PSA of the day: With practice you can learn to delay your sneeze by a second or two. That gives you time exhale all the air from your lungs so the sneeze has minimal power[1].
Tilt your head down too and with further practice you can learn to open your throat in order to minimize air velocity.
[1] Source: me, a former obnoxiously loud sneezer that always dismissed it as an unavoidable and comical physiological quirk because I am too big and manly to sneeze quietly. It isn't, it wasn't, and I'm not.
This is the first time it's occurred to me that other people cannot control their sneezes.
I've had the occasional "where the hell did that come from?" sneeze, but they're a rare exception, maybe a few times a year. I cannot fathom not being able to control something like a sneeze; to me, it would feel like not being able to control farting, coughing or talking.
Counter PSA: Did you know that your body is sneezing for a reason and taking all the air out of it may be counter productive and actually lead to more sneezing?
Oh wow, that sounds like great advice. I’m a regular 3-times sneezer for no obvious reasons, often in office building. I figured it may be related to an allergic reaction to those office floor carpets (that or I’m allergic to working as such).
Since my sneezing is super loud I am looking forward to trying this technique soon! Thanks for sharing
Of course, I am afraid of what this does to my blood pressure, and whenever I do it, I start thinking that one day I'm going to burst a blood vessel while sneezing like that.
Comes in handy if you have a photic sneeze reflex, though.
Noise, permanent distraction, regular interruption, no privacy, and people spreading germs all over the place. No wonder that people get sick! I would rather be poor than work in a shared office one more time. (I have experienced both, so I know what I'm talking about.)
I never worked in an open office (not for long, we had an open area) but worked in a 4 person office and agree with you. The stress of being constantly interrupted and not able to finish the work, can reasonably be assumed to lower the immune system and make people sick.
How is it like in the US? I've mostly had positive experiences in open offices (except for an annoying co-worker or two), but then again, I've never had my own office, only worked from home a few times.
This makes me wonder how many of those additional absences in open plan offices are due to depression / introverts recoiling in horror rather than increased biological pathogen transmission.
That was my thought. When I worked in large open "bullpen" office I certainly did "take a sick day" from time to time just because I could not stand the thought of spending 8 hours in that environment on that day. I was never actually sick any more often than normal during that time.
It's definitely not just introverts either—me and a number of friends are not introverts per se but definitely take advantage of WFH whenever possible just to have some privacy and a break from the chaos.
Too many variables to isolate on this study to provide proof that correlation equals causation. Even with the isolating they've tried to do with the 95% CI the range is:
1 Person Office: 1 (They didn't report a range here)
2 Person Office: 1.13-1.98 sick days
3-6 Person Office: 1.08-1.73 sick days (LOWER than 2)
6+ Person Office: 1.30-2.02 sick days
Great item to study further. This isn't scientific proof of anything. As a solo worker you may come in to the office when sick as well since you don't have to worry about getting anyone else sick and so many other variables they didn't control for make this interesting but far from proof.
Note that they don’t report a confidence interval for the one-person office because it is the baseline for the other rate ratios. (This is generally how the baseline group is identified when reporting ratios in journal articles.)
I don't think it's about open-offices or not: Work environments just don't reflect work anymore.
There isn't any rational reason for knowledge workers to go to an office every day. Socializing and building a cult around a company might be the only reasons. But IDK if these are enough to justify an office.
There must be another solution we aren't aware of yet.
No remote working solution comes close to in-person collaboration, in my opinion. I can explain someone something in probably less than half the time in person than over some electronic link-up.
I'm not sure what it is (lack of body language? Lack of shared physical presence and tools?) or if it can be remedied by better technical solutions (it's possible), but it's the reality right now.
I don't think you can really undersell the cult-building aspect, in addition to the psychological factors, which are heavily intertwined.
Co-working spaces have actually been rather successful in outsourcing these factors - both the cultism and the necessity for human interaction. Not every company needs its own brand of Kool-aid, especially when the cultural attraction of many tech companies is indistinguishable from the industry as a whole. It may be beneficial to have core values that are shared among a cluster of companies, and reap some advantages of scale that brings with it.
Just a personal observation: when I first moved into a giant-open plan office in 2015 in a big German company, I got significantly more sick. It was horror. Also, bathrooms were unusually crowded, probably helping spread diseases. Since then, it seems my body got a bit used to it and I am sick less often. But is is still more than the times before.
What might also increase days that people are not there: at least in our office we actively encourage people not to come back from sickness soon. We urge them to stay at home to avoid spreading disease further. While I personally might come back to a single office after 2-3 days, as I can't that easily infect other people in my private office, I stay away for a week more often now.
This fits with my experience. My department has some cubicle farms and some shared but much more private office suites. The cube farm people are always getting sick. Somebody comes in with a cough and promptly spreads it. It then can take weeks before there's a week without somebody sick.
Getting people to stay home when they are sick has been harder to implement than you'd think. I've tried with my work team. A number of the developers are from cultures that have what I would call a very stubborn "must work at all costs" mentality. It can take some persuasion (berating?) to get some of them to see that taking a sick day doesn't make them a "bad worker," but showing up sick, getting other people sick, and pushing buggy code because they're sick does.
It would be interesting, but perhaps not terribly useful, to see how sickness absence varies between contract and permanent staff. In the past, when contracting, I have dragged myself to work when feeling dreadful.
Dealing with illness and work is something that's important for everybody but I think it's something contractors (or other non-salary workers) need to be especially cognizant of.
I've been contracting for the last 13 years. I've had a few occasions where I feel I "worked through" a period of illness too enthusiastically and ended up making myself feel worse and lengthening the illness. Knowing that you need to bill, and therefore need to work, is tough to balance against stopping work to get better. It's been a tough lesson for me, but I try very hard to slow down or even stop work when I'm sick.
On the last occasion I really tried to "power through" an illness (with a persistent bad cough and even more persistent sore throat) I started thinking about Jim Henson's death. That made me slow down. Nothing is worth that.
that's funny, at work (a large, well known & appreciated software company) contract workers take pride in coming to work at 11h+ or just not coming in unless really required
Where are you from? I'm guessing that how you interpret the title might depend on your native language/dialect.
Judging by the names of the authors, I'm guessing they're mostly Danish, or at least Scandinavian. As a native speaker of another Scandinavian language (Swedish), I understood the title as it was intended, but I'm not sure if the phrase "sickness absence" is the best way of expressing "absence due to sickness" to a native English speaker.
I think this is a big part of it. I currently have 15 PTO days per year, which includes sick leave. If I'm feeling off, I'll ask if I can work from home, which I always get denied (which is odd, since I do after-hours maintenance and on-call incidents remotely).
So rather than piss away PTO, I dose up on drugs and drag my ass to the office. If I had dedicated sick leave, I'd just take the day off. But this miserly PTO policy results in me hoarding it.
Do they determine that people just take more sick days because they need some level of privacy while they work or because they are actually are getting sick more often? I would think its the former, tbh
Table 2: median days of sickness in single person offices in last year: 1.0. Median days of sickness in 6+ person offices: 2.0. Respective means are 4.9 and 8.1.
I am curious if sickness increase is caused by mental aspects of sharing the office or the transmittable diseases factor. Authors didn't get into these details the from what I see by briefly looking at the whole paper.
Recognizing the ongoing discussion we keep having here about office planning, what other meaningful open plan research is laying around? Re productivity, roi, job satisfaction, creativity, etc?
Please note that the study defines any office space shared by more than 6 people as "open plan". Also, although there's a (statistically) significant difference between 1 person offices and "open plan", there is no significant difference between 2 person offices and"open plan".
62% more days of sick leave is an acceptable trade off for most employers. If the alternative is a separate office for everyone, the rent expenses will be more than the paid leave loss. And the only thing upper management cares about is the bottom line. So in a sense, increased productivity in the economy is partially paid by our degrading health. That's not something often mentioned in the Economics text books.
When I get sick, I wear a surgical mask. You can buy them at any drugstore. You might get weird looks, but explaining that I'm sick and don't want to spread it usually turns those into thanks. It's apparently common/expected to do this in Japan, it would likely help if the practice spread elsewhere.
My two years in corporate america was open floor; side by side plus in front of you. When someone was sick, it usually took down the people sitting within the quadrant. Since there wasn't sick days, everything was under PTO and Vacation > Recovering at home. Just not a good system.
[+] [-] louprado|8 years ago|reply
Tilt your head down too and with further practice you can learn to open your throat in order to minimize air velocity.
[1] Source: me, a former obnoxiously loud sneezer that always dismissed it as an unavoidable and comical physiological quirk because I am too big and manly to sneeze quietly. It isn't, it wasn't, and I'm not.
edit: added a step.
[+] [-] tcfunk|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|8 years ago|reply
I've had the occasional "where the hell did that come from?" sneeze, but they're a rare exception, maybe a few times a year. I cannot fathom not being able to control something like a sneeze; to me, it would feel like not being able to control farting, coughing or talking.
[+] [-] debaserab2|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baxtr|8 years ago|reply
Since my sneezing is super loud I am looking forward to trying this technique soon! Thanks for sharing
[+] [-] logfromblammo|8 years ago|reply
Of course, I am afraid of what this does to my blood pressure, and whenever I do it, I start thinking that one day I'm going to burst a blood vessel while sneezing like that.
Comes in handy if you have a photic sneeze reflex, though.
[+] [-] oh_sigh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] therealdrag0|8 years ago|reply
But I prevent sneezes by controlled in-out breathing and gently pinching/rubbing my nose.
[+] [-] pqhwan|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nils-m-holm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] protonfish|8 years ago|reply
The article didn't say much about the results, other than:
> We’ve learned, for one thing, that conflict, even in the best of teams, is going to arise
I immediately though of my experience with open office plans.
[+] [-] rdtsc|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] bretpiatt|8 years ago|reply
1 Person Office: 1 (They didn't report a range here)
2 Person Office: 1.13-1.98 sick days
3-6 Person Office: 1.08-1.73 sick days (LOWER than 2)
6+ Person Office: 1.30-2.02 sick days
Great item to study further. This isn't scientific proof of anything. As a solo worker you may come in to the office when sick as well since you don't have to worry about getting anyone else sick and so many other variables they didn't control for make this interesting but far from proof.
Direct PDF link to full study: http://www.sjweh.fi/download.php?abstract_id=3167&file_nro=1
[+] [-] wott|8 years ago|reply
1 person: heavy smokers 15%, drinkers 16%
3-6 pers: heavy smokers 13%, drinkers 16%, sick leave +36%
2 pers: heavy smokers 10%, drinkers 15%, sick leave +50%
> 6 pers: heavy smokers 9%, drinkers 13%, sick leave +62%
Please drink and smoke more to fight sickness.
[+] [-] masnick|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aanastasov|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brightfog|8 years ago|reply
There isn't any rational reason for knowledge workers to go to an office every day. Socializing and building a cult around a company might be the only reasons. But IDK if these are enough to justify an office.
There must be another solution we aren't aware of yet.
[+] [-] aedron|8 years ago|reply
I'm not sure what it is (lack of body language? Lack of shared physical presence and tools?) or if it can be remedied by better technical solutions (it's possible), but it's the reality right now.
[+] [-] AlanSE|8 years ago|reply
Co-working spaces have actually been rather successful in outsourcing these factors - both the cultism and the necessity for human interaction. Not every company needs its own brand of Kool-aid, especially when the cultural attraction of many tech companies is indistinguishable from the industry as a whole. It may be beneficial to have core values that are shared among a cluster of companies, and reap some advantages of scale that brings with it.
[+] [-] p-funk|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geff82|8 years ago|reply
What might also increase days that people are not there: at least in our office we actively encourage people not to come back from sickness soon. We urge them to stay at home to avoid spreading disease further. While I personally might come back to a single office after 2-3 days, as I can't that easily infect other people in my private office, I stay away for a week more often now.
[+] [-] zebraflask|8 years ago|reply
Getting people to stay home when they are sick has been harder to implement than you'd think. I've tried with my work team. A number of the developers are from cultures that have what I would call a very stubborn "must work at all costs" mentality. It can take some persuasion (berating?) to get some of them to see that taking a sick day doesn't make them a "bad worker," but showing up sick, getting other people sick, and pushing buggy code because they're sick does.
[+] [-] sjcsjc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EvanAnderson|8 years ago|reply
I've been contracting for the last 13 years. I've had a few occasions where I feel I "worked through" a period of illness too enthusiastically and ended up making myself feel worse and lengthening the illness. Knowing that you need to bill, and therefore need to work, is tough to balance against stopping work to get better. It's been a tough lesson for me, but I try very hard to slow down or even stop work when I'm sick.
On the last occasion I really tried to "power through" an illness (with a persistent bad cough and even more persistent sore throat) I started thinking about Jim Henson's death. That made me slow down. Nothing is worth that.
[+] [-] make3|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skj|8 years ago|reply
But they're not reporting on the absence of sickness, but rather absence due to sickness, which they found occurred at a higher rate in open offices.
[+] [-] sqldba|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scbrg|8 years ago|reply
Judging by the names of the authors, I'm guessing they're mostly Danish, or at least Scandinavian. As a native speaker of another Scandinavian language (Swedish), I understood the title as it was intended, but I'm not sure if the phrase "sickness absence" is the best way of expressing "absence due to sickness" to a native English speaker.
[+] [-] kross|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fizgig|8 years ago|reply
So rather than piss away PTO, I dose up on drugs and drag my ass to the office. If I had dedicated sick leave, I'd just take the day off. But this miserly PTO policy results in me hoarding it.
[+] [-] nautilus12|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arjie|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ivanjovanovic|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] icebraining|8 years ago|reply
That's anecdotes for ya.
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