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Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#91

Post by logfromblammo »

zebraflask wrote: post #71
geff82 wrote: post #23

Just a personal observation: when I first moved into a giant-open plan office in 2015 in a big German company, I got significantly more sick. It was horror. Also, bathrooms were unusually crowded, probably helping spread diseases. Since then, it seems my body got a bit used to it and I am sick less often. But is is still more than the times before. What might also increase days that people are not there: at least in…

This fits with my experience. My department has some cubicle farms and some shared but much more private office suites. The cube farm people are always getting sick. Somebody comes in with a cough and promptly spreads it. It then can take weeks before there's a week without somebody sick. Getting people to stay home when they are sick has been harder to implement than you'd think. I've tried with my work team. A numb…

Ever since companies ditched vacation and sick leave in favor of combined PTO, I work while sick. When I had sick leave, I used it.

It may well be that they don't want to cut their July vacation short by a day because they caught a cold in January. And to compound the issue, it was probably a cold they caught at work, because the company leave policy reinforces the behavior. People who stay home when sick are punished with shorter vacations.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#92

Post by chelseafan »

falsedan wrote: post #88
pavel_lishin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time it's occurred to me that other people cannot control their sneezes. I've had the occasional "where the hell did that come from?" sneeze, but they're a rare exception, maybe a few times a year. I cannot fathom not being able to control something like a sneeze; to me, it would feel like not being able to control farting, coughing or talking.

> like not being able to control farting, coughing or talking Did you know? Plenty of people cannot control these actions 100%. Please don't assume others are like you.

Yeah, some people apparently cannot, in fact, shut the fuck up and be polite. Guess it's just a personality quirk!

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#93

Post by debaserab2 »

louprado wrote: post #79

PSA of the day: With practice you can learn to delay your sneeze by a second or two. That gives you time exhale all the air from your lungs so the sneeze has minimal power[1]. Tilt your head down too and with further practice you can learn to open your throat in order to minimize air velocity. [1] Source: me, a former obnoxiously loud sneezer that always dismissed it as an unavoidable and comical physiological quirk…

Counter PSA: Did you know that your body is sneezing for a reason and taking all the air out of it may be counter productive and actually lead to more sneezing?

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#94

Post by peacequiet99 »

falsedan wrote: post #88
pavel_lishin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time it's occurred to me that other people cannot control their sneezes. I've had the occasional "where the hell did that come from?" sneeze, but they're a rare exception, maybe a few times a year. I cannot fathom not being able to control something like a sneeze; to me, it would feel like not being able to control farting, coughing or talking.

> like not being able to control farting, coughing or talking Did you know? Plenty of people cannot control these actions 100%. Please don't assume others are like you.

Yeah, I guess not being able to shut the fuck up and be polite is just a personality quirk.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#95

Post by logfromblammo »

moron4hire wrote: post #69
kwhitefoot wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is PTO?

A bastardization of leave policies that lumps pleasure and rest time in with convalescence such that people new to an office often don't get to take real vacations after having spent all of their PTO on gaining immunity to a new germ pool.

Vacation leave and sick leave are mentioned in law, and companies are required to keep funds in reserve to pay for those balances. PTO was invented to stop people from using sick leave when they weren't sick, and to avoid having to keep the cash liability for leave balances on the books.

Usually, the combination results in fewer days of available leave, and since vacations are often planned months in advance, people are forced to come in to the office while sick or spoil their entire vacation by screwing up the itinerary.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#96

Post by thomnottom »

peacequiet99 wrote: post #94
falsedan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like not being able to control farting, coughing or talking Did you know? Plenty of people cannot control these actions 100%. Please don't assume others are like you.

Yeah, I guess not being able to shut the fuck up and be polite is just a personality quirk.

Are you honestly suggesting that not being able to control semi-autonomous bodily functions is a matter of personality traits?

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#97

Post by louprado »

debaserab2 wrote: post #93
louprado wrote: post #79

PSA of the day: With practice you can learn to delay your sneeze by a second or two. That gives you time exhale all the air from your lungs so the sneeze has minimal power[1]. Tilt your head down too and with further practice you can learn to open your throat in order to minimize air velocity. [1] Source: me, a former obnoxiously loud sneezer that always dismissed it as an unavoidable and comical physiological quirk…

Counter PSA: Did you know that your body is sneezing for a reason and taking all the air out of it may be counter productive and actually lead to more sneezing?

Unless I inhaled pepper that never happens. I've watched others learn this technique too even large men. It can take years of practice though, just like learning any good habit/manner.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#98

Post by barkingtoad »

AlanSE wrote: post #58
brightfog wrote: post #41

I don't think it's about open-offices or not: Work environments just don't reflect work anymore. There isn't any rational reason for knowledge workers to go to an office every day. Socializing and building a cult around a company might be the only reasons. But IDK if these are enough to justify an office. There must be another solution we aren't aware of yet.

I don't think you can really undersell the cult-building aspect, in addition to the psychological factors, which are heavily intertwined. Co-working spaces have actually been rather successful in outsourcing these factors - both the cultism and the necessity for human interaction. Not every company needs its own brand of Kool-aid, especially when the cultural attraction of many tech companies is indistinguishable fro…

corporate told us to call it TEAM-building.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#99

Post by jamestenglish »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #48
fizgig wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a big part of it. I currently have 15 PTO days per year, which includes sick leave. If I'm feeling off, I'll ask if I can work from home, which I always get denied (which is odd, since I do after-hours maintenance and on-call incidents remotely). So rather than piss away PTO, I dose up on drugs and drag my ass to the office. If I had dedicated sick leave, I'd just take the day off. But this miserly PT…

What is PTO?

Paid Time Off, so vacation time

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#100

Post by MartinCron »

chillydawg wrote: post #81
fizgig wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a big part of it. I currently have 15 PTO days per year, which includes sick leave. If I'm feeling off, I'll ask if I can work from home, which I always get denied (which is odd, since I do after-hours maintenance and on-call incidents remotely). So rather than piss away PTO, I dose up on drugs and drag my ass to the office. If I had dedicated sick leave, I'd just take the day off. But this miserly PT…

Why on earth are sick days included in your paid time off? If you're sick, you're sick? I assume you're in the USA, given that barbaric policy?

Common barbaric policy here in the States, I am afraid.
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