Sick at Work? Go Home!

No kidding! This CDC photograph captured a sneeze in progress, revealing the plume of salivary droplets as they are expelled in a large cone-shaped array from this man's open mouth. The flu virus can spread in this manner and survive long enough on a doorknob or countertop to infect another person. It dramatically illustrating the reason you should cover your mouth when sneezing or coughing to protect others from germ exposure, health officials say. It’s also why you need to wash your hands a lot, on the assumptions others don’t always cover their sneezes. Credit: CDC/James Gathany

We humans are real sickos. We live longer these days than in past generations, but thanks to a variety of factors, including super-hygiene, sedentary lifestyles, and a lack of worms in our stomachs, we're sicker than ever.

If you're the type that always goes into work when you're sick, well, that's really sick. You can infect others, for one. But more important on a personal level, you do yourself no good in the long run, it seems

Employees who often go to work feeling sick tend to miss more work due to illness down the road, a new study finds.

Study subjects who went to work while sick a lot in one year (5 or more days) were up to 50 percent more likely than other employees to miss 30 days due to sickness the following year.