Discussion on:

Poll: Are you pressured to work when you're sick?

Yes, I feel quite a bit of pressure, but it is self imposed.

I feel a great deal of loyalty and obligation to my employer and my end users and I want to be there for them when they need help. They are my customers and if they cannot work, the company cannot make money. My job is to enable them to do theirs and I cannot do that in I am home and in bed.

Hopefully the swine flu has encouraged businesses to allow people to stay home when they are sick so they don't infect the entire office and everyone's productivity falls.

My boss understands the need for me to stay home when I'm not feeling well enough to work. I however pressure myself more because I have made plans and know that their completion means much more to my clients than the care that would be taken by my replacement. Even if it's just for one day, which it seldom is, I feel guilty for anything that may go wrong during my absence. I am allowed up to twenty days a year for sick time but seldom take more than three in any year so my boss knows that if I call in sick that I'm not going fishing or running off to a baseball game.

My primary customer is a chain of grocery stores. The last thing they want is one of their support techs (or employees, for that matter) infecting their customers with the virus du jour.

The encouragement on the part of my employer is verbal only. Sick days are considered PTO and counted accordingly.