How to Get Through Cold-and-Flu Season Without Making Enemies

How about 'How to Get Through Cold-and-Flu Season Without Risking Serious, Perhaps Fatal Complications, and Still Keep Your Job'? Or is that just hoping for a miracle? Actually, it's not such a big deal in other developed countries that aren't blessed with that feature unique to the U.S.A., 'Employment at Will'. Over there, if you're sick, you stay home until the doc says it's OK to go back to work, and if they need a note at your workplace he or she will write one. Try that here (even - perhaps especially - WITH the note) and risk being labeled 'The Biggest Loser', and NOT as on that rather dodgy reality TV show.
And you wonder why so many diseases spread through the 'young and healthy' (Read: 'Working. Or else.') populations like wildfire in this land of ours? In the immortal words of Marx (Groucho, that is): "Three guesses, and the first two don't count."

let's not forget the person behind the counter, wearing gloves, flicking her hair back, wiping his nose, then cutting your meat and cheese, wrapping and handing you the package. i also love the person who brings a glass of whatever to your table, fingers holding the glass where i put my lips. also watch out for the RAG that wipes the tables. i actually watched a busboy drop the rag on the floor and continue to clean other tables. it's a wonder we're all not dead!

I understand everyone has things to do, work to do and people to care for; but for every 10 people with a healthy, uncompromised immune system there is one who is immunocompromised due to illness, transplant surgery or cancer. Please think about them while you are out in public while sick. And if you see someone in a surgical mask not touching anything please keep your distance and don't sit next to them or get cozy while you're hacking up a lung. They are most likely immunocompromised and trying to protect themselves!

After the SARS epidemic in particular, it is commonly accepted to where a face mask in East Asia whether you are sick or not. It's a good way for the sick ones to keep their germs to themselves, and (I haven't seen scientific proof of this yet, but I might just not be reading the right pieces) is believed to keep the germs out too. I've only seen some spa workers donning face masks when giving a facial in New York, but I think if more people start wearing them, it will slowly become less strange to do so in public.

Since most flu/colds are most transmittable before symptoms show up, it's hard to avoid them. For me the best solution is to wash my hands as often as possible. Also, as someone mentioned, there is that time when your throat feels a bit scratchy, and you feel a little off. The next day you are sick. So when I start to feel ill, I stay home and nap. (I have had sick leave and am now retired). I usually have a shorter and milder illness than many people.

One thing not mentioned here is having the courtesy to let a friend or group you could be meeting know that you aren't feeling well and asking them if they preferred you stay home. I sing in several choirs, and I wouldn't dare rehearse when I'm sick. Neither do the others I sing with. If we do come to rehearsal we sit far away from everyone.

Also when flying, take along a wipe and wipe down the arm rests, tray table and anything else a previous flyer might have touched. And don't touch those travel magazines. Hoping we can all stay well.

Really, who can actually stay home just because she has a cold? I'm a doctor, good grief, with patients booked well over a month in advance. If I don't show up, what happens to them? If I'm well enough to go to work, I go. The notion that we automatically catch illnesses from being around sick people isn't true. As I wrote, I'm a doc. I'm around sick people often, but get ill rarely. I wash my hands about 40 times daily and am something of a nut whack germophobe, but even I catch the rare bug. If I get a cold, I play through, wear a mask, keep my hands off my face, wipe off phones and double down on the alcohol hand rub. The notion that anyone who feels a bit crummy can just stay home to spare the rest of the world sounds great in theory but is completely impractical in real life.

Regarding the person who threw out groceries because the clerk who had a cold wiped his hands all over his nose:

Why didn't you wipe your groceries down with hand sanitizer when you got home?

Hand sanitizers are nothing but a 'racket' and in fact are dangerous insofar as they contribute to bacterias becoming more resistant. Better to simply WASH your hands vs using sanitizer. And assuming there's no sink immediately handy then...you simply don't put your hands anywhere near food, your mouth or your eyes, UNTIL you can wash your hands first. It's not that complicated.

I recently stayed at a $250 per night B&B where the host, who had a full-blown head cold, served breakfast; then offered his hand to shake. To my shame, I held my tongue in and my hand out.

Recently, I was on a cross-country red-eye flight where a woman sitting behind me had one of those phlegm-filled coughs that sent shivers down my spine. I felt like I was being held hostage in that tube of germs as she hacked her way from San Francisco to New York. But I also felt immense empathy for her. As miserable as I felt having her so close to me for five hours, she surely felt worst. It’s bad enough getting sick, but being sick at 35,000 feet on a full flight, that had to have been sheer agony for her. As for me, I got lucky: I managed to dodge getting smacked with her bug. It probably helped that I practically bathed myself in bleach the second I entered my apartment.

http://lameadventures.com/

'This actually happened to me. This clerk had a full-blown head cold and put all my groceries in the bag. She’d rubbed her nose all over her hands. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to be rude. I knew she wasn’t there because she wanted to be there. I went home and threw away most of a $50 bag of groceries'
First world problem, no? Pack your own bags?

Garlands of garlic would work just great as a folk remedy. No one would get themselves and their germs within a mile of you. With the side benefit of fending off vampires, as well.

While I am all for paid sick leave, I just don't think it's going to totally solve the problem. 1) I worked in an environment where everyone was salaried and there was practically unlimited paid sick leave. Yet people would still come to work with horrible colds and flu because they wanted to show their dedication. 2) Many common diseases are most contagious before people exhibit all the horrible symptoms (which at least when symptoms are visible you can avoid the person.) But it's the person with just the slight headache, the little throat tickle, the one feeling just a little "off" but not bad enough to stay home....those are the more dangerous germ carriers because you don't even know they are out there. I guess the best we can do is keep washing our hands and do whatever we can do to boost our own immunity. And never leave the house without alcohol-based sanitizer!

But employees -- especially minimum wage workers -- are not "entitled" to sick days, right?

No plastic bubble for me. Life is meant to be lived - germs and all.
And yes n=1. As cold and flu swirl around my office - my son's school - and elsewhere, I somehow remain healthy and unaffected.

Curious - isn't it?

My God, this generation of people have turned into a bunch of paranoids. Never in all my 65 years have I seen such fear, anguish and irrational behavior. In my day, most people would have helped this poor man, mentioned in the article, not run away. How insensitive, uncaring and unloving people have become, but, then this scene was set in NY, which is notorious for people who don't even look you in the eye much less anything else that would be equated with "human." I'm astounded and ashamed by this type of mentality. Most diseases are not to be feared, just dealt with properly.

Anyone opposed to health insurance for all or for paid sick leave for all should read this article. The grocery clerk who sneezed into her hands and then gave change probably would have stayed home if she had paid sick leave. It also would be nice to know that restaurant workers can stay home when sick without a loss of pay.

I've been impressed with how many young people, right down to my 5yr old grandsons, have learned to sneeze into their crooked elbows rather than their hands if no tissue at hand. I don't have the reflex yet, but I'm working on it.

It's hard, but we should pay less attention to the yuck factor, and more to realistic illness prevention. Keep in mind that we need exposure to a few germy things to keep our immune systems tuned up.
(1) Instead of freaking out about other people's hands, keep washing your own hands, and keep them away from your mouth and nose. Wash your face after being out in crowds, and clean off your phone with a little alcohol.
(2) If the checker sneezes on your stuff, don't toss it. Store it for a day or two until the viruses have an opportunity to die, which they will. If they need refrigeration, you can put the whole bag the fridge.

Grocery store employees are among the worst offenders but I guess it balances out because they are exposed to everything in the world. I didn't make any friends the day I told the bakery department worker that I wasn't going to buy any of the fresh artisan bread she was bagging up because I had seen her cough on two of the loaves. It would be really nice if we all learned to cough into our elbows or shoulders. Even my grandchildren learned that in school, not that they always remember but it's a start.

Lets be honest; we are absolutely doomed. When you live in a city like New York with millions of people sharing spaces, taking dirty subway cars and living cramped on top of each other there is absolutely no way of being spared from getting sick. Its inevitable...all those rules are great but they only work if you live in suburbia or something.

An otherwise fun acquaintance announced; since she hated flying anyway, she might as well fly cross country since she had a killer version of the flu! (She added, either way, I was going to be miserable, so why not?!?). She bragged she got the best service, the cabin attendants & other passengers really fussed over her!
So, I answered, what if she infected a person was flying to get a transplant, or flying to care for a sick loved one, or going on their only vacation in their life? I wondered how many were doing chemo or had a job interview next week?
She said it was a personal choice!
She hasn't spoken to me since... :)

You missed an important point. The epitome of thoughtless, inconsiderate behavior is going out in public when you are contagious. It is the germ-SHARERS who are being inconsiderate. If you have a cold or the flu, think of others - especially those with weakened immune systems, and don't go out among others unless you absolutely have to.

This topic is always a source of entertainment. Try this - next time you don't want to shake someone's hand for the reasons stated in this article, pull out a pair of elastic medical gloves and snap one on your hand. Extend that hand with a smile. Another idea, just say " sorry I am not shaking hands this week because of the Ebola scare"

That grocery clerk probably wouldn't have been at work if she'd had paid sick leave. That's why it's in the best interest of all of us to support a living wage, health insurance, and paid sick leave for everyone.