The other day my husband decided to telecommute because he had a bit of a sniffle. Normally this would never have stopped him from going into the office on a typical non-telecommute day. But this time he continued to work from home every day for 3 days until his cold had mostly passed.

Why? I give you two words: Swine Flu.

In the very unlikely event that he had somehow contracted swine flu, my husband didn’t want to take the unnecessary risk of infecting others.

I really applaud his approach. He had a few face-to-face meetings that he had to change around a bit, but he felt it important to keep his germs out of the office. Corporate offices are an awful opportunity for germs and illnesses of all kinds to spread. We’re all crowded into small spaces, sharing the same restrooms, cafeteria, etc. If one person is sick, it can spread through an office like wildfire.

Now I agree that the media may have hyped Swine Flu up a little in some cases. I think people are starting to suspect it may not be as severe and as serious of a pandemic as it was initially considered.

But we just never know - and nobody wants to take unnecessary risks.

I’ve read a lot about people who come into the office when they’re sick, because they don’t like telecommuting, feel they won’t get as much done, or that they’re afraid their managers won’t like it. I’ve heard that some managers do in fact discourage their somewhat sick employees from working at home because they just don’t know how to deal with telecommuters and truly think they won’t be working if they “work” from home.

These attitudes (both the worker’s and the manager’s) are selfish and frustrating. To get others around you sick (some of whom may have other health issues, where what seems like a mild illness for you has a major impact to them) for these reasons is inexcusable. If a manager can’t judge how hard his employees are working by the work they produce, rather than how many hours he sees them at their desks, he isn’t worth his salt.

And especially now with what many perceive as a potentially deadly illness circulating around, it’s ridiculous to ignore the risk mitigation that telecommuting has to offer. With all the technologies we have today like laptops, Instant Messaging, and virtual private networks to “tunnel” into your company’s intranet from home, there’s just no good reason not to spend a couple of productive days at home.

Now if those few days at home are an annoyance to your manager, think about this. When a co-worker gets me sick, and I’m either too sick to work or perhaps am just less productive than usual, by the time I’m finally getting better my kids are then sick and have to stay home from daycare. So I have to take more time off to care for them. But my kids probably already spread their germs at daycare before their symptoms started (nothing like sucking on the toy that some other kid just sucked on to spread even the smallest amount of germs) and suddenly other kids are getting sick, staying home so their parents have to take time off work. Then those parents get sick, are less productive, come into their offices, and spread the illness to all their co-workers. All because my co-worker couldn’t telecommute for a couple of days! How’s that for annoying?

And, too, unless your work is completely independent, think about how your co-workers getting sick from your cold will cause them to fall behind on the work that’s critical for your own project! Your own selfish actions can ultimately turn around and bite you in the backside.

So please, whether you do it for selfish or altruistic reasons, when you feel the sniffles coming on, skip the commute and fire up your laptop from home!

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