Imagine getting sick with the flu. If you knew you could take a sick day at work but that it would be frowned upon, would you work through the nausea, or would you stay home?

In this story, one man is in this situation, and he decides to go to work sick. It didn’t work out well for the company or any of his coworkers, but he seems pretty proud of himself.

Let’s read all about it.

My Dad was forced to come to work while sick and gave his entire department the flu

My Dad has been working for the same company for about 30+ years now.

My Dad is extremely smart. I don’t say that lightly.

When he was 3 years old (yes, 3 years old) he rewired my grandmothers toaster oven when it broke.

He graduated high school early and has always excelled in mathematics, physics, and most tech related areas.

His dad started a new job.

My dad began working for Company X after finishing his associates degree.

He was taking some time off before going back to school as he and my mom had just got married and he needed money.

So my dad began working in Company X’s printing pressroom as he did not have the academic credentials to apply for the job he really wanted at the time.

This company printed everything from books, to magazine, newspapers and the like.

It was a great job, except for management.

According to my Dad, he actually really enjoyed working in the pressroom, it was a lot of manual labor and he was stuck on 2nd shift but he really liked his coworkers and he enjoyed learning about the machines they used, as well as how to run and repair them.

My Dad has a great work ethic, he always works hard as did most of his coworkers.

Apparently, the management at the time was kind of bad.

My Dad had been working at the job for several months when he got the flu. He was informed by a coworker that while they were able to call out sick, it would count against them when it was time for reviews. It was clearly an unfair and ridiculous rule.

He decided not to take a sick day.

So my Dad came into work the next day with a fever and nausea, he carried around a trashcan with him for most of the day.

It was a long and brutal shift and he was thrilled to finally leave.

By the time he left though, everyone on 2nd shift had been exposed to the flu as well as everyone coming in for 3rd shift.

There were big consequences.

The company ended up having to shut down the printing press for almost a whole week because nearly every press room worker was sick with the flu.

While I’m not sure my Dad had planned such a glorious outcome, he was very smug telling me this story and said he would do it again.

My Dad went back to school and finished his degree and got a job much higher in the company and now has quite a few people working beneath him.

He never gives his employees a hard time about taking sick days.

Yes, it’s never a good idea to make employees feel like they need to go to work when they’re sick.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

One person shares another story about being sick.

This person thinks the dad is a liar.

Another person points out why the toaster part couldn’t be true.

Someone who gets sick easily weighs in.

Nobody should go to work sick.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about management that tried to set an employee up to take the fall.