Let me just start off by saying that you matter. You are important just for being you. There is a place in this world for you. You exist. It's a wonder, but ...
... you have now effectively been validated.
That being said I want now to ask why do sick people come to work?
(Someone just sneezed two more times. I'm beginning to play in my mind one of those infomercials where you say, "Every 10 seconds a healthy cell dies, killed by the slivering shrapnel from an errant sneeze. One. Innocent. Cell. Dead. You can stop this. By giving just one sick day, you can save someone from a cough, that violent, persistent hacking that plagues one so ...)
We all have bills to pay, yes. We all also possess an innate longing to be acknowledged; some of us long more and harder than others, but whatever. My point is that you, and your sick people snot, are dispensable. The Earth will not shun its turn on its faithful axis just because you can't come in to shuffle papers for a day. Gracious.
I used to count sneezes, but I work in a dust bowl and most of the time the sneezes really are more of an allergic reaction as opposed to someone being contagious with some nasty sickness. You're used to that one person who sneezes 81 times a day in rapid succession. That becomes normal. It's not their fault, really. But when the sound waves become polluted with obnoxiously loud and drawn out fog-horned blows of snot being excreted from what sounds like the medula oblongata region of their head, I get irritable and I wonder why you're not at home.
And then I remember that misery loves company, doesn't it? And then I realize that though I know I'm dispensable, many of us like the self-inflated feeling that we are not. Isn't that sad?
Because you know this person. They are probably somewhere near you complaining about how nasty Hall's lozenges are, or which ones are cheaper, Halls or Ricola, or how they would go to the doctor, but they just have so much to do. In other words, "I'm just so important that you don't even know. You don't even know that none of this anything would work without me ... not the sunrise, not these papers that I don't bother to file anyways, nothing."
Why do we sacrifice our health and well-being just so co-workers we may or may not really know (or like) can come by and ask if we're okay every hour on the hour?
I can tell you right now that I'm not going to be one of those asking, because I am not even trying to enter into the same sphere in which you may be breathing, let alone talking. I'm already too impatient to withstand a sob story, so a sob-and-snot story is absolutely out of the question that your sad woe-is-me puppy dog eyes are asking me EVERY single time I walk by. I don't want to be talking to you as you cough into your hand a dozen times and then try to hand me something with that same hand -- a hand that is no doubt still glistening from the fresh coat of bacteria you just hacked all over it.
What is wrong with you?! ...
... people that just rear back and hack it on up into the air that the rest of us are breathing, nary a thought of covering that gaping hole in your face that's responsible for the meandering microbes that are besieging my healthy soul as I write.
And for goodness and health's sake cup and cough. It's oh-so-very simple. You feel yourself about to hack it up, direct those woofs to your elbow or armpit region, not the hand that feeds you, or the hand that astonishingly enough keeps reaching into the community snack bar -- henceforth to be known as the snack-cesspool -- or the hand that likes to reach out and touch people and their pens, necklaces and skin or other items.
People laugh at me for hanging on to the paper towels as I open the bathroom door, but I just washed my hands and those door handles are just hanging out there collecting all that they can, well, handle. Well, they ain't fidna be handlin' me, and neither are you.
Yes I will spray Lysol dead in your face if it means that me and mine won't be laid up somewhere for weeks at a time as my immune system tries to make sense out of the amalgamated affliction. I will gladly offer to squirt -- because you yourself aren't allowed to touch anything in my presence -- some antibacterial gel and accompanying lotion into your grimy hands with that smile that says, "Yeah. I'm doing this in front of you because you are sick and it's gross and I don't want to catch it."
I just don't get it. I don't understand how you can just get up, knowing you could barely move, and come all the way to work and parade around miserably all day. Why? What's a better incentive than a paid sick day at home? You're getting paid to lie there and do nothing. Take advantage.
My employee handbook don't have to tell me twice. You got some sick time. I'mma use it as soon as I feel the least bit poorly.
I have this theory-type thing about all of this. It just came to me as a dude walked by hackin'. His voice has gone into the lower rasp range, he was walking away and waving at some other guy that was commenting on how he didn't look or sound too well. The sick dude goes, "Hey man. At least I'm in the game."
Oh, so this is everyone's attempt to be Michael Jordan in the finals versus the Jazz? (It was like Game 5 or something, but I remember all they kept saying throughout the game was how sick he was, his body was totally ravaged by the flu, and then he hit the tying jumper towards the end, thwarting the Jazz's mojo as only MJ could do.)
Is there some kind of special pat on the back you can give yourself for coming in when your nose is redder than Rudolph's and your eyes are trying so hard to stay awake that the Sandman is working overtime? I don't know of too many bosses* who actually want you to come in and decimate the entire department with your pervasive pestilence. No, instead they give you sick days and PTO.
(I was going to say I know of no bosses, but immediately I realized how stupid that would be for me to say since I once had a boss who'd rather see you sick and damn near maimed than wonder with whom you were off interviewing.)
What these sick people need to realize is that this is work and it's not effin' about just you. This ain't no game. This is work. People's livelihoods are at stake here. Errybody can't be a professional athlete, as sad as that may initially make one feel. But coming into a building where 400 people are trying to earn a living is not to be treated like Game 5 of the NBA Finals -- no one is going to high-five you for your "contributions" and there certainly ain't no Scottie Pippens in here willing to carry your snivelin' tail. There's no championship to be won here. Nobody's going to Disneyworld on company time. You are not Michael Jordan.
You are Stan-with-the-Shivers or Katie-with-the-hacking-cough so do me a favor and go somewhere and "sit this one out, buddy" -- preferably on a nice, warm bench.
* * * * * * *
Germs -- Right Givin' Little Suckers Aren't They?
Ack! I try to duck
But your sneeze sprays and traps me
like a spider's web.