Sick and Wrong

It's coming... it's coming closer... and closer...

Imagine Jaws music playing in the background and now imagine me panicking like a swimmer who wants to get away from a shark that is bigger, meaner, and more pointy-toothed.

So I sit at a station where there are three computers crammed in together. On Monday, the guy who works at the farthest computer from me (a distance of two yards) came in to work very, very sick. I mean, we're talking just short of death here. He sat at his desk and coughed and hacked. Sometimes he'd make these wheezing noises that were sick and deathly and terrifying---the kind of human suffering that you don't actually ever witness unless you're watching graphic, violent R-rated movies. There was this gurgling noise in his throat as he painfully exhaled and put his head in his hands.

All the while, I was sitting at my desk, wondering why he even came to work. I realize that we're student workers, so we're naturally hard-up for cash, and we don't get paid sick days. But sometimes you've got to do something for the common good. Like stay home.

Yesterday, the girl who sits between him and me came in to work. She flopped down on her seat, wheezing. The guy gurgled, "You sick?" She croaked some unintelligible response. She proceeded to log in to her computer and work. Every now and then, I'd hear long, low groanings and moanings coming from her chapped lips. Several times, she simply put her head down on her desk and didn't make any effort at all to work. She'd pass out for long periods of time. I maybe should have poked and shook her to make sure that she was still conscious.

Instead, I ran to the front of the room where the Clorox wipes are kept. I brought them back to my work station and proceeded to Clorox the hell out of it.

Now, I realize that I'm likely to call in sick when I discover I have a hangnail. That aside, shouldn't there be some sense of What's Good for the Community when you're deciding whether or not you should go in to work? Don't these people understand that their persistence in coming in to work will cost their coworkers time and money lost in work missed (because at least some of us have enough sense to stay home), time in classes missed, assignments handed in late, and bottles upon bottles of Nyquil purchased (thereby increasing alcohol consumption)? Get a clue, people. You're sick and wrong.