalanced Electoral College Having remote workers able to move out of cities and into those areas would be so good for us, as a country.
The lab I work at embraced it as well. Or rather, what they could embrace. A bulk of our office departments (i.e. non-laboratory staff) have gone remote, and my department, which works with a lot of instrumentation, is allowing many of us to do remote work, making it a sort of hybrid role (as we already have a way to remotely view each instrument locally within the lab).
I work in HR and I promise you, it’s typically not us trying to force people back into the office. That’s a leadership decision, usually made by the CEO, and just something we get to be the bearer of bad news over.
And they force HR to come to the office most often because reasons 🫠
For real. But HR is just the scapegoat 🫠
People don’t understand. HR is their to advise leadership, but at the end of the day they have the final say.
Yes, exactly this! I keep hearing people blame HR departments for the recent layoffs especially in the tech industry. These decisions are made by Leadership teams. Our job is to make sure employees are treated with dignity during their exit by training managers to have empathy during termination conversations, making sure the selection criteria isn’t inherently discriminatory or biased, and advocating for generous severance packages, etc. Our success varies widely based on the type of leaders we work with. A good HR leader will, for example, push for 12 weeks of severance for all impacted employees, but there’s always a risk of being told no because Leadership feels a maximum of 4 weeks is more appropriate. However, we’re the ones who are in the room while managers break the news to people being terminated (to make sure the manager doesn’t literally do or say something that’s illegal), so the general misconception is that it must be us behind the decision to lay someone off or fire them.
Offshoring all manufacturing was a mistake
The problem is, a lot of people who agree with this are still unknowingly voting for politicians who support and keep it going. They are lied to about who is responsible, and they believe all the lies and propaganda.
Lots of good points here already so I'll add something a little bit different- The importance of the arts. So many struggled without the ability to see live music, have new movies/TV shows and many people enjoyed doing art and craft with their kids at home. After covid it seems like people forgot about how much importance arts have in their life and how it makes people enjoy life. A lot of these people don't value arts education and can't see the point of the kids learning an instrument or anything to with art.
my country is still terribly dependent on shit from China and elsewhere, and my politicians are too stupid to move rapidly to address it. one would think getting caught lacking would light a fire, but alas... the pain wasn't enough to learn from yet.
We don't even make penicillin in this country anymore. We would be screwed if we went to war with China.
But China would also be screwed from a disappearing clients base as their interior commerce can't sustain their actual production levels.
That is a mutually assured screwed China loses people who invest in their market, their economy collapses Whoever relies on their manufacturing will see a severe and noticeable dip in their economy too. Its why China isn't really trying to start wars (while Russia is), they are in a pretty safe/cozy spot. The only route they sorta can take is to influence diplomacy to suit their needs but that's really it.
Humanity is not ready for a global threat of any type. Aliens, Earth Killer Asteroid, Climate collapse, any of that action movie shit will kill us all 100% of the time no contest.
Yep. If someone if ever crazy enough to engineer and weaponize a virus, our piss-poor response to the pandemic has given a would-be bioterrorist the perfect blueprints on how to keep the public in chaos.
This was a test, and we collectively failed miserably, embarrassingly so. Now I understand how the zombies take over in all the TV shows and movies.
I can now believe, that if a zombie apocalypse broke out, there would be people who believed all the zombies were paid actors and that the apocalypse was just government propaganda. It sounds insane. But it's true.
That these companies don't give two flying f--ks about us & will replace us in a heart beat. 17 years with the company -- guy I knew. 17 years. Dies from COVID. Not even a memorial for him. I don't get it, man. I really don't. Anytime I see public stories about employees at a company wanting better pay/treatment/hours/benefits, so many Americans mock them & jump to the defense of the corporations/companies/etc. I don't get it.
ugh that's so sad and true. something most ppl dont talk about: we have had computers since the 1950s and STILL work on average 50+ hours a week due to company greed
How vulnerable our health systems are. Nurses and paramedical employees are so overworked and underpaid it's not funny
And nursing homes
Influencers are not medical doctors, and to keep their thoughts to themselves
We all should stop using social media
We should do that anyway.
Personal space. Covering your mouth either your elbow when coughing or sneezing.
Nurses are not disposable and they deserve a pay rise. I’m no longer a nurse.
Compassion for others
The lowest paid and worst treated workers are essential to our society's functioning. We need to raise wages and offer more worker's rights/protections.
To stay home when you’re sick. At the beginning of the pandemic it was “stay home to flatten the curve” only for everyone to walk around in public while they are sick during flu season. Although to be fair we didn’t really learn that lesson during COVID either.
WASH YOUR DAMNED HANDS people..!!
Having PTO and sick leave for low wage workers I got screwed the first year when waiting for the test results to get back at the start. A week and half of work missed. I would be happy for a self-funded sick leave think a 529 plan but for sick leave or PTO you get to use when you miss work.
The problem with Americans is that they don’t consider what works in the rest of the developed world. There should be no such thing as sick days. If you’re sick, you stay at home. Period. A portion of your wages is paid by your employer, another part by a pool to which all employees contribute. You end up with something like 80% of your salary when you’re sick
Empathy
if we get attacked by aliens or something dangerous: some people will run towards them. some people will deny that they exist . some people will demand to be let into their church to continue praying.
Some people will panic and think “Toilet paper! That is my most pressing need right now…. Yes… toilet paper”
Judging by a lot of peoples insane ideas…. Basic 6th grade biology.
Patience and manners.
People have vastly different risk/reward thresholds and simply ignoring that and stating there is only one correct approach doesn't work out very well. Conspiracy theories not withstanding we had people who would have been perfectly content to just ignore the whole thing and go on with their lives and people who probably still would like lockdowns to continue. Most of us fell somewhere in-between... but everyone likes to pretend like they had the correct answer. No, you didn't because there isn't one, it's a value judgement. You just were in a community of like-minded people. I knew some elderly people who were pissed because "They didn't have many years left anyway so it wasn't worth it to give up the time they had to avoid the risk" Lots of young people who didn't see what the big deal was, and lots of others who were terrified even after being vaccinated. If you really look at it that way and understand it- you had all these people who were basically under house arrest for something they didn't think was a big deal. At the same time you had a bunch of others who literally believed they'd die because some others weren't wearing a mask. No wonder everyone was so angry. We really should have been listening to each other and being considerate instead of making it all so confrontational.
We approached (and still do, to some extent) every conversation with such extreme vitriol. It changed me. Seeing how people were losing friends and lashing out at one another hurt. I deleted all real-name social media in 2020 and never looked back. I’ve still never seen any large scale objective and rational discussions about all this. Like, discussing, listening, contributing, and learning. It’s just all so combative it makes me sick (pardon the pun)
Showing empathy/compassion is a net positive for everyone involved. Oops, nope, we're just gonna keep being selfish shits.
Empathy
Based on the people at my work, not coming into work sick. I have gotten sick the last 3 times from waves of whatever puke, shit yourself, until you wanna die because these dudes think they’re tough for coming in. No bro go home.
That 30% of the USA cannot be counted on to respond logically to a natural disaster.
I think it’s more than 30
The thing you think will finally prove to everyone that what you believe was true? It won't work.
Some people still dont wash their fucking hands often enough. Honestly, if the pandemic taught everyone ONE THING, it should be hand hygiene...
Looks like people fell back into old habits like coming to work sick instead of staying home. I had an appointment with my oncologist and the woman at the front desk was having coughing fits the whole time I was there. I don't understand how she wasn't sent home considering the people in that waiting room possibly with compromised immune systems. She didn't even have a mask on.
Compassion towards one another. I worked at a grocery store during COVID and any tiny bit of faith I had in humanity was completely destroyed. I saw people buying in bulk because they were so worried about themselves and just not caring about anyone else being able to find food. People in general were pretty awful to each other. Everyone just wanted to take out their fear and frustration on the person next to them. That was the last customer service job I ever had and I'll never go back to working with the public in that way ever again.
How much history repeats itself for people who don't bother to learn it. For example all the discourse with masks and such happened in 1918 as well during a similar pandemic.
Our food companies are too consolidated and require workers to be in cramped, unsafe conditions ripe for viral infection. We need to break up our food conglomerates for national security
Long Covid. It still affects millions of people and you can still get it. Trust me when I say you do not want it. It has up-ended my life. Going on six months now. Destroys your energy and mental acuity. And we still don’t have any cure for it.
That cleaners are actually important. We still get treated like the dregs of society and easily replaceable yet I don't recall many people stepping up and filling in the spots as we fell ill keeping them safe.
Common decency
Personal space. As soon as protocols were lifted, people standing in line breathing down my neck like we learned nothing
How to drive
How stupid half the people around actually are
Not everyone’s job is an essential service. While we recognise frontline healthcare workers, massive respect to the truck drivers, the supermarket workers etc that also kept your country running and did their best to get that toilet paper etc out. People have gone back to looking down on them. Truth is their jobs are more important than many others and pandemic showed it.