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Stay Home, You Sick Bastard

4/26/05

I lived with my buddy Charles "Chuck" Longer (he moonlights as a Bellview guest writer and full-time influence) for three years post-college, and of the dozens of things that he said that used to always stick with me, one of them usually to always make me laugh--

"I never get sick."

See, Chuck would constantly argue that, in the face of sickness, he would always rise above; in fact, Chuck wouldn't get REALLY sick that often (flu, mono, whooping cough, etc.).  But, there were at least a dozen times over the course of our domesticity that he would still have a little head cold here and there, or a particularly bad incident with the beans, or a minor basketball injury that had him laid up at the casa.

I will give Chuck this much--when Chuck was really sick, he sure as hell wouldn't go to the office.  I'm the same way:  the first sign that I am going to be miserable with a bad cough or cold, I dial up the boss stat and make sure he knows that he won't be seeing Mr. Bell today.  I've always worked at jobs that have had decent, not exceptional, amounts of sick leave, and I actually like taking a sick day every so often because it helps me catch up on my sleep at a time when I would probably not be getting my recommended share.

Why doesn't everyone think this way?  Because 95% of all people are selfish fucking rat bastards that think, above all else, that getting their work done is more important than making the entire office they work in sick as dogs.  They are so hell-bent in doing this that it never occurs to them that four days of being sick and depressed and annoying to your fellow co-workers is actually worse than just calling in sick, doing some recovering, and then being back on your feet two days later.

You will often hear me complain about my feelings regarding East Coast vs. West Coast work cultures, but on this issue, there is no difference--despite the fact that most of my friends have a pool of hours they could use for sick leave, they would prefer to not use any of them, come to work with the initial stages of mononucleosis and then openly complain to all in the office,

"Jeez, why won't this cough go away?"

Why can't we as a people just admit when we are beaten?  Okay, your wife and daughter both have a cold that you are starting to pick up...why not just suffer, stay at home for a couple of days while you catch up on your zzz's and your Tom Clancy novel, and then come back refreshed on Thursday?  Do you think I fucking WANT you to come to the office with that cold, sitting a cube wall away from me, while I quietly ponder how sick I'M GOING TO FUCKING BE three days from now?

Oh, you think I like it more when I get to hear you cough all day, or blowing your nose while you keep asking if you can "borrow" more Kleenex from the box I have stashed in my third desk drawer?  Seriously, if one more co-worker asks if they can "borrow" any more of my tissues I'm going to pop them with a softball bat.  If your sick bastard-ass really needs to be at work today, then you really need to go out and spend $1.79 on a box of two-ply tissues from your local Safeway.  Cheap, sick bastard!

Now, at this point, you might be saying, "Justin, look, I hear you, but I had this meeting that I ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY had to be at last week and even though I had been diagnosed with the flu I had to be there to make my portion of the presentation blah blah blah."  In the 10% of cases where you simply must make an appearance at the office, we need to develop some rules so that you can make your appearance and not infect, say, the entire floor of your office.

1. Make sure that you absolutely can't teleconference or webinar your portion of the meeting.  Come on, with today's technology and a home phone or Internet connection, you probably are already telecommuting for part of your week anyway.  If you are that sick yet that vital to a work function, there's almost always a way around it.
2. Come in only for the meeting.  I'm always amazed when people come to the office straight infected and stick around not only for the office board meeting but to make calls and hang around their desk all day.  Okay, you're sick as hell, so just hang out for your hour-long presentation, then leave!
3. Trust me, it can be done--reschedule.  Sometimes I don't think people realize that you can actually reschedule a meeting.  Seriously.  No, you can't do it when the partners are flying in from San Diego on a trip planned four months ago...but, in most other cases, telling your boss, "Hey, Bob, I'm under the weather today...can we bump to next Monday?"  Those that have been working in offices for a while have realized that most meetings are not dire, life-and-death situations that need to happen on the exact day and time planned.

All of this only applies to us cubicle-bound folks; for those in service and people-facing positions--be it retail, your doctor's office, education, etc.--I think the "Stay Home, You Sick Bastard" argument becomes a bit more hazy.  This is because there are fewer backups in place to help out if you get sick; I don't want my gynecologist working on my wife when she's got a bad fever, and I certainly don't want the guy coughing up phlegm folding and restocking button-downs at The Gap.  So, when your first-line staff is not available, there are not always people on the bench waiting to take your place; anyone who has managed a retail establishment will whine for days about how painful it is to replace a salesperson that has called in sick that morning with anyone else that was supposed to have an off-day.  Yeah, the woman that is about to give you a full-service rundown of your vagina has a runny nose, but this is your regular doctor and you'll be damned if anyone else is going to cover your appointment this morning.

I don't want my dentist to be coughing up a storm before walking in to check the hygienist's work, but he is the same dentist I've been seeing for 15 years now and I'm willing to make an exception to the "Stay Home, You Sick Bastard" rules.  In theory, if that dentist is sick and doesn't want to come to work that day, you've got to shut the whole dental practice down for a day and cancel 20 appointments...in short, a big-time nightmare.

So, let's face facts--if your job is important and there are no good last-minute-fill-ins in place, you probably need to come to work, flu bug et al.  But if not, do me and the rest of your co-workers a favor:

Stay Home, You Sick Bastard.

 

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell and Longer Community Trust:

• The Phat Phree:  Opening Weekend

• So many prospects on eHarmony calling you that you can't remember all of their names:  $9.50 Show

• Backless tops...on thick women:  Matinee

• "Hey ump, you suck!":  Rental

• Accepting a new job, then finding out that your new firm lost funding for your position:  Hard Vice

 

justin@bellviewmovies.com