When it comes to bacterial spawning grounds, there are few places more germ-infested than the office environment. Wander into any congregation of cubicle-dwellers and you’ll find a veritable smorgasbord of snot-producing cooties.
Which is why it’s no surprise that office drones get sick so often. Because if you’re at your desk nibbling on the top of your pen, you might as well just let Jerry from accounting spit into your whole mouth.
Fortunately, most wage slaves have the good sense to go home and try to sleep off whatever nasty virus has set up an all-inclusive day spa in their nasal cavity. Yet, there’s always that one annoying employee who shows up sick anyways and makes everyone else hideously ill. We like to call this individual “The Phlegm Martyr.” These are people who think their job is so friggin’ important they absolutely have to be at work – no matter how many people they infect. Sure, they just coughed up their pancreas and are in the early stages of spreading a Type III zombie pandemic – so what? If the Phlegm Martyr doesn’t check their email and spend a few hours trying to work through a fugue state of cold medication, the office is going to implode. Because the only thing that spreads faster than a potent strain of staphylococcus is ignorance.
Of course, any good office is also full of its fair share of hypochondriacs, germophobes and people who just like to pull the occasional Ferris Bueller. Yes, as this week’s comic suggests, the office Sick Day really is a delicate dance of paranoia, overreaction, fear and mucus. Our advice: slather yourself from head to toe in hand sanitizer. They sell that stuff by the gallon for a reason.
Thanks for reading!
-Pol & Adam
