Holidays can take their toll on office workers

The holidays can be a grueling time for office workers, who must survive the ennui-filled purgatory between Thanksgiving and Christmas, recover from the boozy and body-wrecking holiday party circuit and fight off germs from the 80 percent of colleagues who come in to work despite being sick. Out of that group who hit the cubicle while still battling sniffles and coughs, more than a quarter say they do it to avoid using a sick day. And among the workers who stay home to get over the worst of their symptoms, more than two-thirds return to the office while they’re still contagious, according to a recent survey from office supply chain Staples. Each year, the flu results in 70 million missed workdays and $10 billion in lost office productivity. The NCAA college basketball tournament, by comparison, causes employers to pay out $1 billion in wages to distracted workers. Blame the weakened immune systems on filthy office behavior. Half of employees don’t clean their work spaces once a week or more, according to the Staples report.