I don’t know about the rest of the country, but it appears that Swine Flu (and the regular flu) is running rampant in Georgia and Florida.  That freaks me the fuck out.  I am leaving for Germany in 6 days and can’t be infected with this highly contagious illness – especially since we will be spending some time with my grandparents when we first arrive.  They are older and not so healthy…

You want to know why I think flu is running rampant?  Because people continue to send their kids to school or go to work when they aren’t feeling well.  It’s so stupid, selfish and rude.  If you are sick, stay the hell home.  Don’t go out in public and spread your germs around.  Plus, you will be anything but productive if you aren’t healthy.  If you stay home and rest up, you will get better much faster.

I personally have never understood the reason why people insist on going to work or school when they don’t feel well – don’t even get me started on the bullshit prize that kids win for perfect attendance.  I know some companies don’t give sick days (which is so stupid and blows my mind) but I don’t think people should get punished for being sick by having to use a precious vacation day or not get paid at all.  When a sick person comes to work, they affect the company in so many ways.  First of all, they are not at the top of their game, so they aren’t being as productive as they would be if they were healthy.  Second, they will infect the rest of the office, which will severely decrease productivity – especially in a small office.

At McHell.com, we didn’t get sick days.  In fact, they were super stingy on our vacation time as well.  This meant that people didn’t really take off, unless they didn’t mind not getting paid.  One January, one of the customer service reps had a really bad cold, but because of the lack of sick days, he came in anyway.  Well, he ended up getting about 10 other people in the office sick – including me and JD.  We both caught his nasty head cold that gave us fevers and wiped us out for days.  We didn’t miss any work because we got sick on Friday night and had the weekend to recover.  But a couple of our sales guys ended up being out during the week because you can’t sell things over the phone when you’re hacking up a lung.

The reason I’m talking about Swine Flu in particular is because one of my boss’ daughters has it.  She’s been out all week because she’s had a horrible fever and this nasty hacking cold.  They went to the doctor on Tuesday and the doctors were fairly certain she had it – they never ran a test though.  Why?  I’m not sure, especially since the CDC is in Atlanta. Then our accountant called and said she thought her daughter had it too.

My boss came back to work today, and I hope to God that she isn’t carrying it because we had to work on something that required us to next to each other.  I. Can. Not. Get. Sick!