Speaker 1: It's Thursday, jan I'm Oscar Emiras from the Daily Dive
Speaker 1: podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America. For
Speaker 1: those working remotely, the sick day may be gone. As
Speaker 1: the Amicron variant continues to cause disruptions. Some remote workers
Speaker 1: are experiencing mild symptoms and are opting to work through it.
Speaker 1: Some figure that since they're not in the office posing
Speaker 1: a risk to others, they are taking the posture of
Speaker 1: if I can work, I'll work. Katherine Dill, reporter at
Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal, joins us for Americans complicated relationship
Speaker 1: with taking time off. Thanks for joining us, Katherine, my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the sick day. It seems to be
Speaker 1: going by the wayside now, at least for remote workers.
Speaker 1: In some cases, we're seeing all the disruptions obviously that's
Speaker 1: going on because of COVID nineteen. With this Amicron variant,
Speaker 1: what we're seeing is a lot of more milder infections. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: you know that's not across the board, but that's what
Speaker 1: we're finding out is happening a lot of times. And
Speaker 1: if you're work from home, you know you're obviously already
Speaker 1: away from the office. You don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: infecting coworkers things like that. So a lot of people
Speaker 1: are opting to just say, hey, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: so bad, I'll work through the day, or even managers
Speaker 1: facing shortages are even asking their employees if you can
Speaker 1: work if you're not so sick. You know, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: hop on a few calls or a few meetings or something.
Speaker 1: So Catherine, tell us what's going on with the sick
Speaker 1: day right now. Certainly, well, if this is something we
Speaker 1: were seeing a little bit of before the pandemic, folks
Speaker 1: had a few more options for if they were sick,
Speaker 1: and it gave them a little bit of pause to
Speaker 1: think about coming in. And you know, everybody's had that
Speaker 1: experience of sitting next to the person who's just like
Speaker 1: hacking away during the work day at their death, but
Speaker 1: you know they're putting in their time. And so this
Speaker 1: was changing a little bit before the pandemic. But then
Speaker 1: with the onset of of COVID, calling your boss and
Speaker 1: saying I've tested positive for COVID was away for some
Speaker 1: workers to actually be able to check out. Certainly they
Speaker 1: were also feeling sick, but it was a way for
Speaker 1: folks to say you know, like I have to go
Speaker 1: back to bed, I have to rest, I need a
Speaker 1: sick day. With omicron, what we're seeing is that lots
Speaker 1: of people are sick at the same time right now
Speaker 1: because of the extremely high case count, but many people,
Speaker 1: because of rising vaccination rates and boosters, are experiencing much
Speaker 1: much milder cases. And that can still mean you feel ill,
Speaker 1: but it's not necessarily debilitating. And so we see lots
Speaker 1: of folks choosing to work through the day. You know,
Speaker 1: a few people we talked to you said, there's not
Speaker 1: much to do when you're an adult who's maybe you know,
Speaker 1: isolated part of your house, away from your kids or
Speaker 1: your family. Um, some people chose to work. Others felt cracker.
Speaker 1: And of course a lot of employers, as you set,
Speaker 1: are facing worker shortages. So the incentive to continue plugging
Speaker 1: away is high. Now we've talked a lot about this
Speaker 1: for a long time now. Americans have this weird relationship
Speaker 1: with working. Uh, you know, becomes people identities. You feel
Speaker 1: like you have to work all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: this compared to other countries, let's say, and the Americans
Speaker 1: and notorious for not taking time off. I mean I think, uh,
Speaker 1: some of the stats that we have, a quarter of
Speaker 1: you paid time off was left on the table for
Speaker 1: a lot of Americans sick days to just people aren't
Speaker 1: taking all the available sick time that they have. And
Speaker 1: this is kind of a pre pandemic thing, right. People
Speaker 1: would often just go to work even though they had
Speaker 1: a mild cold or something and just work through it.
Speaker 1: But this is that complicated relationship that we have with
Speaker 1: taking time off, you know, as you said, this is
Speaker 1: something that Americans are known for being really bad at.
Speaker 1: And it's true across the board on types of paid
Speaker 1: time off, you know, as you said, like Americans left
Speaker 1: a lot of vacation time on the table even before
Speaker 1: the pandemic, and certainly we saw even more vacation go
Speaker 1: unused because there was also the thinking about, like, well,
Speaker 1: what am I'm not supposed to go anywhere or do anything.
Speaker 1: It's not safe, so what am I going to do
Speaker 1: with this time off? But it's true also with sick time,
Speaker 1: we see Americans sort of reluctant to take discrete days
Speaker 1: that they have that are satisfied for illness when they
Speaker 1: need them. I should coveyat this by saying that lots
Speaker 1: of Americans do not receive paid sick days, So we
Speaker 1: are talking about folks who have the option and just
Speaker 1: aren't taking it. Yeah, I mean that's an important distinction, right,
Speaker 1: people who have the option of having the paid sick time,
Speaker 1: people who have the option of remote work. You know,
Speaker 1: we there's a lot of people that don't have that
Speaker 1: luxury obviously, and if they get sick, you know, the
Speaker 1: way current rules are said, you know, you have to
Speaker 1: stay away from people so you don't get others infected.
Speaker 1: So definitely, you know, a very specific thing we're talking about.
Speaker 1: But what would doctors and health experts say about even
Speaker 1: working at home while you're sick. I mean, you might
Speaker 1: not feel so bad, but the body does still need
Speaker 1: to rest things like that, Yes, exactly. You know, the
Speaker 1: sense is if this is something that's going to help
Speaker 1: you deal, you know, if you feel well enough that
Speaker 1: working seems like an option that will help you fill
Speaker 1: your time while you're sitting out a quarantine. Fine, but
Speaker 1: you do need time to recover, especially with some of
Speaker 1: like the omicron Darry. You know, we're seeing symptoms manifests
Speaker 1: or differently in different people and the onset sometimes it
Speaker 1: is a little bit later for some people. And so
Speaker 1: the medical consensus does seem to be, you know, like
Speaker 1: you need the time, you need the time to rest
Speaker 1: and recover. That being said, we talked to a lot
Speaker 1: of workers who felt that they had flexibility. You know,
Speaker 1: they could say, I got up in the morning and
Speaker 1: I felt pretty good, so I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: sent some females, maybe I hopped on a call, maybe
Speaker 1: I got a few things done. But then as my
Speaker 1: energy started to flag, or I got dizzy or something
Speaker 1: like that, I just took a nap, or you know,
Speaker 1: I went to bed for the rest of the day,
Speaker 1: or I had a rest. And so we we see
Speaker 1: we see workers taking advantage of that sort of new
Speaker 1: quote unquote flexibility around this too. And that's such an
Speaker 1: important thing, right because what if people are relying on you,
Speaker 1: then midwood day you do feel bad, you know, then
Speaker 1: it just causes all these other problems. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: you should have took the sick day to begin with.
Speaker 1: And you know, you spoke to a teacher, a substitute
Speaker 1: teacher um who said, hey, we went to remote learning.
Speaker 1: I was sick. I said, let's do the classes. Anyways,
Speaker 1: we're remote and uh, even by the end of his session.
Speaker 1: You know, he said he was falling asleep on camera almost,
Speaker 1: so it still could be you know, caused an issue
Speaker 1: with trying to work through the day without having to
Speaker 1: take the sick time. It's not ideal. So only you
Speaker 1: know this, this flexibility is more available to some workers
Speaker 1: than others. So like, if you have an office job
Speaker 1: and some autonomy and you can't sort of block out
Speaker 1: your time with things like sending emails, are dipping in
Speaker 1: and out of a meeting or doing a quick check
Speaker 1: in or something like that, this is going to work
Speaker 1: for you a lot better than for someone like the
Speaker 1: example in the story that the substitute teacher who was
Speaker 1: worried there wouldn't be anyone even to replace him and
Speaker 1: needed he needed to be on zoom all day teaching classes.
Speaker 1: That flexibility is not going to be available to him,
Speaker 1: and the way it would be to somebody with a
Speaker 1: different job. Well, just an interesting look at what's going on.
Speaker 1: You know, when the pandemic was happening, people were saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, this is a good thing that people are
Speaker 1: actually taking the time to take the sick time and
Speaker 1: get better. But now with the remote work and all
Speaker 1: this stuff, we're going back to our old ways in
Speaker 1: a sense by working through the day anyway, So we'll
Speaker 1: see how it all pans out. Katherine Dill, reporter at
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal, thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Great to be here. Thanks. I'm Oscar Romeris and this
Speaker 1: is in reopening America. Don't forget different today's big news stories.
Speaker 1: You can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast
Speaker 1: every Monday to Friday. So follow us on I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio or wherever you get your podcast.