My wife's company had a mandatory conference for all of their over 2,000 employees last week. She did not attend, thankfully. Even though it was mandatory she rolled the dice on a Telehealth appointment and the doctor she got thought it was wonderful that she hasn't gotten COVID yet, and wrote her a note suggesting that she be exempt from all in-person meetings for the next 365 days. Surprisingly, to us, HR at her company accepted it. We went camping while everyone else went to a packed, zero COVID precautions considered, conference.
No surprise at all, she's covering for many people out sick today, including the person she works most closely with who texted her to say she's "down with the worst bout of COVID yet."
She just got off of a zoom meeting with her boss, who also has COVID today, and is suddenly COVID cautious curious, let's say. She said it's her 7th(yes, seventh) known COVID infection, she has a "bizarre autoimmune disorder" that her doctors have spent a year trying to help her figure out, and she's come to believe that it *might* just be COVID related.
She asked how my wife has managed to stay COVID free, and my wife went ahead and listed out all of our precautions, and here's where watching this secretly from across the room blew my mind....The hangup was restaurants. She kept coming back to "You haven't been inside of a restaurant in 4 years?" Over and over. At least 4 times in the next 20 minutes she repeated that. Like it was some Herculean feat that couldn't be accomplished by the average human being.
I just don't get it...
Anyway, it was a bridge too far, and so she will continue getting COVID.
My wife reports this evening that no less than a dozen other people reported into Teams that they feel awful today. Don't worry, though! It's all "not COVID" for sure.
@BE ah, isn’t it always?
@BE I suspect much of "work culture" is bosses needing to see subservience in the eyes of others, in person.
@BE
Yes, but those leases are generally 6 or 7 years long. Surely you're not asking all those businesses to lose money just to avoid killing a few employees? They can always just hire new employees.
@BE MBAs are super smart
Update:
Basically everyone in my wife's work group is out sick. She reports that Teams is silent and her boss's boss asked her into a Zoom call first thing this morning where she asked my wife to "hold down the fort." Of course, that was proceeded by "I'm not sick like everyone else. I just have laryngitis and my doctor says I need to stop talking, but that's not going to happen. I'm practically the only one here this week."
Throwing out all regard for employees and their health from the discussion, why do businesses think that getting together for a few days is worth this? There really needs to be a reckoning across the work culture where we all agree to acknowledge it's not a good idea.