sick kids

The short folks have colds. We had to convince 12 that the swimming pool in her lungs was a good enough reason to stay home and rest a second day, and she negotiated that she’d stay home this morning and sleep more, but we should reassess later this morning so she might not miss the second half of the day.

One thing that has become painfully obvious to me in my days working remotely is that our culture has dramatically set folks up for failure when it comes to illness. The expectation that people should continue to push through the cold and “go in” anyway is about as counterintuitive as it gets. How does a person get exposed to a cold? They go in to their work or school where another person has a cold, and they touch things.

Now, I understand that a huge majority parents don’t have a choice about taking their sick kid in to school. I *completely* get that. But except for someone who has hands on specialties, SO much work can be done from home. The technology is absolutely there. Why is it that we as a culture are so averse to not spreading illness? To giving ourselves time and space to heal? As a business owner, if you set the expectation that no sick people are allowed to come in, and take care of your employee so they don’t feel obligated to attend in person when they’ve got an illness, I guarantee that you’d have fewer incidences of “out sicks” and the employees would be far less inclined to take advantage of you.