Today was day 3 of training for the new job. Things are weird; we're financial sector and therefore essential employees. Almost everyone that can work from home has been sent to do so, leaving about 50 total people in the building, including our 10 person class.
At around 8:45 this morning, I got a message from my wife saying she wasn't feeling well and she reported 2/3 of the Big Three: Coughing and Shortness of Breath, lacking only Fever. She goes through the CDC website, gets in contact with a nurse, who advises that she should go to the facility packed with people who suspect they have the virus to get evaluated.
I raise this concern to the trainer at this time, forwarding my wife's email with my thoughts: I need to go supervise my kid, and if we suspect she has the virus, then I'm sitting here exposing your 10 new hires, any trainers, and everyone else in the building.
Okay, I'll check that out on break, she says. This will be the last we'll discuss the matter. It's possibly relevant to understand that the trainer is on WebEx, training from home.
Around 11, I get another message from the wife. She talked to her actual doctor who advises that she not go to a facility with a near-certainty of infection waiting just yet, but rather to take 24 hours to observe and audit her condition, watching for worsening condition and/or the onset of the final member of the trifecta.
I still have heard nothing from the trainer by the time the class goes to lunch at 12, and at this point I'm just sitting there thinking about how I'm exposing every single person in the building. I finally speak to the proctor in the classroom, who with evident anxious concern (stepped back far away from me and) agreed that wisdom suggested my immediate departure.
Since then, I've been calling around to all these people at the company's HR department. So far the prevailing wisdom is that they would like me to return to the office tomorrow.
I can't confirm that I don't have the virus in my household, suspect that I might, in fact. It seems negligently stupid to want me to come in -- but then this advice was dispensed by people who live and work in North Carolina, not here in the Maine office with me. I suspect the people here might feel differently about me walking into the facility.
@lawyerbots, any words of wisdom applicable to this situation? I think it's pretty stupid to go to work tomorrow honestly, unless we wake up and she's just clearly in perfect health. I do not want to be responsible for anything that would lay down that path.
