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Approaching my 40th birthday, I’ve basically learned over all these years that what I thought was my carefully cultivated personality is actually just seven pathologies in a trenchcoat. A couple of those pathologies are complex diagnoses¹ that basically just mean I have the immune system of a Victorian child who needs to live by the seaside. In other words, I get sick often. I’m sick right now. I’m writing this ON Thursday from my bed, where I have been bound since last Friday with a checks notes common cold. It’s like, not great, if you were curious.

Yeah, I get sick a lot. None of my fun diagnoses really came into focus until 2021 and beyond, but for my whole life, I’ve gotten sick really easily. And when I get sick, even with a silly lil cold, I’m sick for a lot longer than other people. And that means I’ve had the great joy of learning how to be patient with rude and astute observations like, “Wow, you’re STILL sick?” (I am) and “Man, you sure get sick a LOT,” (ace reporting, how can I subscribe to get more). I also get to be the sore thumb sticking out being extra cautious about my immune system: I still mask on trains, planes, and automobiles (Ubers, not my own car, silly), airports, elevators, waiting rooms and lobbies, and when viruses are on the rise, even retail shops or live theatre or performances. I’m that person who will quarantine myself and my husband for a week before a trip or big event so there is no chance I’ll be sick for it.² I’m fortunate that I have been able to work from home for the last 11 years, so I can definitely avoid the plague where possible.

But thinking this week about how fortunate I am that I can work from home & take time off when I’m sick got me thinking about how ENRAGED I would get when I was still working in offices as an early adult and people would come in to work–that place with all those other people working beside you–sick. (Keep in mind that this was pre-pandemic Danielle, this was pre-confirmed-terrible-immune-system Danielle, this was pre-thinking-outside-my-own-existence Danielle, who had only really ever worked in offices.)

When I was 21 and a regional director for an operation that had about 30 on-site employees, I sent people home if they showed up sick, and I was INDIGNANT about it. First, I was the regional director AND I knew I would absolutely catch whatever it was, and the business could not afford to have me out sick for a week plus. But also, sick employees pass it on to other employees…so now I’ve got, what? An office slowly spreading germs to one another and working at ¼-strength for like, three weeks? In an office with a rigid sales quota, that was NOT a good thing.

Later on in my 20s, working in a different office, it would drive me nuts that the parents in the office would frequently come to work sick from whatever their kids passed to them. I’m not an idiot, I DID understand this: When we all have the same amount of PTO and parents with kids have their vacations meticulously planned a year in advance, they don’t want to sacrifice PTO for sick days, especially with as often as kids get sick and pass it on. At the same time, people without kids…also deserve to have PTO that isn’t sacrificed for sick days. And people with compromised immune systems (again, I didn’t realize this was me yet) ALSO deserve to exist and not be sick all the time and not spend all their PTO on sick days. It’s a real shit situation for people to be stuck in, and what ends up typically happening is sick people come to work sick, then spread it to others, who come to work sick, and then you just pass it around the office for a few weeks³ and everyone hates their lives.

Present-Day Danielle understands that this isn’t just an individual problem. There are a few problems in play with this scenario, and one is the most prominent: The state of paid sick leave in the United States is, itself, fucking sick. As of this year, only 17 states (+Washington DC) have mandatory paid sick leave policies, and another 3 have mandatory “time off for any reason” policies. That’s not even HALF of the US demanding that employers pay employees who need to stay home and NOT spread germs. This is to say nothing of all the exemptions across even these 20 states that allow for small businesses under a certain threshold of employees to NOT pay sick leave (even though small businesses stand to lose even more with sick employees at lower productivity rates and potentially passing it on to EVERYONE IN YOUR SMALL BUSINESS.)

We know how illness works. We know how germs spread. In researching this piece, I was absolutely undone by how little has been done to improve working conditions (and let’s be honest, worker SAFETY for many) in this way after we saw an entire year-plus of body bags being loaded into refrigerated trucks and mass graves being dug for all the fatalities of COVID-19. I know that some states and too many people behaved as if the pandemic was not real or not an issue for them; my mother’s husband worked in an office that insisted–in 2020–that people keep coming into work EVEN AFTER TESTING POSITIVE for COVID-19 unless they were showing symptoms. 

The biggest problem is that too many American citizens are forced into a shit situation where they must come to work sick because they work for companies with no paid sick leave policies, where they will lose wages they can’t afford to lose or even their whole-ass job if they call out. Many employers will give the sick leave but require a doctor’s note, even though they don’t offer insurance, so the choice is not exactly a cost-effective one for the employee to do a really expensive verification appointment.

The part that I can’t quite wrap my head around is how many employers do not understand the business impacts of “presenteeism”, or making employees come to work when sick. One study shows that one sick worker will contaminate 50% of common working areas within just a few hours. Sick employees continuing to work while sick will be 30%+ less productive than they are on a normal, healthy day, and employees who work in a culture where you’re expected to show up to work sick have lowered productivity over time and are more likely to be unhappy in their roles and eventually leave. Research finds that people showing up to work sick costs businesses up to $150B in business impacts ANNUALLY, which is more than 10X the impacts if businesses simply let people stay home and heal when they are sick. 

Even 21-year-old-Mostly-Idiot-Danielle understood this REALLY basic math: One person being out for 2-3 days is FAR less of an interruption to the business than a virus making its way through your entire staff, with 2-3 people at a time working at ¼ or even ⅔-strength for 3-4 weeks. I hate being so cynical about this because I think it’s really a HUMAN issue, but also, if that’s what gets people to change their minds: IT IS COSTING YOUR BUSINESS MONEY.

While the biggest issue, by far, is that the majority of Americans don’t work under formal mandatory sick leave policies, I’ve also noticed another issue that feels uniquely American, which is a weird and pervasive attitude that coming to work while sick somehow makes someone stronger? More virtuous? Than others? It feels uniquely American in this way where we’re told that working ourselves to death IS virtue; it reminds me too much of the delusional pride I used to have in seeing how many days I could go without a day off (I still hate myself for that record). The idea is, “Me come to work with cold. Me strong. You take time off with cold. You weak little bitch.” 

We…do realize how insufferably fucking stupid that sounds, right? Like thinking you’re tougher than the sun. Or car accidents.⁴

I get it. It SUCKS to be stuck at home sick (living it right now, fr fr). AND ALSO: Is it really that cool to pass your crud onto others and make the question of staying at home THEIR problem? What if they have a big work presentation coming up? A vacation they’ve been saving for? They’re visiting their grandmother in a nursing home or a new baby who can’t be vaccinated yet? Or like, they just have a regular-ass weekend coming up that they’d like to NOT be stuck in bed for? And again, this doesn’t even scratch the surface on the conversation that needs to be had about our society’s casually ableist attitude that we simply do not need to consider people who have medical conditions…that’s their own problem, not ours (see: issue #10, what do we owe each other?)

We need to care more about spreading our germs. We also need to give more of a shit about our own healing process. Not all of us have the privilege of paid sick leave or being able to stay home, so first of all, consider that if you DO have that privilege, you should avoid being an asshole and potentially passing it on to someone who DOES NOT. 

If you don’t have that privilege, and you gotta go to work anyway, please take care of yourself and others: Mask up. Wear the mask any time you’re around people. Don’t lift your mask to cough or sneeze. Don’t cough or sneeze on your hands. Wash your hands more than regularly. Politely decline handshakes. Dream scenario: Tell people it’s okay to keep their distance from you while you’re sick. (For some reason, it’s normal to feel like trying to keep our distance from visibly sick people is rude, so it’s awesome when sick people call that out and tell you that it’s okay to PROTECT YOURSELF.)

If you DO have the privilege of taking paid sick time or telecommuting, please. do. that. thing. And if you’re gonna go out of your house, take all the same necessary precautions so you’re not spreading your shit to everyone else. YES, people need to be responsible for their own health. AND we live in relation to one another - we can’t get away from the fact that our actions impact others, especially with something like contagious illness. 

And yknow, if you feel like it, send me chicken soup for my soul. Or my immune system.

¹complex immune system, complex PTSD, complex opinions newsletter, the universe came up short on simplicity when making me

²i literally had to reschedule an all-day tattoo appointment i’ve been waiting months for bc i got sick THE DAY IT WAS SCHEDULED AND I’M SO MAD thinking about how i messed up by checks notes going out to dinner two nights prior

³and sometimes it ends up back where it started, but now it’s mutated and different, so that person gets it again so fun

⁴there are, unfortunately, a lot of americans who think they are so tough they do not need seatbelts. sure jan

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