Contact Tracing: a Short Story

What Happens When an Invisible Threat Infiltrates Your Office...

The Time That Margaux Got Sick

2-minute read

Margaux's alarm goes off, and she slowly gets out of bed. Around 9 a.m., she enters the office building and rides the elevator with a few unfamiliar faces. She greets colleagues in the kitchen while filling her bottle and heads to her desk. Her office spans three floors, but with a team of just 12 people, remembering names isn’t too hard.

She has lunch with coworkers, but she’s too busy to enjoy her tofu quinoa salad because she has three back-to-back meetings. These meetings mostly result in three paper airplanes, a few tic-tac-toe games, and two additional meetings scheduled for later in the week.

By 4 p.m., Margaux feels exhausted—both physically and emotionally—but she’s satisfied with her work. Around dinnertime, she starts feeling feverish but doesn’t think much of it. She decides to get some early rest.

At 2 a.m., she wakes up coughing. She feels worse than before. Is it just a random cold, or could it be COVID-19?

The next morning, feeling even worse, Margaux messages her workplace manager, Helen, to let her know she might have COVID-19...

The Workplace Manager's Dilemma

As a workplace manager, Helen is responsible for maintaining health and well-being in the office. She hopes employees are being cautious, but she understands that life goes on as usual for most people.

She has followed seven essential tips for workplace managers and feels confident in supporting her team. She hopes employees know they can come to her if they have serious concerns.

This morning, she receives a concerning message from Margaux in finance. Margaux felt fine yesterday, but now she is displaying COVID-19 symptoms. Helen immediately checks Margaux’s bookings for the past week to see where she sat and who she met with. Luckily, Margaux works in a small team and only had five meetings, but the office is an open-plan space. If she were a manager or C-level executive, tracking her interactions would be overwhelming.

Helen tries her best to ensure proper ventilation, but you never know. Using Spaceti Analytics, she gathers data on Margaux’s contacts and begins notifying those who were exposed.

She wishes her company had a larger budget to test Margaux’s immediate contacts, but for now, they must quarantine. Situations like these can be managed, but it makes her wonder: how many asymptomatic employees come to work daily? Maybe it’s time to talk to her boss about investing in a temperature check system.