Maybe the tale of western frontier legend Typhoid Mary should be required reading for workers who show up at the office when they should be home in bed.

According to an Office Team survey, employees and their managers are fully aware that about 70 percent of sick employees bring their illness to the office rather than staying home and getting well. Especially with flu season upon us, Office Team (and common sense) tells us, such behavior — whatever the motivation — exacts a huge price in terms of lost productivity as these stolid soldiers share their illness with co-workers.

The survey extracted data from 400 U.S. office workers and 300 office managers. The objective was to determine how often sick workers don't stay home, and to find out if the managers of these office workers knew they were too sick to be at work.