It's "Take Your Flu To Work" Day!
Now that everyone’s been enormously sick, and for such a long time, we are all tired of staying in our homes in our segregated sickbeds. Let’s just take our flus to the subways and to the offices of Manhattan! I mean everyone else has it, so why should we worry, AM I RIGHT? And besides, what if they forget about you at work and lay you off? Here’s that attitude: “I work in a huge company, in a giant skyscraper, in the middle of Manhattan. I would say that in a typical day, 100% of my co-workers come into close proximity (on the subway, in the streets ,in the lobby, on the elevator, throughout the office, etc., etc…) to hundreds of people and the various concoctions of germs, bacteria, and viruses that these hundreds of people are transmitting. So, if you add me to the mix, does it really make a difference?”
Hee, I can hear everyone screaming “herd immunity” at once. Um yes, it does make a difference, ya ding dong. Here’s some pretty good responses.
My daughter is immuno-compromised, and people just would not stop coming into work while sick. I took to wearing a hospital mask at work to avoid catching anything, and I had to do a whole decontamination routine before I could see her, let alone touch her. Do you know what it’s like to see someone crying for you and have to stop yourself from reaching out to her in return until you’ve sufficiently de-loused yourself of the germs of one martyr of a coworker?
And:
I’ve been taking heavy precautions this year (the cruel thing about being immune compromised is that you don’t produce as many antibodies as healthy people do to the flu shot; it’s less effective for us), and I don’t go out much anyway. Nonetheless, I got the flu from my husband, who is not compromised and works in a large office where people come in sick. While he shook it off in four days, I’m going on two weeks. I’m so sick I’m getting IV fluids, IV electrolytes and anti-nausea medication at home. It totally almost killed me. I am like a walking, talking (swap: laying in bed and barfing) PSA for why healthy people should stay in if they are sick and contagious with the flu.