Everyone is sick around me. On the train, in the streets, in
the office. Sneezing, coughing, vomiting blood in the bathroom (I assume). It's
horrible. And yet, here they are, at work, tapping away on their computer. Why?
Why are you spraying germs all over yourself and your coworkers? Would you come
to work if you knew you had the Ebola Virus?
"Hey guys, don't mind me, my limbs are falling off and
I am going to die in five hours, but I need to get a couple of meetings set up before
my eyes melt into my skull."
No. Instead, you would do something cool like rob a bank
because it’s your last day on Earth, and as you're making your getaway,
someone would trip the silent alarm and you be cut down in a blaze of gunfire
trying to shoot your way through the police barricade. And after the cops confirmed you
were dead, they would discover that your gun was loaded with blanks, and you
were planning to send the stolen money to the Ebola Virus Cure Foundation. And
the cop who shot you would go home that night sad and withdrawn, replaying the
event over and over in his head. But then his wife would yell at him because it
took her almost two hours to make pot roast and it's going to waste because
he's "not hungry" again. Asshole. The next day she would wake up and
find only a note in the spot where her husband sleeps. All it would say is,
"Life is too short to live with a Harpy Bitch." And now the cop's
wife is feeling regret and would probably start dabbling with meth and prostitution
because even though he was always bringing his work home with him, she lost the
best thing she ever had. ALL BECAUSE YOU CAME TO WORK WITH A COLD.
People who work in an office force themselves to come to
work sick because agents from Corporate America LLC secretly break into their
homes at night to inject paranoia into their brains while they sleep.
"Steve is sick? Bullshit! I bet he's lying and he’s
just hung over. Or he cheated on his wife. Or he murdered a hobo in an
abandoned house with a shovel. We’ll show that fucking asshole what’s up by
squirting bacteria into his snoring mouth."
And I'll be the first to admit that I've been injected by
this paranoia--I freely admit that I am part of the problem. When someone is
out sick, I automatically assume they are in withdrawal from heroin. Most
likely this not true, but because I’m under suspicion, so should Devin—doesn’t
anyone else find it weird that she always talks about
Trainspotting? It came out like 15 years ago. An yeah, most likely Devin
is home in bed, resting her body so she can return to work and not make
everyone else sick. Or she is strung out and burying a corpse in the woods. One
or the other.
The other issue with germs in the workplace is not everyone 'gets'
what is 'hygienic' and what is fucking gross. I used to work with a guy who constantly
used a handkerchief. He would sneeze and hack into it and then stuff it right
back into his pocket. Then he would ask me what I thought about the White Sox
or whatever. What is even going on here? I’m not going to have a conversation
with you--there is a flesh-eating disease in your fucking pocket!
I'll talk to you if you give me a fucking hazmat
suit. Someone should have thrown him in jail and stuffed his handkerchief up
his ass. Who carries a fucking handkerchief nowadays? It's not 1934, when
everyone was toeing the poverty line and had to be exposed to germs every nine
seconds. There are hand sanitizer stations everywhere. A pack of Kleenex costs
like a buck. Antibiotics are no longer a luxury of the rich only. Who do you
think you are, Jay Gatsby?
I am lucky because I have a pretty good immune system. Maybe
it has something to do with eating 500 bulbs of garlic a week and smelling like
a goddamn Napolitano pizza shop owner, I don’t know. But I do get sick once or twice
a year, and normally it’s only for a few days at a time. But this doesn't stop
me from wanting to break a bottle over the head of anyone coughing on the
train, because instead of rationalizing my body's ability to fight off germs,
my brain always assumes the worst:
Oh wow, that guy looks
sick. And he's wearing a suit, so he's obviously in the CIA. Maybe some
government lab exploded and he was the only one to escape? Just like in The Stand by Stephen King? Now he's going around and spreading his
germs to everyone he knows, and then we're going to spread our germs to
everyone we know, and then us survivors (I assume I will survive the impending plague
because I eat garlic) will have to move to Boulder, CO and fight the guy who
plays Vice President Walden in Homeland. Makes sense, if you think about it.
But like everyone else, I’m not Superman (yet), and I do get
sick, I normally don't go to work. But the paranoia in my brain still buzzes,
thus forcing me to make a conscious effort to prove my sickness. I usually
leave a voicemail at 5am when I sound like I smoke 450 packs of Kools a day,
just to drive home the point that I am not feeling well. Then when I'm well
enough to return to work, my boss will make a comment about how sick I sounded
on my voicemail, and I will somehow feel vindicated, even though I really was
sick and I was better off being in bed and not spreading my disease.
I am also fully aware that it's fucking insane that my brain
has been trained to think this way, but such is life, right? When in Rome,
right? Que se ra ra se ra, right? (Jumps out window)
In Europe people stay home if they have a headache, and I
bet nobody thinks twice about it. In fact, I bet they probably send Swiss chocolates
or baguettes or some other delicious European shit to said person's house and
wish them a speedy recovery. We should look to Europe and mimic their work
ethic and morals instead of assuming every missing coworkers was arrested over
the weekend for arson, and is using the flu as an excuse for being in jail and
sharing a cell with some rapist named Mack Daddy. Never mind Europe's impending
bankruptcy and constant unsettlement--it's more important to trust a coworkers
who claim to be sick, if only so I won't get sick and then have to prove my
sickness in weird unnecessary voicemails.
