Sick with a cold - day 4
It's Day 3 of working from home because I have a cold; there's upwards of 200 people in the office at any given day now that our company mandated working from the office 5 days a week starting on Monday. I know I would be greatly annoyed if someone else was in the office with obvious cold symptoms, so I've been staying away. Overall though, it's Day 4 of the cold - the symptoms started mildly on Tuesday, by the end of the day. Sore throat and all that.
Funny, my thought process right now is that I want to be back in the office and not working from home. But I've been telling people that 5 days a week - whatever, it's fine, it's what the company wants; but my preference would be a hybrid experience - 2 days at home, 3 in the office. Even so, as I sit here at home, I'd rather be in the office.
I think it's more about being sick than about wanting to be in the office specifically. I'd rather choose to work from home than be forced to work from home, if that makes sense? Maybe it helps if I add that I would have taken Wednesday as a sick day (at least) if I didn't have one of my direct reports on vacation1.
On the other hand, I recognize exactly why I shouldn't be in the office: while my symptoms aren't as "gross" as the last two days, I still have gross stuff coming out of me and it's much easier to walk a few steps to the bathroom and take care of things than walking across the building to the washroom there and using scratchy paper towel to blow my nose. And did I mention the ~200 people in the office? I don't want to be hacking up mucus in the bathroom while ten other people at a time go in and out2.
On top of that, I took some cough syrup this morning to loosen up some gunk in my throat, and right now I feel "loopy". And that's even after eating my overnight oats & a banana. I probably shouldn't drive in this condition, and that's my primary mode of transportation to get to work. Sure, I could bus, but again...sick. I'd be around way more people.
Anyway, the good news is that since my original intent was to go to work today, I have my lunch already made in the fridge. One less thing to do...
If you made it this far in my post, I sincerely apologize if I grossed you out with anything.