[Closed] When this is all over - masks and taking your germs to work

A few weeks after covid is out of the major headlines and the media have tired of it, we will all mostly go back to exactly how we were and will have learned nothing from the experience.

My work has used the pandemic as an excuse to permanently change our terms and conditions and introduce new sickness policy's , lots of people now in the gig economy as so called self employed contractors . For people who can't work at home most just won't be able to afford not to go to work if they have a cold .

I am enjoying not getting colds off selfish individuals who won’t work from home when they can. I don’t expect it to last.

there was footage of matt hancock recently stating we needed to change the culture of going to work while sick in the uk.

it was pointed out after that the UK has one of the lowest level of statutory sick pay in the developed world and this may be a contributing factor.

A few weeks after covid is out of the major headlines and the media have tired of it, we will all mostly go back to exactly how we were and will have learned nothing from the experience.

This.

At best there will be a new pandemic taskforce who meet annually and a couple of faded 'I survived the lockdown' t-shirts being worn.

Straight out of the gate when this all started, our CEO announced that home working would continue to be the 'new normal' afterwards. You raise a good point though in that it might make some people a little more contagion-conscious.

Many won't, of course. For all the mad run on hand sanitiser at the beginning I don't think I've seen anyone using the stuff ever other than the big bottles at shop entrances. I was at the hospital yesterday and of all the places you'd expect it to be a little more strict I'd estimate the number of people I observed wearing masks correctly was somewhere between a quarter and a third.

We used to scoff the Asian communities we mistakenly thought wore masks in some sort of slur of our possible contagion when in reality it was a socially conscious thing to do

I thought this was mostly because the air in China was the consistency of the Thames in the 1980s?

I've not had a cold since March, I reckon normally have 3 colds a year. My manager after many years, actually accepted it was better to work from home if you had a cold etc rather than come to the office.

I only used to work in London two or three days a week, and for many years the first thing I do is wash my hands when arriving in the office or getting home. When you watch people and their disgusting habits on the train its awful.

there is a mixed bag to staying at home with colds and stuff in our place - im more stay at home if you're ill and work, where as HR and some middle managers are more "by the book", the problem arises, that if you're ill -then you trigger sick leave and the benefits (or lack of) that come with this, so then you are told not to work. There is no middle ground which is daft, im lucky as i choose where to work beuase of my position, but the office peeps cannot - i will look to change this over the coming months, though i know it's an HR mess..

I certainly will not advocate masks - it's horrid, impersonal and often feels rude - that's simply not who we are as humans, we rely heavily on seeing facial expressions to understand.. the sooner we can get rid, the better!

Think it depends on the sector you work in.
My partner suffers badly within chest infections if she catches flu/bad colds so when freelancing she would just insist on working from home if an idiot suffering would insist on dragging themselves into the office. Nobody ever told her she couldn’t and often the idiot was told to work from home. (Why do people insist on infecting the whole office??)
It’s definitely changing in media/advertising as most are all still working from home and agencies are downsizing office space.
Partner starts a new job as creative director in January, she will not be meeting her new colleagues until everyone is vaccinated and even then nobody is expected to be in the office if they don’t need to be there, the owners all live well outside London and have been in the business long enough to know that if you employ good people, pay them well and don’t treat them like children then the work gets done and everyone is happy wherever they are working from.
Hasn’t stopped them taking on a s****y new office with 3 roof terraces overlooking the city, but it’s all hot desking and flexible spaces. Free bar on Fridays so I guess lots of 2pm meetings on Fridays then 🙂

I think there is another side to mask wearing in asia which is underreported. They wear face coverings in order to protect their skin from the sun, tans are not well regarded.

I thought this was mostly because the air in China was the consistency of the Thames in the 1980s?

Undoubtedly one purpose, but not the only one. I first noticed it first hand a year or two ago when an international school moved into the school I lived in for the summer. There would be groups of Chinese kids and parents with just one wearing a mask. Thought it odd, now I better understand and to be honest feel pretty stupid/naive. Part of an arrogant society with poor social skills and an inability to do the basics better.

I don’t know about you but I think I have been less unwell with colds/man flu since March than any time in my adult life. And I’d quite like to say that way.

+1
Not had a single cold this year - usually have 2 or 3.

Overall there will be a lot learnt from this business will be seriously considering the costs of a premises against home working. I know some local authorities have already considered it being permanent for a lot as have some health authorities. It would be nice to think people will stick with hand hygiene and masks for flu seasons. A bit of cold is nothing.

A bit of cold is nothing.

from a public heath point of view. yes.

from an individual/business level, its potentially a load of lost time/productivity that could be so easily avoided if society could move on from the 'a bit of a cold is nothing', man up subtext. .

Sick pay might not be sufficient but there is a difference between being too sick to go into work and being too sick to work. I've fortunately never had a day off sick in my life but I've definitely had a cold with a very runny nose where working from home would be preferable.

Will be wfh a lot more now.
Also i am happy to wear a mask more in future anyway, would rather wear a mask than catch stuff from the general population.
I hope that with more awareness we end up with less plague carriers in the office but who knows.

I think the hand washing has helped immensely.

In the local independent shops the use of sanitiser has helped with people handling fewer items and the few they handle are at least with cleaner hands.

I remember a few years ago watching a woman coming out of the loos in a caravan site block. She did not wash her hands and started to leave, when I shouted her back. She was really peeved that I said she was spreading germs and possibly colds, coughs, virus's and flu. The other ladies backed me up when I questioned her. Hopefully myself being brave enough to point out that she was touching 3 doors, when others had carefully washed their hands, may have made her think.
As someone who has a low immune system and has for the first time not suffered an illness where I end up in bed for at least 2 days, this hand washing and wearing masks (correctly) seems to be working.

there has been a massive culture change within our office, I've recently had some video meetings recently where we have all been in the same building but no need to all sit in the same room together.

We have a discipline policy called 'Managing For Attendance' that encourages people who are mildly ill (colds etc) to attend work.

More than X number of days off (used to be 10 but I think fewer now), more than X number of periods of sickness, or two periods of sickness within three months triggers it.

Five stages. Stage 1 - awareness, stage 2 - warning, stage 3 - final warning, stage 4 - dismissal, stage 5 - appeal.

Very little discretion is employed. People have found themselves put on, or progressed on, this system for things as audacious as having an essential operation, broken bones, mental health issues and (as in my case) being involved in an unavoidable traumatic event in work where someone died. I had just twelve days off sick.

That's called the 'Bradford Factor'. It's pretty commonly used.

My wife's current employer has no sick leave - straight to ssp. After a year of employment you can make an application for sick leave to be granted on a case by case basis. UNLESS you are graded as a manager then you get 10 days sick pay a year, because obviously managers can be trusted to be actually sick when they are off sick and living wage employees have plenty of reserves in the bank to afford to be off sick on SSP. This is laughably is in the 'Care' sector where those same living wage employees 'incentivised' to come into work regardless of health are hands on dealing with the elderly and infirm. She is a manager and is not planning on being ill anytime soon but is also not planning on staying any longer than necessary either.

It'd be great if we could get past the stupid martyrdom/counterproductive management that sees sick people go to work and infect other people. But I don't see any chance of that tbh, except as a coincidence with working from home. The whole "force people into work no matter what" is too ingrained in too many workplaces. And the trouble is, it only has to be ingrained in one place for it to be an issue- line manager, big boss, HR... even colleagues.

from an individual/business level, its potentially a load of lost time/productivity that could be so easily avoided if society could move on from the ‘a bit of a cold is nothing‘, man up subtext. .

Indeed of those with a bit of cold came in and not sat at home feeling sorry for themselves.

I fully agree with paying people not to affect others, however it all comes down to the figures on the budget sheet and clients will not support paying sick as they can gamble on the productivity drops.

Arguably the next year will probably be the lowest stats going for non-covid communicable illnesses as so many people will have essentially taken it out of circulation.

Indeed of those with a bit of cold came in and not sat at home feeling sorry for themselves.

yup. there it is.

It’d be great if we could get past the stupid martyrdom/counterproductive management that sees sick people go to work and infect other people.

Every office has one, doesn't it. "I've never had a day off work sick in my life!" Yeah, but every other bugger in the building has because of you, you smug selfish prick.

Drac
Full Member

Indeed of those with a bit of cold came in and not sat at home feeling sorry for themselves.

Is the wrong way to look at it.

1 person feeling 80% takes a day off you loose a day.

If one person infects the other 9 in the office you've lost effectively 2 (10×0.2).

And it snowballs from there. If thats a retail shop or customer facing role you've probably put them off your business too.

I know I've been in the office with flu in past years, achieved zero productivity, spread it arround, pissed off the immediate team lead as productivity per hour is his problem, all so someone sat in the department management on another floor can tick a box to say departmentally sickness is below x%.

think there is another side to mask wearing in asia which is underreported. They wear face coverings in order to protect their skin from the sun, tans are not well regarded.

Masks don't protect Asians from colds. I've been working within Asia for the last 10 years and they are ill just as much as us brits despite a greater propensity to wear masks (though the level of this is usually significantly exaggerated). It is also worth noting that in alot of the developing Asian countries their air quality is atrocious. Far higher levels of pollution plus alot of their slash and burn agricultural practices, high levels of building and construction plus their climate all combine to far dirtier air quality is as much of a reason for mask wearing as virus control.

I hope working from home doesn't become the new norm. Actually I'd like a bit more of a blend - maybe 2 or 3 days a week wold suit me. I am not as productive despite spending many more hours on Teams than I am when in the office. You can just get so much more done face to face and via informal interactions with people than over teams and relying on email.

And we need to expose ourselves to viruses routinely anyway or over time we'll just become more exposed to the risk of pandemics. Part of the reason why the Asian countries have done well against COVID is that they've been exposed to various strains of COVID viruses several times over the years with Bird Flu and SARS etc and they had an element of herd immunity already. So that combined with the learnings from those experiences in controlling the virus in their population has benefited them greatly.

I’ve not had a cold since March, I reckon normally have 3 colds a year.

This is me too.

I'm Civil Service. Despite/because of the image of workshy skiving sickie throwing staff abusing the public purse and taking sick leave, we have quite low sickness levels to trigger the attendance management process - think it's 8 days or 3 periods in a rolling 12 months. Pragmatism tends to apply if you have broken both legs, but I've seen people bounced through the process.

I cannot wait to be able to get back in the office 2-3 days a week, but I'm hoping that the flexibility of occasional home working will stop me and colleagues dragging ourselves into the office with a streaming cold just because we've had two days off with the raging trots 6 months ago and slipped and broke our leg 3 months before that.

I’ve not had a cold since March, I reckon normally have 3 colds a year.

My experience (entirely anecdotal) is the people with all the colds at work all have young children in nursery / school. The rest of us just don't get them or have maybe one a year. I probably have one every five years (no kids).

1 person feeling 80% takes a day off you loose a day.

If one person infects the other 9 in the office you’ve lost effectively 2 (10×0.2).

And it snowballs from there. If thats a retail shop or customer facing role you’ve probably put them off your business too.

It’s a cold. Has anyone ever been put off going to a shop as a staff member had a cold?

Most of the clients that my company serves (Global Pharma co) have permanently changed the office/WFH expectations where possible, in that it is pretty much up to the individual, and the measures will be focussed on outcomes/deliverables.

Seems that for a lot of places, WFH will stick for sure.

It was mentioned on another thread, I think business travel in general (esp international) will not go back up to anything like the level it was at before. If the people you are going to meet are WFH most of the time, whats the point?

Masks don’t protect Asians from colds. I’ve been working within Asia for the last 10 years and they are ill just as much as us brits despite a greater propensity to wear masks (though the level of this is usually significantly exaggerated).

I've always been led to believe the mask was mainly to protect others from their cold not to protect themselves. However, like covid, most of us are probably likely to get a cold from a family member, friend or colleague rather than a stranger. Often those would be situations where masks would not be worn.

I am not as productive despite spending many more hours on Teams than I am when in the office. You can just get so much more done face to face and via informal interactions with people than over teams and relying on email.

whereas 70% of my day was spent in calls either with customers or HQ anyway so I have found it better because we are all on the same footing rather than the satellite people being disadvantaged despite being in an office. The hard thing is just having someone to bounce an idea off or ask for advice.

And we need to expose ourselves to viruses routinely anyway or over time we’ll just become more exposed to the risk of pandemics. Part of the reason why the Asian countries have done well against COVID is that they’ve been exposed to various strains of COVID viruses several times over the years with Bird Flu and SARS etc and they had an element of herd immunity already. So that combined with the learnings from those experiences in controlling the virus in their population has benefited them greatly.

I think your analysis is slightly flawed. Its fine to get exposed to low risk self limiting viruses and build herd immunity (not that we seem to manage that for the common cold) but the risk of novel high risk ones will always be around even if we've seen quite similar ones before. Most people in Asia do not have Sars or Mers immunity. And Bird Flu is not a coronavirus so offers absolutely zero immune protection to other coronavirusses.

Is the wrong way to look at it.

1 person feeling 80% takes a day off you loose a day.

If one person infects the other 9 in the office you’ve lost effectively 2 (10×0.2).

Yip! @Drac beautifully explained the problem. And its even worse if its a "flu-like" illness or diahorrea type situation where inevitably most of those infected do end up losing a few days but perhaps not till they've spread it to the whole shift. I'm not sure if he encourages his staff to come in feeling unwell driving at speed, making life saving decisions and infecting not only their crew mate but potentially vulnerable patients.

Has anyone ever been put off going to a shop as a staff member had a cold?

yes. I left an item on the counter after the guy serving wiped his nose on the back of his hand, coughed all over the item as he scanned it and then tried to hand it back to me. It’s alright thanks, think I’ll leave it.

thisisnotaspoon
Full Member

1 person feeling 80% takes a day off you loose a day.

Not even that, 80% of a day.

I’ve yet to see any proper evidence that non surgical masks have any effect on transmission of viruses.

There is a handful of proper studies on their efficacy and they are all inconclusive. The widely touted research to justify mask wearing during the current pandemic is incredibly poor quality (go and look it up yourself if you don’t believe me). Even the WHO states that the evidence is inconclusive (again, look it up if you don’t believe me).

It doesn’t take a genius to look at case rates in countries where masks have been mandatory as soon as you step outside the door, and see that in the real world they are next to useless.

JP

And yet WHO recommend them ..... https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks
Not all face coveings are born equally however and neither is their use.-

I am concerned that people who have a condition that causes them to cough regularly might suffer. I have such a condition - not contagious or anything in normal times, but I can see trying to explain that to other workers might be difficult.

First time in my teaching career, some 12yrs now, that I've not been off work with a cough, cold or chest infection between going back in August and Christmas; a couple of times I've had chats with management as it has been more than three times in six months or something. They do largely seem to accept that as someone with Type 1 diabetes I do have a compromised immune system.

I'm sure we'll eventually see an end to wearing face coverings at all times and the widespread use of disposable wipes at school but I hope that the containers of gel continues, alas I think it won't.

First time in my teaching career, some 12yrs now, that I’ve not been off work with a cough, cold or chest infection between going back in August and Christmas

According to most of the teachers and some of the parents on here, you are meant to have died of Covid caught off a pupil by now?

I'll not be wearing a mask when I don't need to. I find them very uncomfortable and hate wearing one.

I avoid wearing one unless I am actually coming into contact with folk.

I’m not sure if he encourages his staff to come in feeling unwell driving at speed, making life saving decisions and infecting not only their crew mate but potentially vulnerable patients.

As adults they make their own decisions they also follow infection control rules which limits to the risk to others. Washing your hands alone is a massive aid in stopping colds.

According to most of the teachers and some of the parents on here, you are meant to have died of Covid caught off a pupil by now?

Indeed! But according to John Swinney and Scottish education we're actually immune.

My school, quite a small secondary at around 800, has come off quite lightly it would seem for actual COVID cases amongst staff.

Masks the new fag ends

Same at our workplace - sick leave has dropped massively because no-one is suffering from the usual stream of colds that just do the rounds in the open-plan office.

WFH is expected to be the new normal for us as well, the expectation will be 1 or 2 days a week in the office at most.

Workplace culture drives a lot of people into work when they are under the weather as absences are generally first on the redundancy criteria.

I think there will be a change. I remember this time last year, in the before times, the guy I sit beside at work spent a month with a nasty and ever evolving cold. Spluttering, coughing, sneezing and hacking for a month straight.

We all got pretty pissed off about it but no one actually sent him home. I think next year folk would just refuse to work near someone like that. I certainly wouldn't put up with it.

I think it might end up a bit like smoking in the office. Used to be OK, but once you ban it it becomes clear just how rank it actually was.