Dear Etiquetteer:
I have a colleague who is back in the office almost every day. Recently he has had a bad cough and has continued to come to work, and he’s not wearing a mask.
How can I politely speak with him and encourage him to work from home until his cough is better, or at least to wear a mask when he is in the office?
Dear Officed:
This issue was fraught with peril even before the pandemic, but has become Downright Nuclear this year with the lifting of mask mandates in many places as well as workplace requirements to return to the office at least a few days a week. There’s no solution that can provide instantaneous results, but there are some steps to take.
First, be sure you understand what your workplace’s policies are about working from home, masking in the workplace, and other COVID-related rules. If, for instance, masks are required and your Coughing Colleague isn’t wearing one at all, that may be something you, or his supervisor, needs to point out to him.
You may then take one of two paths: speak directly with your colleague, or share your concerns with your own supervisor and have them handle it. These are both entirely valid approaches. It’s not cowardly to go through your supervisor; that’s what supervisors are there for.
But if you decide to speak directly, address the issue first from the point of view of his health rather than yours or the overall health of the office. Etiquetteer would think it unusual if your Coughing Colleague was unaware of his own coughing, but not of its impact on others. Ask a Manager, in this column (read all of it, please — extremely wise), adds another wrinkle: that your Coughing Colleague might be required by his boss to be in the office regardless of possible symptoms.
After that, Etiquetteer thinks it is Perfectly Proper to share your own concerns about your health, and his impact on you. Early in the pandemic Etiquetteer said that we’d all have to get comfortable with Uncomfortable Questions, both asking them and being asked them. But it does still feel uncomfortable.
In general, Etiquetteer agrees with Ask a Manager that gently encouraging your colleague to work from home (if possible), mask (if that’s not possible), and to work from home yourself (if all else fails) is a Perfectly Proper strategy to protect your health.
It’s important to acknowledge the weariness all of us feel over two years into this global health crisis, a crisis unlike anything since the Flu We No Longer Call Spanish epidemic of 1918-1920. The testing, masking, social distancing, constant concern about ventilation, travel restrictions, failing small businesses, anti-science militancy, and perpetual anxiety about the health and safety of People We Love — it’s enough to grind anyone to a powder. Etiquetteer encourages you to speak with a Trusted Person — spouse, partner, friend, or colleague — about your own COVID anxieties, and how to persist in the weeks to come. The old saying “A trouble shared with a trouble halved, but a joy shared is a joy doubled” was never truer than in this crisis.