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Comment by kmarc | Hacker News Reader

To defend @bagacrap, they said they tend to be a bit suspicious.

And I am, too, when I hear this weekly from the same person (and when I ask back next day, if she recovered, she asks me "from what"?)

I'm all in for more times off for parents, more PTOs, sabbaticala, etc. But come on, having "a cold" twice a month... IT IS suspicious.

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You've added two conditions not present in the original comment.

Some people may "abuse" such things, but I'd say most people legit have days when they're under the weather and feel fine the next day.

Also, if you have kids in daycare or something? A cold twice a month is pretty much the norm as I understand it. I love my nieces, but there's a 50/50 chance each time I see them I'm going to wind up with a minor cold. Toddlers are awfully efficient at spreading disease...

> And I am, too, when I hear this weekly from the same person (and when I ask back next day, if she recovered, she asks me "from what"?)

I'd say you're missing the hint that it is none of your business.

If someone was ill, then they're back, asking them if they're feeling better is totally normal conversation.

The suspicion etc may not be, but the question is obviously fine.

Given you're suspicious about these people and the way you talk about them, they are most likely well aware that you're on a fishing trip feigning interest.

People like you are always more transparent than you realise.

Apologies if it wasn't clear, I am a different person to the one you replied to, and am not suspicious - I was commenting on the other person's suspicion and indeed said that it wasn't normal.

My apologies - I had misread the chain!

Do they perform adequately at their job in general? If so, who cares?

Typically if such a thing catches your eye it’s because in fact they aren’t performing adequately.

I cannot say all of them were performing bad

But yeah, some of them... Definitely.

Someone said in another thread, it's none of my business. Indeed. Especially as an external. I also would never report any of my suspicion. Sometimes,however, I'm blocked by this (waiting on others, etc.) so not entirely unaffected, tho

And if not, that's a much better thing to focus on vs whether they took a few days off for whatever reason.

Exactly

One of the benefits (to me) of going remote is I'm sick a heck of a lot less often! In fact, I don't think I've even had a cold or upper respiratory infection since I started remote, where I used to get colds at least once a month, likely due to being in close concentration of other sick people in the office. Touching door handles everywhere to get from office to office, touching elevator buttons, eating together with 100 other people in the office cafeteria... yuck! Now that I'm remote, I'm in my hermetically sealed home office, and I can go weeks without even seeing another person, let alone touching things they touched and breathing their air.

> But come on, having "a cold" twice a month... IT IS suspicious

Suspicious in that it's only twice a month? When my kid first started preschool, we got exposed to all sorts of wonderful novel viruses, and I had respiratory infections of various sorts for probably 50% of the days for the entire autumn and winter. Most of them not rising to the level of high fever and not being able to work, but definitely noticeably cutting my productivity.

Suspicious that it's probably a massive hangover rather than "a cold". And I assume it's during the week, otherwise noone but your liver cares what you do on a Friday or Saturday evening.

"A cold" doesn't usually totally incapacitate someone working from the comfort of their home, down a paracetamol, drink hot liquids, take a nap, don't need to be 110% productive but still can manage to get some job done. But "a massive hangover" is something that surely can knock someone out.

Are you sure you aren’t projecting your substance abuse issues onto others? Assuming someone has a hangover in the middle of the week is odd behaviour

Maybe they're in recovery or had a family member with substance abuse problems.

>> Assuming someone has a hangover in the middle of the week is odd behaviour

Sure, this never happens. Literally, noone in the history of mankind has gotten wasted in the middle of the week.

> "A cold" doesn't usually totally incapacitate someone working from the comfort of their home, down a paracetamol, drink hot liquids, take a nap, don't need to be 110% productive but still can manage to get some job done.

A cold can absolutely do that. Expecting people to work while they're sick is an unhealthy work culture, don't inflict that on other people.

For anyone curious: an average of 1.2 instances per month the first year and a half. During the worst season, it can be twice in a month, sure. https://entropicthoughts.com/how-often-does-a-child-get-sick

(Child spent 16 % of the year sick. Across two parents, that is nearly a month of absence in a year.)

I might not exactly be the benchmark for this but for the entirety of preschool and then the first 4 years of primary school I went in for a week and took 2 weeks of what I would now call sick leave. Left me with a heart disease and a real scare for what I should do if I ever have kids to avoid this happening to them.

Who cares? Only their manager should. And it's not about butts in seats but overall productivity. This attitude is why companies ate pushing for RTO.

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