Man says his wife pretended to be him and completed his work while he was sick, sparking debate

Working from home has many perks. But it has its downsides as well. Sometimes, the boss expects the employees to work even when they are sick. In one such scenario, a Reddit user u/beepbeepboopbooopp recalled how his wife pretended to be him and completed his work for a day. His wife was able to do his work because they both are software engineers working from home. He says, "I'm a full stack developer while she's a front-end developer, but she pretty much has all the knowledge she needs to do the same work as I do. She would sometimes sit with me while I would work and help me debug lines and lines of code (which I appreciate a lot and I do the same in return when I can), but today she really surprised me." The post generated much debate with some arguing the ethics of the issues while others claimed no person who is sick should have to work. 

The post mentioned that he had caught a cold the previous night and was unable to take an off because his team and he had a lot of pressure from his boss to complete a project. He informed his wife about this and she told him to "just focus on getting better and she'd handle the rest." According to him, his wife's job doesn't require her to work any particular time. "She's just given a task or two to complete and since she's efficient, she'd finish within a couple of hours and be free for the rest of the day," he wrote.

He then narrated what happened on the "sick day." "Today, she was free all morning, so she locked herself in my office and started doing my work. She made an excuse in my team's group chat pretending to be me, saying I lost my voice, so I can't hop on a voice call and they fell for it." He wrote, "She made me breakfast and told me I couldn't come into the office for the rest of the day, so here I am lounging on my sofa with a wet cloth on my forehead, a box of tissues next to me, and the biggest f-ing smile." He concluded the post, "Edit: I took an index card and wrote "free work day pass" on it and gave it to my wife in return for helping me out today. I also plan to treat her to a nice dinner once I'm not sick out of my mind."

Many on Reddit could not stop appreciating his wife for what she did. u/KateBreakneck commented, "What a lovely surprise!! It’s so great to take care of and be taken care of by your partner, isn’t it??? Please don’t ever stop doing this for each other. You guys both sound like you got it pretty good ❤️" u/MadeMeMeh commented, "I have always secretly wished me and a wife could split a work-from-home job like this. Give us both a chance to be part-time stay-at-home people. You are so lucky to have a person who treats you so well. Good luck OP."

Also, the post was uploaded on Instagram and it started a heated debate. @danianepg wrote, "And that’s why we need strong labor laws kids. So we don’t romanticize the fact that ppl don’t even have the right to get sick without overloading others (wife or the team)." @taniaosuala commented, "Sad state of affairs where you cannot take a sick day for a project that may be outdated in 12 months. The worse part, is we’re conditioned to believe this was a great alternative."