COVID-19 Advice for Caregivers from the Centers for Disease Control

I am following @lioness recommendation and thanks for you acknowledging too. I have worked here for enough years (7) that they know how dedicated and productive I've been. They certainly know that my insurance is paramount right now. In some ways the FMLA has muddied the waters. At this point it's not working out as favorably as I'd like but I need to research it a little more before I make any changes in my status. Thanks again for your comments. They are very helpful.

Hi @kandc317. I'm sorry to hear that you're going through all of this. Having frail elderly family members that live with us, I definitely understand the concerns. We are taking extra precautions as well.

Having been a manager in large corporations, I wanted to see if I could provide some thoughts from the employer's perspective. While I am certain that you are a hard worker and very good at what you do, I wonder if while working at home, someone raised concerns about your productivity and whether you were focused enough on the job. (The tip-off for this is that they were letting you work from home fairly freely and then changed their minds). This may be perception rather than reality, because some managers have a hard time seeing that you are working if they can't see your smiling face at your desk. It might be a good idea to have a conversation with your manager to ask if there were concerns that led to you being asked to spend more time in the office, and talk about how you can address those concerns. Depending on the nature of the concerns that were raised, they might be willing to discuss more work from home now, or they might not, but at least you would know where you stand. As an aside, try not to get defensive or argue about the concerns - their perception is their reality - so instead you should focus on what you can do to change the perception.

If they are still allowing you to work from home, you may want to ask if you could shift those hours to only come in on certain days, which might reduce exposure somewhat (not leaving the house on the days that you work from home, for example). You might also ask if you can use tools like Skype or Zoom to attend meetings by video-conference. You may want to start over-communicating when working from home so that people recognize the effort you are putting in and that you are actually in your home office working when you are not in the company office.

In my experience, some companies have a culture that is supportive of working from home and naturally trusts that people are doing their jobs even if they can't watch them do it. Other companies struggle with this trust, so as an employee, you want to do what you can to build that trust so people say "of course he's working" even if they can't see you at the moment.

The other option is to use your FMLA leave to just take time off but in most cases, that leave is unpaid, which can be a financial challenge, so working this out with your employer is probably better. That said, FMLA does at least protect your job for the time that you are off.

Best wishes to you and your wife. Hopefully this situation will pass quickly but in the meantime, it's certainly challenging.

@coloradogirl, thanks for your insight. I have worked at both large corporations and small companies and without a doubt unfairness and favoritism are alive and well in both/all business environments. I would have to say it's generally seems worse in a smaller company because it's so much harder to hide.
After careful consideration of your comments i'm nearly certain that my immediate issue is the toxic director I work for. Our owners like him but he is anything but professional and doesn't know how to treat employees with respect. Uses the boss card a lot and is probably the biggest time theft person in the company. He even runs a separate personal business on company time. But, they are not willing to check him at any turn.
I did get some good news late yesterday that due to the virus, they had to let most of our professionals work from home, at least for this week which further proves my point about it was always an arbitrary decision on my directors part to disallow my request for more home work until the flood gates opened. It was great today to be home with my wife as she has been having much pain as I described earlier. I'm being as compliant as I can to prolong this situation although I wish it didn't happen as the result of a serious pandemic negatively affecting so many people.

Good morning @kandc317 Your comment about your boss struck a solid chord with me! I recently read a study showing more workers leave because of their direct boss than any other reason! And it was W-A-Y out in front in first place.

At this point I might suggest you see how the situation in your state/county/city changes. It is changing on an hourly basis in many cities right now I know. A suburb of Chicago just went on lockdown ala San Francisco and many industries are sending out their own guidelines for how to operate in these weird times. Our daughter's an attorney and they are getting daily updates from court districts as they slow things and offer automatic deadline extensions, etc.

How is your wife doing with all this?

@IndianaScott. Thanks for the update. My company while small has significant tech capabilities as well as established positions that are 100% remote-in my department! Yet another reason for enabling me to also do it instead of making it difficult for me. When the pandemic plateaus if not before I'll have a list of advantages to the business for me working remotely to share. My wife is ok although at her treatment tomorrow they already called and let us know that no visitors are allowed in the treatment rooms. My wife gets to treatment in an ambulance on a stretcher having been on her back for some 7 months, so her being immobile without a caregiver is especially stressful. We'll get it done though. Treatments last 4-5 hours. Thanks again for your help.