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Comment by moftz | Hacker News Reader

I remember it not being a huge deal to have a bunch of people at work come with flu-like symptoms. "It's just something going around." Work gave out flu shots every year but that isn't 100%. It wasn't even considered much of a faux pas to show up to work feeling a little ill. Now, showing up to work with flu-like symptoms could put you in the hot seat with HR. Having a bunch of people fall ill in the office now results in it being closed for the day for cleaning. It won't stay this way forever but it's going to be a while until most people go back to being lax on contagious diseases. Imagine companies forcing employees and schools forcing students to mask up during flu season.

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I really, really hope that "coming to work sick" is considered bad form from now on, or even outright against policy.

It's always been dumb: at best they're just getting more people sick (some of whom will need to take time off, negating any supposed benefit of the sick person not just staying home in the first place), and at worst it's spreading a flu that eventually results in someone dying.

On top of that, a massive number of companies have just proven remote work is possible, even during entirely non-ideal conditions (lockdowns, virtual school, high stress, etc).

One time I was really sick at an airport McDonalds. Fever, sneezing, the whole thing. But you're in an airport, and you have to eat something.

I had to explain almost pedantically why they should allow me to order verbally instead of using their touchscreens, for the safety of the other customers.

I think today, they'd have a protocol to accommodate people who are obviously sick so they don't have to touch anything. In fact, they probably don't even let healthy people use touch screens, if I had to guess.

You didn’t think of just washing your hands and maybe using a knuckle to touch the screen instead of going HN pedant on the $7/hr worker?

Besides, I would think shooting mucus debris in their direction by talking is worse than using a cleaned knuckle on a screen far away from them.

So, in your expert medical opinion, given years after the fact without any understanding of the illness in question... You think that your advice that "you should just have washed your hands" is such amazing advice that you think it's worth writing here?

What are you hoping to gain? And even if you were right, as I said, I had a high fever. It's not like I was thinking clearly. Are you trying to feel morally superior to someone who was in gravely ill?

Every fall, winter and spring, I was able to watch as colds and the flu spread around indoors. People would be chastised for staying home with "the sniffles", too.

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