Workplace sickness will surely increase wont it

[Friedbacon35]

With ever increasing termps aibu to think workplace sickness might spike in summer in future

I feel like I can barely do my job during the hottest part of the day felt like going to pass out

There needs to be legal maximum temp where you can just leave work

Because it won't say illegal or it'll say unlawful unless x, y or z. What the government is discussing is guidelines. It's not hard to understand.

I assume - perhaps wrongly - that your job is considered “essential” then and
you’ll be happy to plough on while other people are sent home?

And watch the dirty, smelly rubbish piling high in the streets because it's too hot for the refuse collectors to take it away.

It wouldn’t hurt to have building regulations that require passive cooling but it will never happen in the uk.

I’m hoping employers will have a responsibility to invest in air con.

Yes. Though I can WFH sometimes but when it's essential no I can't.

Am I supposed to be annoyed that someone who works in admin for say, a company selling insurance gets to go home when I don't?

No, not really. Completely different jobs and responsibilities. Same as I don't get annoyed by people who get Xmas Day off because their job means it's not essential they work that day.

Weird question to be honest.

We didn’t have our bins collected when it was hot a couple of weeks ago as the council building lost power. Which meant the systems were down and they couldn’t organise rubbish collections.

Dh works for our LA. It’s a shit show in their shiny new buildings (which have air con, unless the power keeps going out).

They had a power cut yesterday. No one turned up to collect the bins this morning due to that.

I was basing my responses on the OP who said a legal maximum temperature. If it’s just guidelines then surely no one will have the “right” to just walk out still. Whether you’re an office worker or healthcare worker. So we’re pretty much back to where we are now. So she won’t have the right to just walk out any more than a nurse would. It’ll be up to employers just like it is now.

We need to find ways to work through the high temperatures unless really in a highly strenuous job that can only be done outside.
muse of aircon/ fans/ shades/ water / appropriate clothing makes it very possible for the majority of people to work fine in hot temps.

Well no. She’s got a point 🤷🏼‍♀️
Medical professionals, emergency services etc what are they meant to do, walk out?
I work in water, if we all went home because it’s too hot and no one got any water people would soon be complaining

I agree.
Others cope in much more difficult circumstances in other countries.
There's a very disturbing pattern emerging that if something is challenging there needs to be instant support or the challenge withdrawn (with full pay obviously).

“To be fair” NHS workers get to work with the sickness and germs that everybody goes there with.

So it’s amazing that they are only off 3 times as much as those in nice air conditioned back offices. But I don’t think ‘fair’ is anything you were interested in was it? How many NHS workers died to help others during COVID?

And the perso n who asked why nurses and healthcare can’t keep going if the drs can: for a start I doubt the doctors will, but they are not the ones lugging bariatric patients about on 13 hr shifts for minimum wage or not much above in the 35 degrees heat.

aircon

Would be nice. Good luck getting all the new hospitals built. Ours is literally falling down around us. There was a ward where the heating was on when the temp was last at 35. The rumour was that maintenance didn’t dare turn it off because they wouldn’t be able to start it again, to make it work again in winter. We were supposed to be getting a new hospital under the New Hospital Programne (capital letters no less) but the plans were cancelled.

They’d probably be funded by more PFI anyway, costing us all 5 times more than they would if government would just tax and build.

Works and Estates in my hospital ( midwife ) told my manager that air con would only be installed to protect equipment, not for patient or staff comfort. Meanwhile some rooms reached 40 degrees two weeks ago, expecting the same tomorrow,

At least we know their priorities...

It's 35 here today. I work in a 1970s building with large windows and no air-con. We have venetian blinds and a couple of fans between 10 of us.

I'm wearing a woven cotton dress, cotton bra and pants. And sandals. Hair in a ponytail up off my neck. I'm drinking plenty of water. Salad for lunch. Moving slowly. It's not too bad.

There needs to be a sensible approach where vulnerable people are concerned. If health conditions get worse in the heat and make it dangerous to work fair enough, otherwise we just carry on.

Well, there’s a massive shortage of teachers. Surely with yet another excuse to close it’s even easier than it used to be? Why don’t you sign up?

Lots of issues in there @SomeoneIsWrongOnTheInternet. I sympathise. I'm in a patient facing role and it is hot at the moment. Air con could still be installed in many places and we would cope like other countries do.

In China they don't work in the fields eg between 10 am and 4pm. Even in France the schools have 2 hours off 12 -2. Sure we could work round the heat problem too.

And in this case it’s you

It is definitely affecting me already. I have had 3 WFH days as I cannot sit at my desk comfortably when its roasting.

Its a mix of Perimenaupause and 2 disorders, with POTS on top. Its bad enough I have to sit for 8 hrs a day, but the heat makes my legs swell up - though so far I have avoided having to have my leg up on the actual desk .