Hopefully this won't sound like a bouncy story, I promise. Certainly there are no tall tales, nor prefacing my post with "so", cops coming out from behind the bushes, nor any affirming applause.
Last Friday, could just feel that I had a nasty cold coming on. Even throughout the Chinese Wuhan Red Death period, I haven't had any semblance of a cold since January 2017. Only know the time frame because it was when I traveled to D.C. for President Trump's inauguration. To digress to the current issue, felt dreadfully awful last weekend, took some Mucinex, NyQuil, and suffered through. The exact same symptoms many of us have suffered through in our live, in other words no freaking big deal.
Called my boss late afternoon Sunday and asked if I could work remotely on Monday as I often do late in the calendar month when the monthly business cycle slows down. She approved and told me I sounded awful, and hopefully put in a few hours Tuesday and Wednesday when my physical presence would be actually necessary. Popped in Tuesday morning, did my usual due diligence and had an occasional coughing fit, semi-tempered with coffee and cough drops. Stayed until about 2:00 and dragged my tired butt home.
After I left the office, got an e-mail from the HR director, with whom I'm on a quite friendly basis. She "typed" that "Acme Incorporated has become aware that some of your co-workers are uncomfortable and concerned that you could have COVID-19, RSV, or the flu and should not be physically present in the office until you've been medically approved to do so". Now this is Grade-A HR corporate bullshit that she was typing to me to cover her ass and she knew it was. Which she acknowledged privately subsequently. Actually had one of those "free" at-home COVID tests and took the sucker and it was negative as expected.
My immediate boss really had nothing to opine, while still praising my work considering I kept doing my job either in person or remotely per usual. Started to feel a modicum better on Wednesday and went for a full day of work in a significant period in prior month-end closing process and did the same for Thursday and today.
With that having been said, why can't we all just have a damn freaking cold and not freak out about it anymore?