BS: Idiots who are contagious

Subject: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Wesley S
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 12:00 PM

We just found out the other day that an idiot from another department was just getting over mononucleosis. She's an idiot because she has continued to come to work and expose the rest of us since we all share the same fax machine and other facilities. On top of that we have an employee that just came back to work after having a kidney transplant. The last thing she needs is to be exposed to something like mono.

Do any of you work for a company that encourages employees to stay home and NOT share their germs with others? I'm PO'ed - and I'm going to make a stink about this one. Is this a problem where you work?

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: kendall
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 12:03 PM

It's a problem everywhere with people who have colds.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: number 6
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 12:03 PM

Where you french kissing her in the supply closet during the Xmas party Wesley? If so, then I would worry somewhat.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 12:09 PM

We got idiots comin' into my favorite bar regularly and I notice that their idiocy IS contagious. No doubt about it. The general attitude gets worse with every idiot that comes through the door. The topics of conversation take a nosedive straight to the gutter. The atmosphere starts to stink, both literally and the other way. With any luck, before the night is out, somebody gets a fist in his face, a black eye, or a busted nose, and it's all because of one simple thing: idiots who are contagious.

If you are an idiot, my advice is, stay home. Save us all the aggravation.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Wesley S
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 12:13 PM

Bill - The visual of what you suggest is scary in so many ways - if you only knew.
But isn't it sad that a paycheck is more important to some people than sparing your fellow workers your germs?

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: kendall
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 12:17 PM

I do my best to stay away from people with colds. After the radiation, my immune system has been compromised and the last thing I need is a cold!

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: number 6
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 12:19 PM

All jesting aside what you say is true Wesley. Many employees probably feel they have to be at work regardless. Idiotic as it is, but some people have very demanding bosses.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: hesperis
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 01:48 PM

Chongo, the problem with idiots is that they're too idiotic to *know* they're idiots and should just stay home!

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 01:50 PM

My point exactly. It's sorta like a self-fulfilling thing, ain't it? Like a boomerang. No matter how hard ya throw it, it always ends up right back where it started.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 01:54 PM

Hey Chongo .... it's Tuesday!

You know what that means ..... free banana daiquiris down at O'Leary's bar.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Wesley S
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 02:03 PM

Back to the topic -

I would think that some companies would realise that the company runs smoother if only one person stays home a few days rather than have several people - or a whole department - out all at the same time.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: dianavan
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 02:04 PM

...and then there are the idiots that send their kids to school with colds, coughs and fevers. Not only does it expose the teacher and the entire class, it quickly passes to the entire school. Why do they do it?

Most do not have sick-leave to cover family illness.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: bobad
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 02:52 PM

I have worked with doctors who come into the hospital and see patients when they, the docs, have bad colds - and I always gave them hell for doing so but it didn't help. I believe many people feel they are indispensible to their workplace.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 03:11 PM

If folks would dispense with handshaking it would go a long ways in helping to stop the spread of germs, as well as coughing into one's sleeve or shoulder, rather than on one's hands.

My Rog works with a bunch of idiots, BUT the company provides GALLON containers with hand pump of Purell which most of them are good about using frequently.

At my grandson's classes most of the adults, myself included, have small bottles of Purell available should one of them cough, sniffle, etc. on their hands or the equipment. It is a matter of course for Morgan and I to purell before class and after.

However, there should be much more leave available from work which people can afford to take should they be contagious. They will get better more quickly and save others from suffering if they stay home. Sadly, many cannot afford it in the short term. A lot of parents have to pay for day care whether their children go or not, if they are with a regular sitter. They might be given one day off for illness, but anything more and they will get charged, reagardless.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 03:14 PM

Chongo -

I believe it was Mark Twain who said something to the effect of:

"The only reason god made men is he was unhappy with how monkeys turned out."

Two strikes ....

John

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Nickhere
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 03:23 PM

I reckon people should (be allowed to) stay at home if they're sick. Problem is, like someone said here, their bosses tend to give them a hard time. This can be done aggressively, but more often it's a subtle kind of guilt trip ("Oh, I don't know if I will be able to find anyone...'how could you do this to me?'). In a very competitive workplace people are probably afraid to take real time off in case they are ousted by those coming up the career ladder. Remember there was an ad on telly a few years back. This bloke (middle aged) has a cold, his desk is piled high but he needs to take time off to get better. The younger man is all smug when the older guy gets back to work, having tried to take his place. But the older man had a secret weapon - some flu remedy or another - that allowed him to be sick AND to work at the same time. The punchline of the ad was "xxxxx - for when you don't have time to get sick" There's something very unnatural and sick with that kind of world view to begin with.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Helen
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 03:49 PM

Absenteeism is the management statistical term for counting the people who don't come to work, whether for legitimate reasons, e.g. being sick, or injured at work, or for non-approved leave, e.g. what we call in Oz, "taking a sickie", i.e. calling in sick when you aren't really sick.

The more recently invented term is presenteeism, which is what you are talking about, Wesley. People come to work when they shouldn't be there, if they are sick and need to rest up to make it a short illness, and especially if they are contagious. But as others have said in this thread, there are a lot of pressures on people to come to work, including a feeling of indispensibility, or feeling pressured to show their "commitment" to the job, or if they are casual workers they are often told that if they take time off sick they won't be called back to work there again.

If they are casual, too, they don't get paid sick leave so often they can't afford to take time off without pay. Believe me, I know, because I have been a casual worker for the past 10 years, until 4 months ago when I finally got a permanent job again. (Yay! A government job with excellent pay and work conditions, including sick leave and annual leave, which I haven't had the benefit of since I chucked in my super-stressful job with local government.)

My favourite little coaxing story, when trying to convince people who are sick to go home, is to tell them that in Tokyo, where there is such a high population, if someone comes to work contagious they are fined, because they can spread the disease so much and dramatically affect productivity by sending so many other people off sick. Alternatively, they are told they have to wear face masks while they are at work, to prevent the spread of germs. I can't see most people I work with walking around in a face mask all day. They would go home sick in preference to that.

At our workplace it is expected practice to clean our computers, the phone, and the desktop every day with antibacterial wipes, because we share desks between the day shift and the evening shift. It's a good practice to get into. When I worked face to face with customers, I often used to get some disinfectant on a cloth and wipe the counters, etc, to minimise the transmission of bugs and other greeblies.

This issue is a big no-no with me. You may have gathered that from my response. :-)

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Slag
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 03:55 PM

I agree. It's most often the bosses (especially mid-managment) that are the true idiots and those who think it's a brownie point to work sick. They contaminate everyone thisin turn, impacts the work place even harder.

I wonder, if everyone stayed home during just one year, when they were sick??? would there be no more colds and flu? Utopia, always just out of reach.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 04:21 PM

Now Wesley, you know perfectly well that the germ theing is just a hypothesis and not a proven fact; if Fate has designed an illness for you, then ill you shall be, tapdance though you may. And if not, even French kissing in the supply closet will not bring it on (although it may invite other apocalyptic interventions).

A

whohashistonguefirmlyinhischeek...

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 04:22 PM

Actually I think idiocy itself is infectious; being around a practitioner of it induces dull-wittedness in innocent bystanders. Thus, the District of Columbia.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 04:26 PM

John from Kansas, lemme straighten you out on a coupla things.

The only reason God made monkeys was so apes (like me ferinstance) would have someone to shine their shoes fer 10 cents an hour.

The only reason God made gorillas was so chimps would have someone dumb enough to hire out fer $1.50 an hour to keep the monkey shoeshiners on the job.

And the only reason God made man was so chimps, gorillas, AND monkeys would have someone to laugh at after the shoeshinin' was all done!

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 04:36 PM

Yeah Chongo -

Probably the only disappointment about chimps was their super-inflated ego, and their constant tendency to take everything so personally on the assumption that they're the whole center of the universe.

Fortunately that was corrected when she made mankind.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 04:40 PM

I telecommute much of the time, so I stay home if I'm sick, where I can often get the work done and not infect others. If I'm sick enough to stay in bed part or all day then I take sick leave. I have also been known to stay home to work when I know a bug is going through the office. I'm hoping to dodge "the crud" making the rounds recently.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Cluin
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 04:41 PM

"No matter how hard ya throw it, it always ends up right back where it started."

If you're gonna start a poop fight, Chongo, ya gotta expect to get some on you. Just hope your Ebola infected buddies are gonna join in the fun, though I know it's hard for your branch of the primate tree to resist a good feces fling.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Gizmo
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 04:46 PM

Here in good old blighty, and in partyicular the borough I live in (Greenwich - more about this later) there is a strange view point going around concerning school children.

My daughter has had quite a few days off school this year, in fact it has been so bad that she has barely made a month without being off for a few days. I particularly don't like my daughter off because when she is ill she is very very very demanding with it. And more some.

Since September she has had varying degrees of colds, flu etc etc, which culminated to chicken pox over christmas, she has finished with her last spot now.

Here is where the problem lies, usually after a day or two at home at the onset of illness, my children recover well, but this year the dreaded lurgie has been going round and round and round. Because my daughter has had so much time off, it is now required of me to get a doctors certificate to prove if she is ill next time she is. My doctors charge for these things, and without one she has unauthorised absence, which officially counts as truancy. Greenwich borough is in the top 3 highest truancy counts for the country. Yet the system stinks. I do not particularly want to drag my daughter to the doctors when she has a 104 temperature, throwing up and feeling extremely poorly. Apparently all the children at school had to go their doctors to prove they have chicken pox, even if they were sent home from school. This is not the schools fault but the rules the schools must abide by from the education authority.

I cannot afford the charge of £10+ a go, everytime my daughter or son is ill, on top of having to miss a course I am studying for, to take her or my son to the doctors. I don't think the doctors are too pleased about it either, having chicken pox children in the surgery at the same time as pregnancy checks going on.

The doctors have cottoned onto this new council ruling, hence the charge prices.

Thus, due to everyone having to send their children into school, until they can get an appointment with the doctor, is causing diseases to spread like wild fire. On the plus side, there is now no child in the school who has not had chicken pox, but measles seems to be the next issue.

Next time my daughter or son is projectile vomitting, I will have no choice but to send them in then get them sent home, to have the next 48 hours off school premises. I can't see the logic, but the letters have been sent to all the parents concerning this insane thinking.

On the plus side, it is a perfect example of a positive feedback system, which I can then describe to my son for science.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 05:01 PM

Not about the workplace, but for a month and a half I'd been looking forward to a friend's annual Musical New Year's Eve Party. I had my guitar and banjo all shined up in advance, and had also polished up the songs I expected to sing.

Bummer! About Christmas day, a cold! And not just any cold, but a rip-roarer, with a sore throat just to kick things off. My Beautiful Wife told me, "You can't sing with that cold; you'll hurt your vocal cords."

For five days I took Vitamin C and Vitamin D, Mucinex, a homeopathic nostrum called Roxalia, and for the throat, Chloraseptic spray. The throat soreness pretty much passed, but still plenty of phlegm, and coughing and sneezing.

By New Year's Eve I was a lot better, but still some coughing and sneezing. I regretfully decided that I'd be doing no-one a favor, nor making any friends, by going to the party. Oh, well. There's always next year.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 05:12 PM

"However, there should be much more leave available from work which people can afford to take should they be contagious. They will get better more quickly and save others from suffering if they stay home."

I can't afford to take any more sick leave. I've had various problems over the last 4 years including depression and heart surgery. I'm now in the position where if I take sick leave, I get no pay for the whole time I'm off sick. I cannot take special leave to look after my daughter when she is ill, because that is tied into my sick leave. I have to take paid annual leave or make the time up within the month. I cannot afford to have more than 3 unpaid days a month and I cannot afford additional childcare cover so I can work the extra hours. Neither can I claim any money back for days I take off sick after being infected by gits who come in when they're contagious.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that we are all too 'germ conscious'... by eradicating so many of the lesser germs, we're losing our resistance to the bigger germs. Humans are not meant to be sterile areas. I'm not advocating coughing over everyone, but with a little care and attention, we can get over most coughs and colds without spreading them like so much gossip.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: kendall
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 05:37 PM

Sharing ones germs is not a solution to your problem. It only shifts it to others.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Gizmo
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 06:29 PM

Here's a little fact for you all.

EVerytime a cold seems to go around, what it is doing is mutating the viral nucleic acids and genetic code ever so slightly everytime it breeds, therefore if I got a cold, spread it to 5,000 people then got it back again, it would not be the same strain as when I first coughed it out.
Also, few people can catch a cold off me, but those who do would then change the cold code which then makes other people susceptible to it. Which is why, in some families certain illnesses may go in order everytime, i.e. in mine it is mum - brother - me - dad. Or dad - me - brother - mum. I do not catch anything from my mum, neither my brother from my dad, and neither my mum and dad catch things from each other.

Strange world we live in really.

But I agree with Liz, not everyone has the luxury to be ill and have time off work. I had to use my sick days looking after my sick children when I worked, thus when I was practically crawling on the floor I still had to go into work.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 06:38 PM

I got real simple proof that I am the center of the Universe, guys. I look south and I can see 1/2 of the Universe. I look north and I can see the other half. I look west and east to catch any bits that mighta been hazy cos of peripheral vision. No matter which way I turn, though, I'm still at the center. Notice that? That's good enough fer me.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 06:40 PM

Oh, I thought this might be a thread about the spreading of contagious idiocy over on this thread.

A finer example of gullible, well-intentioned contagious idiocy I've never seen.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 06:46 PM

...and if you spin around rapidly?

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 06:50 PM

Chongo,. that's just YOUR version of the universe. I have another version in which no matter how far I stare in all directions, I see no sign of you. This proves you are not the center of the universe, but merely a vivid figment int he center of your own imagination. But we already knew that. That character you dreamed up and wrote about so often back when -- Little Hag, was it? -- is another figment, probably nearby.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: number 6
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 06:52 PM

... if you spin around rapidly .... well, you fall down.

Geeeez Chongo ...... that was ... I dunno ..... what can one say after such a profound statement like that.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 07:04 PM

Yeah, well, thanks, 6. I been listenin' to Sinatra a lot and that gets me in a profound mood. Frank could really tell it like it is.

Amos, YOUR view of the Universe don't carry much weight in Chicago. From where I stand you don't look no bigger than a flea.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Cluin
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 07:33 PM

How are you and your buddies coming on that script for Hamlet, Chongo?

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 08:32 PM

Chongo should note that "at the center" - as he describes it, is usually where the drain hole is located. Where all the SHIT goes down the drain.

On the real subject:

As we're all more or less constantly exposed to a variety of infectious agents, it is possible that the constant exposure may help to keep our individual immunities active and healthy.

"Over sanitizing" has been implicated by some as a cause of the galloping increase in the prevelance of asthma in youngsters of recent generations. The verdict is still a little shaky, but a few studies have indicated that children, before the age of about two, who are deprived of association with pets (and the change to be exposed to all the crud and corruption thereby encountered) appear to lack full development of their immune systems, and are more prone to later infections and other symptoms of undeveloped immune response.

A classic case, fairly generally accepted, is that the three versions of polio, two of which were relatively mild, each provided at least partial immunity to all of them. When the Swiss sponsored a massive program to provide sanitary plumbing throughout the country, all three varieties were reduced in frequency, so that the entire population lost their traditional resistance. When the paralytic strain reappeared in a population with no resistance, it spread rapidly into a world wide epidemic with very severe consequences.

Achieving and/or maintaining the "total absence" of influenza might not be a worthy goal, if the annual exposure of a fairly large percentage of people to the commonly "mild" strains confers even the slightest additional resistance to the occasional more deadly kinds.

It is something of an open question, still waiting for better-informed opinions.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 08:33 PM

Based on my experience of what happens here on Mudcat, it does seem that idiocy itself is definitely contagious, even if the idiots themselves are not...

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 08:37 PM

"that's just YOUR version of the universe. I have another version in which no matter how far I stare in all directions, I see no sign of you."

Me too - but every time I open my eyes...

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 08:41 PM

As JiK said "As we're all more or less constantly exposed to a variety of infectious agents, it is possible that the constant exposure may help to keep our individual immunities active and healthy."

I personally know people who nowadays have allergy problems - and have told me that their mothers went to great lengths to protect them from 'germs' when little.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 08:42 PM

I thought it was Wikipedia Chongo and his buddies were working on.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: frogprince
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 10:05 PM

The last company I worked at was a pretty decent employer, until the buyout. Then one day our exalted leaders sent a little secretary over to the plant lunch room to explain the new absentee rules. Absence was to be excusable if the employee was hospitalized or in an emergency room; going to a doctor otherwise was not
an excuse for absence. Having an automobile accident on the way to work was not an excuse for missing time, unless the employee was taken to an emergency room or hospitalized. I am not making this one up, or exaggerating it. This was a very large, multinational company.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: GUEST,Gza
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 11:18 PM

Well, that's completely logical, isn't it? After all, multinationals also sell most pharmaceuticals and control the medical organizations. They want more people to get sick! Accordingly, they would make sure everyone goes to work when sick unless about to actually die. The dead can't buy pharmaceuticals. ;-) Best to get them in hospital and see if they can be brought back from the brink, right?

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Bert
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 12:01 AM

Years ago I had a friend named Harry Ayling. He said "It's ALWAYS the Boss's fault" I didn't believe him at the time but its true.

The reason people come to work when they are sick is because the Boss is a dimwit who hasn't got the intelligence to send them straight home.

Just a little thread dift here. If you don't like it skip to the next message.

---------------------------------------------

I've always been pretty healthy and I was working for this CAD company and we were allowed so many sick days a year and so many holidays.

Well I'd worked though several holidays and accumulated a lot of 'comp' time and I hadn't used many sick days. One day a memo came around saying that all comp time had to be used before the end of the year and sick days cannot be carried iover to the next year.

So I started taking a comp day or calling in sick every Friday. This went on for several months and nobody noticed because I was still more productive than anyone else in the department (I had written a database for customer problems which produced answers instantly).

And to make matters worse the boss was such a loser that he didn't keep track of comp days or sick time, so no matter how much I used I still had the same balance.

Of course the boss eventually got promoted and had to name his successor. Did he choose the miost productive person in the department. Of course not - he chose some young whizz kid arse kisser who had stolen all of my example programs and claimed them as his own.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Gurney
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 12:26 AM

I don't get many infections since I stopped kissing schoolteachers. Er, FEMALE ones. But I've been giving some thought to your problems, and as I see it, if infected offenders are accosted by overwhelming and overweening numbers, and a plastic bag smeared with Eucalyptus Oil is pulled over their heads and tied around their necks, the problem will just go away. I just throw this out for discussion.

It would probably work for primates of every stripe who think that the universe revolves around them, too.

Wear gloves so as to minimise cross-pollination, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 07:53 AM

I'm with LtS. Many people in the UK are unable to take the loss of pay if they stay off with a cold, there's nothing for the first three days and then it's £70 per week (c. USD 130) - ligging around at home feeling sorry for yourself just doesn't feed and clothe the kids.

And it's not just the bosses who take a dim view of the absentee - oftimes it's colleagues, too, who regard staying at home with a sniffle-piffle as 'swinging the lead'.
Too much wrapping-up in cotton wool has brought about a society with much lower resistance to infection than when I was a kid in the 50's.

Having said that, I have great sympathy for Kendall and others like him whose immune systems are impaired by serious illness (been there myself for the whole of 2006).

And anyway, what the feck's mononeucleosis?

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: kendall
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 08:03 AM

Everytime I enter my doctor's office I am asked if I have any cold or flu symptoms. If I say yes, he appears with a blue mask over his mouth and nose.This seldom happens because I avoid crowds, and if I am in a group of people and someone has a cold, I stay well clear of them.

By the way, in this context, I think idiot is a bit strong.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 08:41 AM

Strollin' Johnny asked:

And anyway, what the feck's mononeucleosis?

Mononucleosis is what's often called "the kissing disease". Not that you only get it by kissing, but it occurs in MUCH higher frequency in the young adult range--late teens through mid twenties, I believe. You'll hear it referred to, often, as "mono", or "infectious mono".

Symptoms, as I recall reading, are extreme fatigue, aches and pains, and the various things you'd expect from colds and flu. Highly contagious, especially in the "target age group". It can drag on and be very debilitating for quite a long time.   

Don't get it. You won't enjoy it.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 09:59 AM

Thye whole quote is (emphasis mine):

I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey. I believe that whenever a human being, of even the highest intelligence and culture, delivers, an opinion upon a matter apart from his particular and especial line of interest, training and experience, it will always be an opinion so foolish and so valueless a sort that it can be depended upon to suggest to our Heavenly Father that the human being is another disappointment and that he is no considerable improvement upon the monkey.

    - Mark Twain's Autobiography; Mark Twain in Eruption

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Wesley S
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 10:50 AM

As an update - after reading one of my e-mails management here seems to agree with me. They plan to set up some kind of policy to address the situation once all of them are back in the office.

To me it just makes good business sense. Would you rather have one employee out sick - or several?

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: number 6
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 10:54 AM

Makes sense .... I think it would be a good idea for 'companies' to offer free flu shots for all employees ... this would benefit employees and the business itself.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 12:10 PM

Mmmmmm, think I'll be careful who I kiss then, Dave! :-)

BTW - we've got some major-league arse-lickers where I work - are they at risk of anything horrible? So far all they seem to have caught is a big bonus.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: dianavan
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 01:50 PM

Bert and Strollin Johnny - Arse-lickers are everywhere. Thats how they get ahead. Stealing ideas and bragging about their accomplishments. The person who quietly goes about their business, produces quality work and manages time wisely, is rarely recognized. Young people know this. Its all about how you are 'perceived' by the boss. This means you have to blow your own horn. The employee that is overlooked is often the one who helps in 'little ways' that enable the completion of the 'big job'. The scum rises to the top.

Wesley - Let us know the outcome. Sounds like a plan to me. I'd also like to see more teachers call home when a student arrives sick. Its so sad to see a child unable to concentrate because of illness. Whats the point? School is not a babysitting service.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 03:14 PM

Mononucleosis is what's often called "the kissing disease".

I suspect those of us in the Old country will recognise the symptoms as 'glandular fever'.

Had an idiot at work today. He came through the whole office just to tell his manager that he wasn't feeling too bright and would stay in his section, where only he and one other sits.... Thanks Graham!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Gizmo
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 05:54 PM

Thanks Liz, I was wracking my brain trying to think what I know kissing disease to be called.

BTW Strollin' Johnny, arse - lickers, like dogs tend to get worms.

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 04 Jan 07 - 05:57 AM

dianavan - how perceptive you are! I absolutely recognise the scenario you describe - right on the button, girl! Me? I'm one of the 'do-ers' whose ideas get stolen and never seems to get any credit. LOL!

Liz - thanks, 'Glandular Fever' I understand! Maybe the biggest idiots are those who try to impress by using clever 'scientific' words, when the old-fashioned common words mean much more to an old fart like me! LOL!

Gizmo - I certainly hope so, effin' great big nasty painful ones!

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: number 6
Date: 04 Jan 07 - 11:47 AM

Well ... it's good to see Miss Mono stayed away from work today. I heard she has a cold too.

On the way home for lunch, I stopped off at the Superstore to buy some pita bread ... walking into the bakery section I noticed to my surprise, Miss Mono herself, dripping nose, kleenux in one hand, the others shuffling through the cheese buns trying to find her choice. Her grocery card full of produce. How many jars, cans, chip bags, pop bottles has she contaminated in this store.

Man, she has the sense to stay home from work, but takes the liberty to spend her time to go out shopping.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jan 07 - 01:48 PM

She may need the food to keep her strength up...

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 07 - 01:58 PM

And she has to go to work to buy the food...

Subject: RE: BS: Idiots who are contagious
From: GUEST,whitecells
Date: 04 Jan 07 - 01:59 PM

When I got mono in college, not from any kissing that I can remember, I was not allowed to stay in the infirmary or in the dormitory for the recuperation period. Fortunately my draft classification changed the day I withdrew from school (my draft number was 133). I thought the infirmary should have kept me, but that school's out forever.