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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)

#121

Post by ghaff »

logfromblammo wrote: post #95
moron4hire wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

PTO balances are typically still liabilities because they're owed to employees when they leave modulo accumulation caps or use it/lose it policies.

It's pretty much inevitable that pooling sick time and vacation time results in a lower total. People aren't really expected to use all their sick time in a given year if ever. But for those who do plan to maximize their use of vacation, it means there's not a lot of margin when they do get sick and it encourages behaviors that aren't good for anyone.

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

#122

Post by Toast_25 »

protonfish wrote: post #103
tcfunk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expecting that people should control their sneezes is a ridiculous cultural norm.

And what about saying "bless you?" People sure have superstitious hangups about sneezing. And I don't mind, it doesn't hurt anything, until I get a sarcastic "you're welcome" from people for not thanking them for blessing me. I seriously don't get that. When did saying "bless you" require an official display of gratitude? I didn't ask for anything and would just like to sneeze in peace, please.

I've never personally seen it as something religious, just being nice and in my country it's considered being well-mannered. That being said in my country we don't say "bless you", a literal translation to what we say would be "health".

When I visit other countries it feels weird that nobody says anything when people sneeze. But I realize that's a cultural thing and try to avoid saying "Bless you".

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

#123

Post by Tharkun »

tcfunk wrote: post #85
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…

Expecting that people should control their sneezes is a ridiculous cultural norm.

I frequently sneeze with so much force that I pop a little vein in my eyes. I even bruised a rib sneezing once. Anything that can help mitigate this is great in my book.

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

#124

Post by jayess »

tcfunk wrote: post #85
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…

Expecting that people should control their sneezes is a ridiculous cultural norm.

Is this sarcasm?

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

#125

Post by d23 »

whoru007 wrote: post #119
jackhack wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expecting sick people to not fill a room with hundreds of millions of aerosolized particles when that could be clearly avoided is a result of simple respect for those around you and evidence of manners and good breeding. Cover your sneeze. Cover your cough. Stay home when sick. These are kindergarten-level cultural learnings.

> Cover your sneeze. Cover your cough. Stay home when sick. These are kindergarten-level cultural learnings. A friend/colleague of mine is suffering from Chronic sinusitis and she usually sneezes every morning for around 20-30 times (random number, I know!) over period of few hours. The 'sneezing fit' is 100% of the time non-contagious yet loud and 'full with watery substance', She covers her sneezing most of the tim…

Be realistic. We're talking about the 99.9% of other people who don't have that condition.

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

#126

Post by ghaff »

logfromblammo wrote: post #102
maxxxxx wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"An open-office plan encourages collaboration" They always say that but from my observation this is simply not true.

An open plan office encourages lying to the employees about why you have an open plan office. It's cheaper, and more of a panopticon for the floor-walky managers. It encourages the creation of a projected isolation shell, like some kind of psychic box turtle. Noise-cancelling headphones are essential to that effort. When I actually collaborate, I am far more likely to do it if I can do it privately with a specific pe…

I suspect a lot of people involved in these decisions have actually convinced themselves that they're good for collaboration/innovation/etc. At the same time, if open floor plans actually cost more per employee than private offices I'm pretty sure that any arguments espousing the benefits of the open plan would fall on deaf ears in a big hurry.

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

#127

Post by Toast_25 »

nils-m-holm wrote: post #5

Noise, permanent distraction, regular interruption, no privacy, and people spreading germs all over the place. No wonder that people get sick! I would rather be poor than work in a shared office one more time. (I have experienced both, so I know what I'm talking about.)

How is it like in the US? I've mostly had positive experiences in open offices (except for an annoying co-worker or two), but then again, I've never had my own office, only worked from home a few times.

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

#128

Post by gourou »

brightfog wrote: post #83
gourou wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothings beats a white board for explaining something

Yes true but a missing whiteboard often leads to well executed specs and mockups.

What interactive online tool are you using to explain/come up with a solution to an issue?

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

#129

Post by pjc50 »

whoru007 wrote: post #119
jackhack wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expecting sick people to not fill a room with hundreds of millions of aerosolized particles when that could be clearly avoided is a result of simple respect for those around you and evidence of manners and good breeding. Cover your sneeze. Cover your cough. Stay home when sick. These are kindergarten-level cultural learnings.

> Cover your sneeze. Cover your cough. Stay home when sick. These are kindergarten-level cultural learnings. A friend/colleague of mine is suffering from Chronic sinusitis and she usually sneezes every morning for around 20-30 times (random number, I know!) over period of few hours. The 'sneezing fit' is 100% of the time non-contagious yet loud and 'full with watery substance', She covers her sneezing most of the tim…

That's unfortunate. I used to suffer from occasional random sneezing until I got far enough down the list of suggested hayfever treatments to find one that worked (avamys). There are a lot of different causes of this kind of thing and some are very easily treated and some aren't.

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

#130

Post by sethammons »

sethammons wrote: post #8

Three plausible reasons off the top of my head on why open offices would experience less reported sick days. One: the same reason as experienced by garbage men or sewer guys; greater exposure causing improved immune systems. Two: being in an open office increases the top-down butts-in-seat observability, causing employees to come into the office even while sick to keep up a better work image. Three: (what happens at…

Apparently I should not read when I first wake up if I want to avoid down voting :)

I clearly read it backwards and thought it was an odd result so I jotted down a few reasons why I thought the strange result could occur.

More obviously, if you are closer to other sick people, your odds of getting sick are higher.

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