I’m going to do it.
I’m going to go out there and start licking pigs, and end this madness once and for all.
This hysteria has got to stop! Upon the start of the regular flu season, at which point the delerium of the summer-of-swiney collided with the traditional early-fall panic to create a new breed of monster freak-out, the shit very subtley hit the fan at my work, and apparently less subtley everywhere else.
Without alerting the in-office clients, we were quietly told to start making hand sanitizer available everywhere. Ok, not a huge deal. We were also told to start Lysol-ing the crap out of our phones and keyboards. Oooookay, I guess one should be more cautious than usual in a public area that sees such heavy pedestrian traffic. Not my style personally, but hey, I just do what I’m told.
Then we were given alerts about symptoms, precautionary measures, emergency procedures, and brightly coloured easy-to-read mini-posters alerting us to the death that was surely waiting a sneeze away. Documents that looked more like something out of District-9 than inter-office memorandum.
Then I was handed a cleaning schedule, and that was the final straw. Cleaning is already enough of my usual 9-5 taskload, because frankly the only swiney I’m worried about around here are the pigs that leave wadded up paper towels in their slowly moulding coffee mugs in the sink. I already wipe mystery goo off walls and scrape a depressing amount of filth off counters. I’m more than aware of how to keep bacteria off my hands. So when I’m handed an anti-swiney cleaning regiment to be completed EVERY HALF AN HOUR that I soon realize takes TWENTY MINUTES to complete, my gut reaction is as follows:
a) Dear bosses: If you think I have that much spare time in the average day, what exactly have you been paying me to do up until now?
and b) No. No, no, no! I will not!
This is craziness! If you’re that concerned, hire a damn antibacterial-masked bubble-wrapped she-bot to do your bidding. I have shit to do! Like make sure about 500 calls a day get answered properly, mail for nearly 100 different companies get sorted and delivered, documents get shipped out, shipped in, signed for, bound or requested from various legal entities, make sure the kitchen is cleaned and stocked, boardrooms appropriately scheduled and tidied (and I don’t mean ‘tidy’, I mean ‘pens are placed logo-up on pad of paper at 45 degree angle as per 1000+ identical locations company-wide policy and so help you if the boss shows up and it isn’t done right’ kind of ‘tidy’.)
I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR HYSTERIA!!!!
I get it, this isn’t just the regular flu. But breeding super germs within my body by way of this ultra-sterile behaviour was not part of my job description the last time I checked. And another thing: if you really are that fearful for the lives of your clients and maybe even staff, then may I suggest you spend some of those hard earned dollars on getting us all vaccinated?
Not that I’m not suspicious of a hastily formulated, poorly distributed, side affect riddled, overly hyped innoculation. I just figure if hockey players and private school students get to jump the lines ahead of young mothers, children and the elderly waiting for hours in the cold and rain outside of under-stocked pop-up clinics, then surely my white collar, benefits-up-the-ass colleagues and I deserve preferential treatment as well. Right?
Hells no. Wash your hands, drink your vitamin C, and if you’re that concerned – go to your doctor. This is Canada; they’re backed up, hectic, but free.
come and get me, you pork punk little bastard!
800 Miles 