Reasons to work from home
wfh.ninja
wfh.ninja
If you need a day off, take a day off. If you need to work from home, and it doesn't hurt the team, work from home. If you need excuses to not come in, you are in the wrong job, and that's a total bummer, because you could be doing something you enjoy that has an impact you care about.
Not doing what you really want to in life is a recipe for frustration.
I need to concentrate and can get work done without the distractions
The reason I said this wouldn't fly is that it's very much like a "because I want to" type of answer. It's almost certainly true, but it's not that much better than me telling my boss that I want to WFH so I don't have to answer my desk phone. I will get more things of value done, but it's also my job to answer the phone when it rings.
Personally, I don't need excuses, I work from home whenever. It does seem that it is a rare place that treat's its emplpoyees as adults though.
Does your employer not treat its employees as adults? Shouldn't adults be able to be honest about how many sick days they need, without tracking?
Forcing a sick day because I woke up with a headache and a sore throat that could be nothing is not going to endear the company to an employee, on the otherhand that same situation that turns out to be something but I have to come in because I'm not sick yet is prettyshitty to everyone else you come in contact with. In both cases, working from home is the safe course of action.
Now, where I work, that option is fully supported. I, and basically every full time employee, has a vpn and a ip phone. There is nothing about my job that requires physical presence in the office on a normal day, and with the team spread out accross the US anyway, my being in the office or remote really are the same thing as far as everyone else is concerned. I can work from home (doing it right now) simply because I felt like it that day.
> Shouldn't adults be able to be honest about how many sick days they need
Yep, but I'm talking about when you're not sick, but you feel like you might be coming down with something, or you're feeling like you're over it but we all know you're probably still infectious. A fully supported working from home environment allows you to be far more conciderate to those you work with. Hell you can also get more rest, since that appears to be what many are hung up on, because you no longer have a commute those days, but still get stuff done because you don't feel like you're dying.
Should they? Yes.
However, by your definition the vast, vast majority of employers do not treat their employees like adults. Even those in this industry, which seems to be the only one to adopt "take as you need" sick and vacation time in any significant way.
This is mostly a reaction to the incredulity I (perhaps mis-)read in your statement.
But if I felt contagious-but-not-really-impaired, just sneezing or whatnot, I don't see any reason personally why sitting (at home) at a computer and watching Netflix is going to help me recover faster than sitting (at home) at a computer and working.
Also, possibly save your coworkers from the infection. I'd rather have my coworkers take a WFH than come in if they feel low.
Cold and flu kill old people. By going into work you are spreading disease to your co-workers, who then spread it to their family, who then risk death because you didn't want to work from home.
But yes, I have great distaste for people who could work from home while sick and instead ruin the productivity of the entire office for what can be months afterward.
How is it better than just working from home?
"There's a production incident, we need you to come in."
That's the usual reason for me having to go to the office.
What's more interesting is that the reasons to work from home are isolated from productivity.
I suppose this is downvoted because it doesn't apply to most people but the quoteId (I assume is sequential) indicates that this person understands my suffering.
Also, the number of times 'locked in my own bathroom' and 'locked inside my own house' come up is startling! Whats life like for those people :S