How to decide if I'm too sick for work
People feel pressured to go into work while sick because they are afraid of missing major events like Open House, have to ration limited sick time for their own children, or worry about how their absence looks. This forces them to choose between risking their coworkers' and kids' health or sacrificing attendance at important professional and family obligations.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- The most recent one is from October 2026.
- This comes up 15.5× more often in r/Teachers than across the site as a whole.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
How to decide if I'm too sick for work
- 1Staying homeDid this help you?
- 2Wearing a mask following district protocolsDid this help you?
- 3wearing a mask while working despite being contagiousDid this help you?
- 4powering through work due to a lack of sick timeDid this help you?
- 5Evaluating daily job duties such as compliance and eDiscovery to determine if the training material aligns with current work.Did this help you?
- 6Sending a worksheet and staying home, then picking the project back up upon returnDid this help you?
- 7Giving a filler assignment that is not planned to be graded for the sub dayDid this help you?
- 8Adding an independent component that does not require monitoring, such as related researchDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“im unsure about calling out since I have Open House tomorrow for my kids.”source ↗
“Im afraid of getting my coworkers sick as well as the kids but I dont want to miss open house tomorrow.”source ↗
“I'm sick as a dog with some kind of upper respiratory plague. I feel awful and I can't even talk. But I'm afraid if I don't go in tomorrow, the kids will just cheat or not do their project at all.”source ↗
“I have to ration sick time for my own (frequently ill) kid, so I definitely have masked up and powered through on days where I had no real business being there.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2Should we cancel our trip if our toddler has a fever?
- 4Is it rude to skip a distant wedding when travel and money are tight?
- 2How to evaluate a business conference before paying for it
- 12Is a short weekend trip worth the time and money?
- 5Is it still worth enrolling in STEP or travel registration?
- 2Is it worth paying more for an out-of-state college?