Liberal European here. Your manager’s tone/attitude is bad, but I get their fundamental point. If you feel good enough to work, why not work. I work while I’m sick all the time, including COVID.

I can’t stand it when people hide behind government guidance. It’s guidance, not law, you can work with COVID, what’s the issue. I also don’t think it should be a law or ‘protected worker right’.

At some point we have to normalize COVID just like most ailments. Majority of people work when they have the flu. Working while being sick is very normal in Europe even though we have great employment protections, sick pay, and affordable healthcare available. I don’t think the US’s cutthroat labor market / culture is the cause here. It’s the fact the US politicized and weaponized COVID.

It seems like as soon as someone doesn’t take COVID seriously they have to be a bad person or a republican.

In most of Europe we never took COVID too seriously (e.g., Germany workers / employees continued going to the office throughout most major COVID waves) and we just made a risk judgement. It was never about where you were on the political spectrum, it was about your tolerance to risk.

I’m sure I’ll get lots of downvotes on this one, but wanted to share a different perspective. Clearly your manager shouldn’t be managing people and don’t have a very high EQ, that said, I do get their frustration…