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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)

#191

Post by collyw »

jackhack wrote: post #106
tcfunk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

Screw that, I would prefer to take the risk of a cold than have to make up the work for lazy bastards who take a day of for a bit of a runny nose. There is a good chance I am going to get it anywhere else I go anyway (shops, public transport, anywhere public basically).

Genuine sickness yes, but a bit of a cold where half of the office can manage to soldier on? I reckon I ought to get some sort of bonus for the fact I stay in shape, eat well and haven't had a sick day in a few years.

Some people can't even avoid it because of their work, doctors receptionists for example.

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

#192

Post by collyw »

virmundi wrote: post #187
d23 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So what? Transpeople are rather low as a percentage of the population, yet we extend or argue to extend massive courtesies to them. If you are going to make a policy, expect to include a small population. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/health/transgender-popula...

There are a lot of definitions of "trans" going about these days. Just search on Youtube of Reddit. Many of them are in my opinion attention seekers (not saying that genuine transgenderism doesn't exist, but a lot of people are making some very silly sounding claims lacking any scientific backing).

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

#193

Post by collyw »

visarga wrote: post #144
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. Face masks FTW! Then you can creep out anybody.

When I see people in airports with those on, I make a point of coughing as loudly as possible when up close to them

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

#194

Post by collyw »

gumby wrote: post #156
protonfish wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thank the sneezer instead. If they wonder why you thanked them you can thank them for the aerosol of bacteria and crud they sent your way. In east Asia it's customary for sick people to wear masks to avoid spreading disease via coughing or sneezing. A practice that ought to be adopted everywhere. I know I'm promoting a passive-aggressive strategy which is also social corrosive, but it's a way of spreading (!) the mem…

"In east Asia it's customary for sick people to wear masks to avoid spreading disease via coughing or sneezing. A practice that ought to be adopted everywhere."

Toughen up people!

We don't eat food off the floor because it would probably give us a bad stomach. Eating "hygienically" is a practice that we have adopted.

Dogs eat stuff off the floor all the time. Have they evolved a more advanced immune system than ours? Or just kept it well trained?

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

#195

Post by loup-vaillant »

ijafri wrote: post #169

as an HR manager, we had to adopt open plan, for our own reasons, however before we did so, we have made our hygienic rules 10x stricter, But I guess solely chalking up sickness to open plan is bit too far-fetched, there are still too many public places, commute, public washrooms etc that one can't avoid ... having said, this also depends higher than usual standards for hygienic at work.

May I ask what were those reasons? I always hear why open plans are horrible, never why they're awesome —or needed.

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

#196

Post by gumby »

collyw wrote: post #194
gumby wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank the sneezer instead. If they wonder why you thanked them you can thank them for the aerosol of bacteria and crud they sent your way. In east Asia it's customary for sick people to wear masks to avoid spreading disease via coughing or sneezing. A practice that ought to be adopted everywhere. I know I'm promoting a passive-aggressive strategy which is also social corrosive, but it's a way of spreading (!) the mem…

"In east Asia it's customary for sick people to wear masks to avoid spreading disease via coughing or sneezing. A practice that ought to be adopted everywhere." Toughen up people! We don't eat food off the floor because it would probably give us a bad stomach. Eating "hygienically" is a practice that we have adopted. Dogs eat stuff off the floor all the time. Have they evolved a more advanced immune system than ours?…

Dogs adopt the strategy of "eat first, ask questions later" (as pack animals that eat garbage, carrion etc). So they are quick to vomit up something that causes trouble. Also they are more likely than humans to eat stuff that will kill them.

As for their immune system, inbreeding of dogs has caused all sorts of susceptibilities, though overall humans are a better vector for disease (density, widespread distribution, gregariousness, etc). Also humans worry about disease symptoms that dogs and other animals stoically ignore and thus the disease can go unnoticed by the human. (e.g. a bit of diarrhoea dribbling uncontrollably out your backside will probably concern you but a dog will just put up with it -- though an owner will likely object!) .

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

#197

Post by logfromblammo »

hvindin wrote: post #186
logfromblammo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 punishe…

It's smallish things like this which make me realise how lucky I am not to live in America. In this particular case though, possibly just how lucky I am to live in Australia. Here it's either just common practice at most companies, or possibly required by law, but everywhere I've seen the leave policies provides 52 weeks a year of sick/carers leave. Usually this is broken up into ~20 days of leave where one isn't rea…

Yeah, well, the biggest spiders I ever typically see are wolf spiders smaller than my thumbnail, so there is that.

Very, very tiny consolation. I'd live with a dog-sized spider if it would mean that corporate management wasn't filled with cold-blooded monsters.

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

#198

Post by virmundi »

collyw wrote: post #192
virmundi wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? Transpeople are rather low as a percentage of the population, yet we extend or argue to extend massive courtesies to them. If you are going to make a policy, expect to include a small population. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/health/transgender-popula...

There are a lot of definitions of "trans" going about these days. Just search on Youtube of Reddit. Many of them are in my opinion attention seekers (not saying that genuine transgenderism doesn't exist, but a lot of people are making some very silly sounding claims lacking any scientific backing).

I agree. There is also anecdotal evidence that within the trans community (MtF) that take hormones, the commuity is split into people wanting to trans-ition and to as a third way that spans the genders. My point in the original post is that we have policies for such a small group of people, that the OP should look into sneezing policies to take into account small groups.

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

#199

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

When I get sick, I wear a surgical mask. You can buy them at any drugstore. You might get weird looks, but explaining that I'm sick and don't want to spread it usually turns those into thanks. It's apparently common/expected to do this in Japan, it would likely help if the practice spread elsewhere.

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

#200

Post by therealdrag0 »

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…

If I have to sneeze I usually just bend over and sneeze at the ground a foot away. Is that any good?

But I prevent sneezes by controlled in-out breathing and gently pinching/rubbing my nose.

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