Imagine waking up and knowing that you are sick and most likely contagious.

What would you do if you called in sick for work but your boss told you that you had to find someone to cover your shift?

Would you call all your coworkers, ignore your boss’s request and stay home without finding someone to fill in for you, or go to work?

In this story, one retail worker is in this situation and decides to go to work.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

“Oh, you might have a highly contagious bacterial infection? Come in anyway!”

Today, I woke up with what is essentially a textbook case of strep throat. I’ve had it many times in my lifetime so I’m pretty certain that’s exactly what it is.

It doesn’t help that two of my coworkers recently complained that they thought they were coming down with something due to sore throats. I probably caught it from them.

Woke up this morning, called in and said, and I quote “Hey, [boss], it’s petrichorally. I’m pretty sure I have strep throat and I’m gonna go in to urgent care so I won’t be able to make it to my shift in an hour.”

This seems a lot to ask of a sick person. It’s not like it’s a vacation day.

Pause, then, “Okay, let me get you the list of coworkers you can call to try and get to cover your shift.”

I’m on my way to the hospital

Oh, you need to get someone to cover your shift.

What. This is entirely news to me. I had called in due to illness once before and they just were like “Okay, feel better soon!”

And now suddenly I, the person who wanted to go to the hospital to get antibiotics, the person who can barely speak and can’t swallow because it’s so painful, am expected to call all of my coworkers.

Instead of going to the hospital, she went to work.

Called two of them who didn’t answer, didn’t have time to call others because my ride was leaving so I ended up going to work.

Where I proceeded to, you know, touch everything I put in a bag for a customer. Because THAT’S certainly healthy.

Also, we have a lot of really old immunocompromised ladies and really young children with their parents who come shopping.

Fun fact I learned today, almost all types of immunocompromised people are most commonly susceptible to strep throat and other variations of strep (at least according to wikipedia) over other infections.

Yeah. Good going, boss.

This other manager sounds more reasonable.

Another manager shows up about 3 hours into my shift and, upon hearing I probably have strep and am probably contagious, has me go home.

Luckily two of my coworkers came in early to do some shopping in the strip since it was so nice outside and were both more than willing to start early to make up for me leaving, what a bunch of sweeties.

Also at my old job, a coworker found out he was allergic to peanuts (he hadn’t been before) and was rushed to the ER because of anaphylactic shock. He was not excused.

People who are contagious should not go to work when they are sick.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

I hope so too.

This person’s boss didn’t care about a doctor’s note.

This is a good tip.

A manager should be the one to handle this.

Health is more important than work.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.