Things I’ve discovered in the last twenty four hours: it’s a really bad idea to fly with an ear infection, and it might turn you into a zombie.
As in, my ears are still doing weird poppy things, I was zonked by the time I walked off the plane, and I spent most of yesterday, after landing, asleep. Right now I’m on my second cup of tea, and I’ve not yet decided if I’ll stay awake most of the day. The goal, of course, is to rest enough that I can teach the workshop this weekend without killing myself. (Or eating my students’ brains.)
Mind you I am medicated and according to my doctor it’s not a virus, so I should not make anyone sick. I just caution anyone attending to find shelter if I start muttering “brainz… brainz.”
Which brings us to a topic we’ve covered before but which can never be covered enough: How do you cope with physical weakness when your “job” is as much vocation as a way of paying the bills? When the one thing you want to do when you start feeling better is the work? And yet the work still takes it out of you?
I don’t know.
What I do know is that, as a society, we’ve become very cavalier about illness.
I meant think back on Jane Austen’s work. In Pride and Prejudice, Jane catches a “trifling little cold” and is laid up for days.
Nowadays she’d take Sudafed and go on about her daily work.
Which brings me to – are we increasing contagion because we don’t take these things seriously, anymore? I start getting sick the moment the kids go back to school. That’s because people go to school while sick, because school doesn’t make allowances for sickness – yes, sure, you can skip classes, but for instance older son says there are no provisions for grading skipped labs. And younger son dragged himself in to take midterms on a serious sinus infection.
And of course, they bring stuff home, and I tend to catch it more severely than they do, partly, I THINK because I’m more isolated, most of the time.
We have medicines that mask the symptoms enough we can function, and, of course, we have antibiotics.
Only our antibiotics are becoming less effective.
What do we do?
There are thing I don’t know, like “Is it really bad for your to stay in bed that long? Is it really better to be up and moving around as soon as you can?” Or is this just what we tell ourselves because it fits our societal notions, and because our jobs/school/etc. no longer have any “give”.
I laugh everytime I read about the flu lasting “three weeks.” Do you know anyone who can take that kind of time off? And that’s a virus, and antibiotics won’t work.
What occurs to me – and it might be induced by stuffed ears and a feeling like I need to sleep rather a lot – is that we have the technology – we can make it better! – to not force people into the office while not quite the thing. (Except for my boss. I work for myself, the boss is a stone cold b*tch.)
And what further occurs to me is that as antibiotics stop working it will take a while for societal modes to change.
So… how many people are we going to lose when either the first really bad virus (bird flu?) or the first bad bacterial infection rip through the population, while everyone is still obediently dragging themselves in to work?
Wouldn’t it be a better thing to start telecommuting and giving people some room now?
Do you want to be the first person to die for some student’s perfect attendance?
According To Hoyt 
Short answer: yes, we’re increasing contagion because we just take some cough syrup and go to work when we’re still quite infectious, or go to work anyway when only ‘a little sick’. One of the VFX studios I worked at regularly sent people home when they came in sick….
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A cold is one thing, but my husband’s coworkers keep coming in when their kids are hurling on them and they don’t feel so well themselves.
There’s also the way that we’ve got a LOT more folks in one area, at least if you’re in a city or major office, and kids are likewise part of a bigger pool.
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The only time my husband took 3 weeks off work was when he was in the hospital with a decomposing pancreas.
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I missed two days when I got my leg chewed on by a bear and couldn’t physically do the work; after that I went to work and hobbled around on it. That is the only time I can recall missing work for illness or injury in my adult life.
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That is truly hardcore.
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With smaller kids in the house, the big issue is that other parents don;t want to take off work when their kids are sick. So they give them some ibuprofen to mask the fever and send them to school.
BUT a person’s contagious until they have 24 fever-free hours UNMEDICATED. So these bugs keep going around and around.
(I’ve noticed homeschoolers are better about this. We’re home anyway, so while it’s inconvenient to have to cancel activities for a day or two, we’re not losing money by doing it. So we tend to keep sick kids quarantined and avoid spreading our germs to others.)
The thing that most people don’t realize is that there are immune-compramised people EVERYWHERE. So… your ‘I’ll just take sudafed and get back to work’ is their ‘6 weeks in the hospital with pneumonia.’ Maybe we need to cut the Kindergarten sex-ed and make health class about hygiene again…..
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Bedrest– you start seeing the loss of muscles after two weeks. So yes, extreme bed rest (over a week) is not a good thing. Even when I was in the hospital, I would get up and walk for five or ten minutes to keep my muscles (also exercises that I could do in bed).
As for sicknesses, I am pretty much confined during the winter season because people are walking germ factories. My hubby doesn’t get those illnesses easily but when he does, I am scared because when he is sick, then I am sick.
It is a much dangerous world for those of us with immune system problems.
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If you have forced-air heating and can afford it, you might want to put in a central electronic air cleaner and a centeral UV sterilizer in your return air duct. That will reduce the chances of your getting an airborne disease from someone else in the house.
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We HAD this. It stopped working after idiots put an intake vent in basement. Now waiting on parts so they can fix it…
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/frantically scribbles notes for things to add to HVAC install in attic of Craftsman home/
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After an series of accidents starting at a roller skating party and ending on the ultimate Frisbee field finally led to The Spouse having knee surgery he was found by a nurse up and straightening the bottom sheet the next morning because it had gotten all rumpled. I don’t think the full anesthesia had worn off. (yeah, that is a bit of a step off the path, but I am posting here… ;-) )
Anyhow, by the time The Spouse was recovered enough to be off crutches one thigh was markedly slimmer than the other. Then, while doing therapy, he tried to rupture the Achilles tendon on the same leg. He went back on crutches, and there not only was more atrophy, but the back muscles started to contract on one side. One thing has led to another and he has never been the same. The Spouse says: beware, the getting old is not the problem, it is the getting decrepit.
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Yea– sympathies to your hubby and his leg. I understand how things seem to get worse when you want it better …
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The places I’ve worked for recently have discouraged dragging yourself in sick and infecting everyone else. It plays major havoc with project schedules to have the whole team down with the flu. Besides, when I’m really sick I can’t write software to save my life, so I’m not productive even if I’m physically present.
Sarah, I was wondering how you were going to fly with a sinus infection. It’s always bad news when I do it. Here’s sending good thoughts for a quick and complete recovery.
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One does note that inferior food and shelter would probably contribute to be generally less sturdy than nowadays.
OTOH, on the antibiotics, note that effective antibiotics are essential to feminism. Without them — assuming even pre-modern European efficiency about getting germs around — there are two kinds of cultures: those that compel women to have, on average, ten children, and extinct ones.
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Smoke in the house is a problem, and English houses were notoriously damp. (Hence all the hot bricks and airing out of sheets and such.) Of course, some strains were probably more severe back then.
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On that subject, I lately read Robert Fogel’s last book (I think), The End of Hunger and Premature Death. Fogel claims that the economy of, for example, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England was impoverished by, among other things, between ten and twenty percent of the adult population being so debilitated from chronic bad nutrition that they literally could not perform useful physical labor and had no recourse but to beg (or perhaps steal). That seems hard to believe—up to one in five adults as a dependent?—but Fogel was one of the founders of cliometrics and his economic history is highly regarded. So I’m not sure how to take the claim.
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I’m just wading into Geoffrey Parker’s tome about the 17th century (I know, he never writes non-tomes) and he posited that war, famine, and natural disasters took out ten to twenty percent of the world’s population between 1618 and 1700. I have not yet gotten to the chapter on England and Ireland, but just the crop losses and extreme cold he’s described so far would do in a chunk of the population.
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IIRC, in some areas of Germany during the 30 years war the death toll was as high as 40%. Japan lost up to 10% of its population during WWII. The Black Plague was supposed to have killed one in three, and left another ten to fifteen percent unable to work. The loss of young males during WWI left a half-dozen nations reeling, and probably cost England and France their overseas colonies. The so-called Spanish Influenza epidemic in 1918-19 left over a million dead in the United States, and another half-million incapable of working. Malaria alone kills two million a year in Africa, and more in Asia and Latin America. We’ve made HUGE progress in reducing death from illness or injury, but it may have come at a huge cost we’ve yet to pay. We have inoculations against most of the childhood illnesses that killed one child in ten before their discovery, but the diseases are becoming more and more resistant.
Going to work sick is an act in futility, as the quality of your work goes down, no matter how hard you try to overcome it (speaking from experience). Some people really NEED to go to work, literally to ensure they can feed their families. Others should decide it’s best to stay home.
I know I have to go back and re-write just about everything I write when I’m ill. For me, it’s good to put the words down, or I’ll forget them. Going back and doing a major re-write is better than never having gotten the words out at all.
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High death rates I knew about. High adult disability rates are a different issue and one I hadn’t heard of.
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Well, Parker’s book has a table showing how the Frenchmen born in 1675, IIRC (it’s hard to flip through an e-book and find charts), were almost an inch and a half shorter than those born earlier, and the average height slowly increased again into the 1690s. The reason was because of stunting as children from malnutrition. Army recruiters commented about it at the time, that they’d had a generation of “bantam” soldiers. Mental development also slows with stunting. I’d dig up Parker’s source for you but I’m a “little” busy just now.
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Malaria alone kills two million a year in Africa, and more in Asia and Latin America.
{Warning: pet peeve tripped. Secure for irony overload.}
…and any guesses as to the name of the newest oceanography research ship launched by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI)?
The RN Rachel Carson.
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Typo correction – the ship is the R/V Rachel Carson.
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That is infuriating.
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Mass murder is not mass murder if you do it ingeniously enough. Witness that we know how to contain a fatal and incurable venereal disease; we did it for syphilis. Notice that the people who prevented our doing it for AIDS are not justly labeled as mass murderers, too.
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Yep, 30 Years war resulted in casualties, soldiers and civilian, not matched until 1914.
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The _estimate_ that _I’ve_ seen says 50% of Ireland emigrated in the 1800’s. I do know that my Father did “on scene” research, and we have *zero* remaining relatives there. For contrast, at 18, I had about 52 no further away than “first cousin.” My family was the exception, there were only two kids.
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Actually, they say that a little gentle exercise is good for people with some respiratory illnesses. (Joggers apparently feel better if they jog just a little, even if they’re sick and it’s wintertime. They wrap up to non-sweaty levels and go.) However, this doesn’t mean that you do your gentle exercise while breathing on other people.
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Joggers are prone to psychosomatic distress if they don’t jog, thus they are hardly a strong argument in support of light exercise. BUT, most human illnesses seem to respond well to light cardiovascular stress so, the peculiarities of people who enjoy pounding their knees into pavement aside, there is some philosophical support for this contention.
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Brisk walking can clear up sinuses like nobody’s business. (There have been times when I did not bring tissues while walking and boy did I regret it.)
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So can a little nookie. The effects, alas, don’t last.
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So can sauna. Probably one reason why it got the reputation of being a heal-all around here. But it needs to be good and hot before you get that effect. I don’t know if things have improved since the last time I tried one not built, or used, by Finns, it’s been close to three decades, but at least that one was more of a very warm room than a proper sauna, where the starting temperature should be around 70 to 80 C and you do throw water on the stones several times during your short stay (although I used to read in ours when I was a teen, which resulted in half an hour or longer stays, and several loose leaf books – I used to take ones I had bought used and wasn’t planning on reading again).
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Your comment mentions a cultural concept I’m unfamiliar with. What is this notion of “books I wasn’t planning on reading again”? I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around that. :-)
There are books that go make dents in the wall, yes. But books I want to read, but don’t plan to ever read a second time? That just doesn’t happen for me.
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Cheap, used paperbacks which were already on the verge of falling apart. So very, very cheap, those ones the used books store had gotten when trading for larger amounts of books but would not have accepted if offered singly. :)
I bought them, read them once, if the story was so good I figured I wanted to read it again I’d see if I could find one in better condition, if not, not. Mostly the local versions of Harlequin romances, westerns, mysteries (last two usually bad translations from English, I know I read some Louis L’Amour like that, although there were some locally written police procedurals and such too – although they were usually placed somewhere more exiting like American big cities, you got the fact that they were written by a Finn only if the writer’s name was mentioned – which always wasn’t, not in the pulp series, called ‘kiosk literature’ here :)) and so on. Those types of series were already dying out when I was young, but some used book stores sometimes had a good selection of ones published in the previous decades.
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And yep, I bought them specifically for reading in conditions I wouldn’t care to expose most books to. Like sauna.
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And yes, some of them would have been worth some money now, when most of them are gone and people collect what little is left.
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There have been plenty of books which are “read once only” — books which were enjoyable enough to finish but whose endings proved unsatisfactory for any of a number of reasons.
My in-laws gave me John Irving’s Hotel New Hampshire (Lord alone knows why, which I did not find so obnoxious as to not finish but given the choice between re-reading it and reading the recipes on a box of saltines …
Then there are the authors I read in my youth after being mislead by my elders into thinking they possessed some literary and/or entertainment value which I would rather pluck my eyes out than read again (I’m talking ’bout choo, Salinger, and choo, Golding!)
And yes, there are SF authors I read while still learning my way around the genre and forming my tastes. I might even include Wells and Verne there.
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I actually LIKED Lord of the Flies. It was the perfect depiction of my experiences in 6th grade, if you substitute U.S. girls for the British choirboys, and “Public School Classroom” for the desert island.
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Verne is better than the common translations that most people are still exposed to in the Anglosphere. Try the Naval Institute Press’s translation of 20,000 Leagues, for example, if you want a complete translation with a decent style.
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The “read once, not read again” are usually books that while I enjoyed the book and finished it, just didn’t “enthuse” me enough that I saw no reason to reread them. IE it wasn’t terrible enough to throw across the room but wasn’t good enough to want to reread.
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John Norman’s first “Gor” book. I read it, enjoyed it, but the other three in the series then available and halfway through the second in the series it hit the wall (at a time when I compulsively finished any book I started.)
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A walk in the cold usually relieves a clogged nose for me when nothing else– even Vick’s!– will. Long enough for the Vick’s to work.
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Btw, and I know it’s a little late, but hydrogen peroxide is a good cleaner of ear gunk, even though it probably won’t do anything to the infection per se. You have to sort of lay there and let it work on one side, and then the same thing on the other side. Also, you want to put a white towel all around your earhole so that you don’t inadvertently bleach your hair. If you’ve got one of those Walmart spray bottles it’s better; otherwise, let somebody else pour the peroxide into your ear.
But yeah, even a fairly wet Q-tip can deliver enough peroxide to your ear to help a bit.
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Did that when it first felt like an ear infection…
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A squeeze bottle spray of saline solution is a good investment, especially in areas subject to low humidity. Buy them in bulk and clean the nozzle/discard the bottle routinely.
Explanations available if necessary.
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I think in olden days a lot of people had ongoing low-level infections they just powered through or ignored, but that was why a “trifling cold” could really do a number on them. The immune system was finally overwhelmed and it was fighting multiple problems, not just the cold.
I recall reading about excavated skeletons from an old (18th-19th century?) British ship that was recovered after sinking. One of the sailors on board had a tooth abscess so bad it had spread to his *jaw*. I cannot imagine how much pain the poor man was experiencing, yet there he was working on a ship. Which sank. (Poor bastard…)
I am still trying to find an employment situation that will let me work predominantly from home. Besides people who rudely bring in the latest plague from their darling little germ factories, they keep expecting me to *talk* to them. Why should I talk when there is a perfectly good email system? (Sorry, feeling quite prickly-introvert today. I like YOU guys.)
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Er… Since my family AIMs and Emails each other down the hall, I can’t say anything. Dan and I — coff — have a little more contact with each other than the rest of the family, but this is why I insist on dinner together. Because sometimes it’s midnight and I go “Is younger son home? Or was he AIMing from the college library?”
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That is hilarious. (Not the canoodling part, that’s just amusing.)
Maybe you could wire up a card-key system to track entrances and exits? Turns out you can use that to find individuals. When I worked at a Certain Large Software Company and the team needed to find our boss late one night, we just called security and found out what building his keycard had been used for last ;-) Boy, was he pissed….
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Our company IM client has a box for location next to your availability. ‘Course you have to use it, not automatic.
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Off-topic, but Frank, what is your avatar supposed to be/represent? I can’t make heads or tails of it.
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My last name is Hood.
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Unfortunately, that’s not helping me figure out your avatar. I assume it’s meant to be a hood of some kind, but I don’t recognize it as anything I’m familiar with.
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Robin, is this really the sort of place wherein you want to be indicating any kind of familiarity with styles of hoods?
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Of course it is, everytime Sarah makes a political post we get accused of having a greater than passing familiarity with hoods.
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So is that a face, wearing a hood?
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Well I guess that shows why I’ll never be an artist. (Insert hilarious Robin Williams impromptu monologue here.) Why it’s a strange kind of monk with a hood with two points and the intriguing shadow of the Milky Way hiding his face (which you’ll not has no mouth–what you mean I have to draw lips? I don’t know how to do that!) Wait, the Milky Way doesn’t cast a shadow. What kind of lunatic are you anyway?
All I can really say is, “Made you look! Bazinga!”
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Does it help any to know that I saw it as “a hooded face where you can only see the eyes”?
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Hover your mouse over it, and it shows larger.
Select the Complete Profile and you’ll see it in its glory, with some slight pixel problems. (Which appears to be inherent; my pic is somewhat fuzzy like that in my profile.)
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The pixelization is because I lost the original digital image I had lying around and only found the low resolution one I used for IM and email. I originally drew it loooooong ago for stationery and should probably get around to redigitizing it.
Of course I could have used a wiener to go with my first name, but a certain politician has given that a bad name :-). Not sure how tongue in cheek Robin’s comment was anyway. How does a picture of a pigeon represent a Munn anyway? OK, OK, you know that last question is a joke, right?
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Couple of things there – 1) Yes, people back then pretty much ignored the TRUE “trifling” things. My father would have had to be unable to walk before his father would allow him to stay home from school or stay in from the field. 2) Dental abscesses can fairly easily get into the jaw, and I know exactly how it feels (It hurts like you’ve been punched by a boxer). But here’s the thing: according to a friend who was in Iraq, people get used to this kind of pain if they experience it all the time. That kind of dental problem was not uncommon to see over there, and they just acted like it was a minor irritation.
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My normal, everyday pain level is about a “4” on a scale from 0 to 10. It has to get above a “7” before I stop doing the things I normally do. I can understand “getting used” to pain — dancers, runners, military, sports figures, etc., all learn to “work through the pain”, even when the pain is physically exhausting. Illness is different. Pain can’t be transmitted the way an infection can be. I think that if you’re ill, spreading it around is the worst thing you can do. We as a society have forgotten some of the early wisdom our ancestors had — there comes a time to stop and take care of the body before it rebels.
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Americans, as a society, commonly run significant sleep deficits. This increases susceptibility to illness, slows recovery and exacerbates many chronic conditions (e.g., Type II Diabetes.)
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I’ve been walking with an inflamed Achilles tendon for a month and a half. Either it is a lot less painful now than it was weeks ago, or I am getting used to it, but first it was obviously painful to walk with, now I barely notice although I can still feel it every step.
I was given two cortisone shots and five days of NSAID today. From what I have read those shots are not necessarily recommended anymore (they were on each side of the swollen spot, not on the tendon itself) so we’ll see what happens. Hoping for the best, most recommendations I can find online talk about letting the thing rest for weeks, or even months, which is not going to happen with my main job, I have never gotten more than a bit over a week of sick leave for this kind of problems, not even when I was on my feet the whole time, and I think it’s much less likely now when I can do most of the routes while sitting inside a car. Plus I do not get sick time pay from the new job at all since it’s few enough hours per month that I could do them in a few days if I worked full days, so if I don’t do those I don’t get that pay at all.
The pain is not a big problem when it comes to doing either work, but not being able to go for the long walks I like while the weather would still be at least tolerable is pissing me off. And I am a bit scared of it getting to the point where the doctor might start considering something like surgery, which did happen to another paper carrier I know, she claims hers got sliced open and something removed from inside of it after she had had an inflamed one for over a year.
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I had something similar happen when I started walking to work. I found that stretching the calf and arch of the foot helped. I put the ball of my foot on something elevated 2-3 inches (I used the base of a rolling chair) and leaned forward. Between that and massaging out the plum-sized knot in my calf my heels feel much better.
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A major reason America’s Founders drank amounts we today marvel at was it was about the only effective analgesic available. That it also “purified” the water against infectious microbial assault forces was an unrealized bonus.
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Sabrina, What kind of work do? Other than writing of course. My company has quite a few people who work from home, and everybody is issued a laptop with most of us given “hotel space” rather than fixed offices. If your skills and desires are up our alley, you can email me, and I can point you in the right direction.
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Software QA/SDET. To be clear I *can* telecommute at my current place of work for something like bad weather/medical appointments/I’m-coming-down-with-something but I’d prefer having a telecommute *schedule*. One place I worked was very sensible about it. After an evaluation period (to make sure new hires had the work ethic) of I think three months, you could telecommute Tuesdays and Thursdays, no permission needed ahead of time. (And if the owner hadn’t been the second coming of Capt. Queeg, I might have stayed there longer ….)
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Sabrina, send me an email at Frank.Hood@gmail.com, and I’ll send you a link. Not everybody telecommutes, and most jobs require a certain amount of face time with clients, but lots of us have done cross-coast or even cross-continent jobs. Don’t know where you live, but we’ve got openings that might suit in the Southwest as well as our bigger hotspots.
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“Sorry, feeling quite prickly-introvert today. I like YOU guys.)”
Yep, I can be quite garrulous (always wanted to use that word in a sentence) with people I like, otherwise I usually feel no need to communicate at all… and if you force the communication you may not like what I communicate to you. ;)
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As others have mentioned, management seem to be picking up on the idea that showing up sick is worse long-term than not showing up .. I suspect this is because not spreading an infection stops the domino effect.
Of course, as a telecommuter, I “show up sick” quite a lot because work nicely takes my mind off my troubles and I’m not risking anyone else but me. Yet another win for telecommuting .. no more “crud going around the office” .. and a good point for homeschooling as well as was noted above.
What goes out the window depends on what’s wrong with me .. if my back is out, the physical stuff all gets cancelled because sitting in a chair is about all I can manage until it decides to go back into alignment .. if I have a cold or virus or something, some of the mental stuff goes out the window.
In both cases, meal planning is a good indicator .. I like to eat well, but when planning and executing a meal is impossible. “Yes, hot dogs again, deal with it.”
I know I’m on approach to normal when I have the energy for almond-and-banana pancakes.
Mew
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Where do people work that’s so supportive of telecommuting?
Most management ’round here panic at the idea.
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Mainly high tech and of course Federal civil service jobs.
A lot of middle managers see telecommuting as a loss for them as bits of their empire are no longer under their direct control.
We went through a period when a lot of our people expressed an interest in telecommuting from home. Most backed off when informed that anyone with small children would have to prove that their kids were in day care during the work shift. The prospect became less attractive when it was made clear that we weren’t going to let parents save on child care at the expense of the company.
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This is a tad dated, Rob, but .. it looks like the list is dominated by tech-savvy outfits. Not necessarily outfits that *do* tech, but outfits that *understand* it.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2011/benefits/telecommuting.html
I’m sure your google-fu is strong enough to work from there to find today’s leaders, and whether you can join them.
Telecommute is a win-win-win – the company saves on brick+mortar facilities, they get better performance (employees are more likely to work later and be available to check and reply to e-mail for *much* longer) so equal or increased productivity, and employees get both a more flexible work environment (my afternoon break is spent doing food-prep for dinner or running to the grocery store, not sitting in a stale break room eating a doughnut) and a cost savings in ga$oline.
If I suddenly found myself back in the job market, I would look for companies that “get it”.
Mew
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If you are in certain service industries or manufacturing telecommuting opportunities are limited.
Certainly your local police and firefighter should not telecommute.
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See my reply to RES below. Also, career choice matters.
Mew
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No problem, nor did I mean to imply that you thought that all jobs could convert to telecommute.
(The subject of converting to telecommuting has come up before, back when the other parts of my life were not so demanding and keeping me from participating freely. I miss ya’ll. :-( )
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We miss you too, I’ve been wondering where you have been at.
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She’s kept me appraised, so I didn’t worry too much. I’m trying to convince her to do a post for us.
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Yeah. Right now it would consist of one very short sentence: ‘Don’t even try.’
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or maybe: ‘Danger Will Robinson!’
or maybe: ‘Are you out of your friggin’ mind?’
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We should acknowledge that some professions are less suited to telecommuting. I don’t think it would work well for school nurses, for example, nor crossing guards.
OTOH, businesses need to focus more on “work completed” and less on “time on task” in their recognition of telecommuting as a strategy. As the early 20th Century Industrial Engineers broke processes into components to more effectively eliminate waste, so 21st Century IEs should be focusing on more meaningful measures of productivity.
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I don’t see where, RES, I argued that every job should – let alone could – be filled by a telecommuter. It’s right for some people in some jobs.. I figure it’s a big enough niche that it could reach 5%-10% of the employed, one day, but .. the clogged drain in Cheboygan will have to be fixed by a plumber *in Cheboygan* .. and a gas station attendant in Oregon will need to be *at a gas station* and *in Oregon*.
As for managing to results rather than managing by walking around, that seems to be self-reinforcing .. companies that train managers to work with metrics rather than in meatspace (and reduce overhead through telecommuting) will – in general – be more successful than those who don’t. There will, of course, be examples to the contrary.
Mew
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As a freelancer, I refuse to take gigs that pay by the hour instead of by the product– because I’m fast, and I can make more money in less time when I work in a results-oriented environment. Hourly wages for copywriting seem silly to me. Why should someone who takes 2 hours to write a decent blog post get HIGHER compensation for his work than someone who can write the same post in 15 minutes?
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My (now deceased) brother-in-law the mechanic was the same way .. he worked for a small shop, and was their rockstar .. the owner charged “standard time and materials” rates, but my brother-in-law ran the back so efficiently – him and a couple “apprentices” .. he was always done in half the standard time or less.
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Ones like mine. Manual labor. I need a paper from a nurse or a doctor if I need to be away sick even for one day – well, if I want to be paid, we do get pay up to three months for sick leaves, but also I can’t announce that I will stay away because I’m sick without that medical certificate (is it really called that? One term I have never before needed so I looked it up from a couple of Finnish – English online dictionaries and both seem to think the same, but that sounds kinda funny to me) if I want to keep the job. But maybe because the company which we go to for those gets paid by our employer there can be some problems like the one I’m having now with that inflamed Achilles tendon, which, maybe, should need a lot longer rest to heal properly than they are willing to give for it, and sometimes the end result can be that something that might have healed in the beginning with simply a longer rest may become something which in the end will need more intrusive methods, like perhaps surgery.
That is one big problem with this kind of jobs. The pay is often low, so if the worker doesn’t get paid while sick that can become a problem for her fast, but also the worker will probably need to stay on a sick leave for more trifling reasons than an office worker does – and you can’t exactly telecommute either – so a worker who is getting old or is otherwise sick a lot can become an expensive problem for the employer.
This type of jobs need to be done too, but they are good only with and for healthy workers. What should be done with the ones who get sick or just worn out with age (or from the job) since that may very well happen several years before they are even close to their retirement age?
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Regarding medical certificate: In context that works, but it would usually show up more as a medical clearance. A physician signing off on your physical fitness for a given job. More idiomatically medical certificate as you’re using it would be “doctor’s note” or “doctor’s excuse.”
If you’re going to be out today you’ve got to get a doctor’s note.
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Thanks. I thought there should be some less official sounding term for that.
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No problem. Goes back to our school days where “Parent’s note,” “Teacher’s note,” etc. was commonly used.
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Re the CNN survey, in my experience there’s a hidden side to that telecommuting coin. I’ve been at places that encouraged and technologically enabled working remotely on the slimmest excuse, and even somewhat emphatically so when the employee or chilluns were ill, but then guess which workers were first against the wall when the layoffs came.
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Of course, there are two types of people it is easy to fire or lay off, a)those you can’t stand to be around b) those you don’t know.
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And for some people, those are complementary sets; the union of the two sets comprises 100% of the people they work with.
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At my current company, they are the same way. At my previous company, they shut down all their offices and forced their employees to work remotely.
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Yahoo’s recently appointed (July 2012) CEO influenced people without winning friends when she banned telecommuting: one of many changes that have shaken the institution up.
Yet the stock has doubled since she took over and I no longer see buzz about the death of Yahoo.
Correlation does not necessarily imply causation, but you can’t have causation without it.
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Afterthought: The foregoing counterexample is not meant as a blanket argument against telecommuting. There are pros and cons to be weighed in each specific case, is all I’m saying.
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My husband’s work periodically puts a stop to working from home. It’s allowed for a while and then eventually someone stops getting their work done and everyone gets dragged back to the office. I think they’ve pretty much decided to let my husband go home early and work the rest of the day at home whenever he wants to because once he get’s started he ends up working extra hours.
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I hear she’s very ambitious and a bit of a slave driver, who jumped ship when she didn’t get moved up fast enough. Coming from there I’m not surprised at that rep. – while not the worst place to work in Silicon Valley, the company has a bit of a reputation for burning through their mostly new-grad workforce pretty rapidly.
Their on-campus food is still pretty much the best around, though – I understand they are still the largest employer of executive chefs in the SF bay area.
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The version I read was that she was bumped from reporting to the Google CEO and therefore moved on.
She is a smart, workaholic micromanager who supposedly only need four hours of sleep a night. Greater things are probably in store for her, especially if she makes Yahoo shine again.
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You have my sympathy on the back pain. Due to an auto “accident,” I have Degenerative Disk Disease from T-11 to L-5 (basically the lower third of my back). It means the disks between the spinal vertebrae are disintegrating. I take 40 mg of Oxy every day, and still work for 4-6 hours/day. Take really good care of your back, so that you don’t end up like me.
My daily choice is function at 10% of what _was_ normal, or be in so much pain that I can’t function at all. Eventually, I won’t have to make that choice. I’ll be a full, rather than partial, Paraplegic. The nerves will have finished being crushed, and I’ll lose all function from the waist down.
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My grandfather, the one who was a doctor, used to say that the greatest medical advance of all is indoor plumbing with hot and cold running water. We take things to cover symptoms, yes. We are also notoriously bad at hand washing.
A few years ago MERSA ran through the population in our section of the state. Schools had to be shut down. And I suddenly noticed that people were washing their hands, carefully. There was a comic aspect to this as it came near the end of a five year drought and water rationing was about to go to a new level of restrictions.
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Agricultural increases are easily a rival, if not claiming the prize.
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Take care of yourself. Do whatever you have to do to get those ears clear before you get on an airplane.
I made the mistake of flying with a head cold once. The pain was at a level where even someone (like me) who actually knows what the word “excruciating” really means didn’t feel awkward about using it. Left me permanently hearing-impaired in my right ear, too.
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Working in an office environment for many years we always had the hearty brave soul who would come in and work while “under the weather.” So whatever was going around came around, often multiple times. More often than not patient zero was a gentleman with small children in the home and I suspect was coming in to work to escape a house full of sick kids. To be fair I do know of occasions where it was the wife who came in while hubby nursed the brood. But mostly it followed the traditional gender role assignments.
Two words that popped into my head while reading your post: con crud. Some fans having looked forward to a con for weeks or months will by Ghod come and enjoy themselves no matter what sniffles and hacks may have developed. Sharing isn’t always a good thing.
As uninformed patients demand and physicians overmedicate antibiotics for viral maladies specific drugs are constantly being rendered ineffective as bacteria become immune to them. The US drug companies lead the way in developing ever new and improved antibiotics. In effect our current health care system subsidizes the world’s supply of new drugs and treatments. One of my many fears about the new health policies about to be inflicted upon us is that with the profit incentive for new medications reduced or eliminated we will see a terrible increase in drug resistant infections.
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RE: Con Crud. I am not sure that everyone who comes to a con bearing germs is aware that they are doing so. They are generally young. Many are in college, inexperience at self maintenance and more than a little silly. And they are often hyped up with excitement, which can mask symptoms.
The Con I work lies at the end of allergy season, and I know that, for me, even at my age, it can be a real guess as to whether my runny nose and sniffles are due to pollen or to something icky if it hasn’t progressed as far as infection.
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Plus of course the asymptomatic.
I once got the flu at Thanksgiving. No one could figure out who had brought it to the big family gathering.
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I went to a con with strep a few years ago. All I had was a tickle the first day. The last day, my hubby picked me up and took me to the hospital because I was so dehydrated I was throwing up and passing out. No symptoms beyond a tickle in my throat until that morning.
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Plus of course those with no obvious symptoms. I think I may have a tummy bug at the moment; it’s the bursts of nausea that gave it away. the other symptoms could have been just eating the wrong thing.
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Two words that popped into my head while reading your post: con crud.
I think that’s more Montizuma’s Revenge type situations than folks going when they’re physically sick. You’ve got folks from all kinds of places– they’re going to be exposed to novel germs even if nobody is sick.
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We just talked in microbiology class today about fevers, and how medicating to reduce them is a bad thing. We need them to kill off those happy little mesophiles reproducing like mad things inside us!
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If of course the fever isn’t so high as to be physically dangerous. You’re right though, for less serious fevers, this is why bundling up in bed with blankets and ‘sweating out’ the fever is effective.
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I have a story percolating in the back of my head that involves a carefully-tailored biological weapon that can bypass the immune system, but gets short-circuited in the protagonist when he catches something else at the same time and comes down with a raging fever. Not sure if it stacks up, but it seems superficially plausible to me.
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At one point early on in the recognition of AIDS one of the proposals for addressing the illness was infecting the victim (in several senses) with malaria to induce a fever to kill the AIDS virus and leave the patient with a condition we knew how to treat.
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Apparently it didn’t work, because I knew a couple people with malaria (it is one of those diseases that once you get it once, you have it for life, it just goes into recession with periodic flareups) while not pleasant I would imagine getting so sick you wished you would die, for a couple days every year or two would be preferable to actually dying.
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I’ve got some familiarity with observing the effects of viral vectors in work populations (particularly closed populations, but they’re a microcosm). Anecdotally, we are increasing the speed and spread of infections because of our social habits. Sending kids to school, heading off to work, stopping to get gas/coffee, going out for lunch. In all of this we are the walking disease vector.
This is not always a bad thing, as rapid exposure to the initial viral outbreak can promote ‘community’ acquired immunities (we all get sick instead of getting a vaccine). This seems to take some of the sting out of a season because this variation of the virus burns through a community fairly quickly without time to sit around and ‘cook’ before jumping to the next host. Of course, with the more lethal viruses this would be less beneficial. (This is not a path favored by medicine, really, because you’re playing roulette on any given virus’s virulence and your own susceptibility.)
The one that really concerns me is bacteriological. Because we’re seeing community acquired immunity in bacteriological infections as well. But it ain’t our community, it’s theirs. The misuse/overuse of antibiotics has allowed for the growth of resistant bacteria, as I’m sure most have heard. But within regular communities, such as work or school populations, we are passing those immune bacteria amongst us. While less likely to result in a pandemic on their own, bacterial infections are opportunistic and a flu pandemic could see many fall because of secondary resistant bacterial infections.
And there’s your happy thought (or story idea) for the day.
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Would some nice spicy Thai food clear the eustachian tubes as well as the sinuses?
Hope you feel better soon!
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While it is a basic tenet of my existence that most illness can be combated by administration of the proper combination of sauteed onion, bell pepper, garlic, ginger and HOT peppers I remain in a minority in this view. IIRC, our esteemed hostess is among those who deem unbearably hot what I and my ilk consider mild, so Thai is perhaps not the solution. Still, garlic, onions and bell peppers make an effective natural treatment for most illnesses, providing blood cleansing qualities with Vitamin C and digestive assistance.
A good Thai shrimp fired rice with basil offers many benefits, although probably too much carb content. Chicken (or shrimp) scampi is generally available at even such declasse venues as Olive Garden and provides generous quantities of garlic, onion & bell pepper. Chinese is always recommended treatment for any illness.
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Well, I’ll join you in that minority, although I usually add ground meat and tomatoes and call it chili.
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Or ground meat and cheese and wrap it in a taco shell, although chili provides the ‘soup’ that is so desired when sick.
Spicy food has the added side benefit of promoting the drinking of extra fluids, which is always a good idea when sick.
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Unfortunately, I seem to be allergic to nightshades, so peppers and tomatoes are off the menu. This leaves me with black pepper or mustard or onions (or, frequently, all three) for heat… and fruits for “barbecue sauce”. Yes, it’s wrong, but .. it’s this or suffer the symptoms.
Mew
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Ah, yes – me Mum is allergic to nightshades so I am familiar the problem with. Chinese mustard (mixed yourself) is a good sinus clearer if you can find somewhat to put it on (Walmart carries a brand of egg roll that offers a protein/calorie balance of about 10 gms protein, 10 grams carb per roll.)
Horse radish or wasabi also clears sinuses. I’m not a sushi eater and outside of that it is hard to find ways to consume adequate amounts of horseradish (okay — I confess — I make my roast beef sandwiches with about equal amounts horse radish and roast beef but that brings tears to even my eyes so others might prefer lessr amounts.)
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First, I have low tolerance to “hot” — second at this point it’s almost all in my ears, not my sinus…
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I acknowledged the issue with “hot” in first comment, and readily confess that “mild” for me is “Oh my GAWD, how can you EAT That!!!!!” for most people. I also note that horseradish, in sufficient quantity, will clear and disinfect the ear canals.
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My older son also thinks Thai Hot is “mild.”
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There’s a restaurant a bit south of y’all that he may like …
http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/wall-of-flame-challenge/
Mew
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Note to self: why isn’t Larry Correia’s blog on my to-read-everyday list yet? For penance, beat self over head ten times with copy of Monster Hunter. Since purpose is penance rather than suicide, paperback copy is acceptable.
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I cannot answer for you, but .. for me, because I am not into miniatures or the novelization of his D&D campaign, so .. it’s on my weekly “did he write something I want to read?” checklist, not the “check daily” or “check hourly” lists.
I am in mid-re-read of ‘Monster Hunters Take Las Vegas’. (not Larry’s title)
Mew
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Do be careful, the use of a book to hit ourselves in the head with is rarely good for the book.
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Horseradish, in sufficient quantity, will clear and disinfect all kinds of canals.
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It also has the beneficial effect of communicating to microbial invaders that you are willing to take serious steps to counter their incursion and convince them you are no one with whom to trifle.
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Perhaps if they could read your sandwich recipe they would be forewarned, thus no inclination to trifle. I know I have taken note.
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Me, I would go for a Hillel sandwich: a piece of matzoh, a schmear of haroset, and a couple of generous dollops of horseradish — or more. Unfortunately the makings are traditionally only available for a very short time of the year.
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Fresh ground horseradish and cheese sandwhiches (meat is always a desired option, IMO, but some don’t like meat on their sandwhiches) equal amounts horseradish and cheddar cheese, with the bread mainly present to keep the horseradish from making a mess on your hands.
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Horseradish is also excellent in egg salad. Just don’t use the horseradish instead of the mayonnaise… check the small similar looking bottles carefully.
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Alternatively you can grow your own horseradish. It is virtually impossible to kill with neglect, in fact it seems to flourish best in poor soil with no attention. It has been my limited experience that the more care and attention you give horseradish the less production you receive from it.
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I find shrimp cocktail quite vigorous enough to do the job.
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I always crave spicy foods when I’m sick. This is probably why
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Standard-issue hummus ingredients (I’ve never made my own tahini, but will probably try to do so the next time I make hummus…this recipe used store-bought tahini). Plus sesame oil. Plus chili oil (a lot!). Plus cayenne (a lot of this too!). Plus extra garlic (do I even need to say it?). Plus red pepper flakes (preferably included in the mix in the food processor…adding them after it’s emulsified isn’t nearly as good). Plus sambal. (If you’re out of sambal, you can get by with sriracha, while you beat yourself soundly about the head for being silly enough to run out of sambal! But it’ll lose some textural appeal.)
I invented it a couple of winters ago when I was experiencing the Martian Death Flu. I immediately dubbed it…(wait for it)…HUMMUCIDE dip!
Served with pitas. (NOT pita chips!) Continue eating until you regain the ability to breathe through your nose.
It will not actually make you healthy. But it’ll make being sick suck a lot less.
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“Do you want to be the first person to die for some student’s perfect attendance?”
Can we get that on a bumper sticker?
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I’m for this. When did ‘perfect attendance’ become a reasonable metric? Above and beyond more reasonable experiential opportunities? Peeve of mine since I suffered from a misguided TX law that prevented us from traveling to the Rose Bowl parade back in HS.
Oh, yeah, and that sick kid thing. Definitely for ending punitive treatment of responsible sick kids who choose to infect their household over their classroom.
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That would cut into the school’s money, though. They can’t have that!
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Yeah, but in a twisted/convoluted way that tied classroom attendance and extra-curricular activity up with funding and left educators stuck on the prongs regarding once in a rare time opportunities and ‘contests’ that served as performance metrics for teachers. Blech.
As somebody around here said the other day, we can call them school systems but let’s not make the mistake of calling them education systems.
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I was thinking just the other day that we need to get away from the phrase “home school” and call it home education. The whole “school” thing is what we’re trying to get away from. Home Education: Twice the education, half the time, none of the school.
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Yes! My cousin is home educating (might as well start now) her three young daughters, all with voracious brains. And the most telling part for me as I watch all of the zombie kids wandering to and from the warehouse is how much time she has once the lessons are done. So they go to museums and science exhibits and farms and etc. Fantastic experiences on which draw in later life and not a one of ’em schooling.
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That is up there with changing “climate change” to “climate control”. Good idea.
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Back in college, a friend used to say “your body is like a sewer–the best thing for cleaning it is to flood it out.” He then advised the consumption of water, OJ, tea, whatever until you were tired of drinking. Then drink some more. Then have another gallon, just in case.
I must admit, the times I’ve managed the herculean task, it has helped. Good luck! Feel better!
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Yes I know you’re serious, but it reminds me of Tom Lehrer’s intro to one of his songs, “Life is like a sewer — what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.” It’s always seemed to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need today in these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha.
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In college, an Indian friend of mine used to fix us her family’s never fail cold/sinus/flu remedy. She’d boil some kind of pepper down into a thick syrup, add just enough milk and sugar so you could choke it down, and force you to drink the whole thing in one sitting. Then you’d basically pass out under the covers with a box of tissues, and sweat the whole disease out in about 4 hours. It was MISERABLE, but it worked.
A Polish roommate was a big fan of eating raw garlic on a piece of bread. It cleans out your sinuses and ears, but no one will sit next to you for a while.
I prefer hot toddies. Pleasant and they make you feel better.
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I’ve become a fan of hot buttered rum, since I tried a recipe for it I found last winter. No idea if it has medicinal properties, but it sure makes you feel better!
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Made with coffee instead of water? If not, try that some time.
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It *is* possible to drink so much water you die.
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This is why it is a good idea to periodically dilute your water with whiskey.
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Electrolyte imbalance. Either use electrolyte drinks or eat salty snacks while hydrating.
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Why does no one cut any slack for recovery from the common illnesses? Probably because they are indulging people with imaginary illnesses. That movie/play “Safe” about the woman who imagines she’s allergic to the whole modern world — at least the playwrite/screenwriter/director appears to have meant the audience to think perhaps the lady was just cookoo, but pc audiences seem to take her literally. And toxoplasmosis gondi — please. The two things we know for sure are that every greenscreamer in the country says 60% of the US population has TG, and that cat clinic workers are required to have the toxoplasmosis test every year, and that not one of them has it. The list of things to avoid that might give you TG starts with eating rare meat, eating vegatables you have not spent an hour scrubbing, gardening, on and on till about twenty, you have cats, but only if you let the boxes go for weeks and then clean the boxes with your bare hands. And eat the poop.
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And I really, really hope you get better soon to face up to your rabid fans.
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They’re not rabid. They’ve been vaccinated.
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Really! We wait on her words of wisdom with baited breath. With a sinus infection, she may not even gag at all that worm breath.
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Nicely done. And a fine example of the ‘hooked tongue.’
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I really shouldn’t cast casual comments like that around here. Especially since I’ll be busy all weekend tackling the homework for the workshop.
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Frodo: Uncle Bilbo, Gandalf, what fishing method would you recommend? I’ve got a party to prepare for and I need to catch a lot of fish before tomorrow.
Bilbo: I recommend trolling. You can get quite a haul from a good troll.
Gandalf: (Shakes head) No, no. Fly, you fools!
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Well, whatever you do, if you use a net, don’t get yourself caught in it, because you don’t want to be in seine.
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If he’s catering a typical hobbit party he should probably use TNT.
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Amy Surplus supplies all my hobbit fireworks.
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That might fly by some, but the allure is not lost on me. Be sure and troll the deeper waters of our host’s experience.
As this is the one that slipped by me I hope you’ll have stories to tell.
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What a line.
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You might want to loosen the drag, you wouldn’t want to break our leader before you get her reeled in.
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The puns on this thread have reached a scale that would make even C-d tremble with righteous angler.
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The depths to which this school will sink are unfathomable.
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In the darkest deeps it gains us nothing to eel out of our responsibilities. Though we may flounder in the troughs, we can crab our way back to the crest and net our reward.
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I’d go with rabid.
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I will join the list of people with suggestions: Pico de Gallo. (with serrano peppers, not fake “fooled you” type jalapeno. This Mexican folk relish of ripe tomatoes, hot peppers, white onions, cilantro leaves, some salt, and a splash of lemon or lime juice is good for what ails you. Take it with chips, dump it onto refried beans, etc. as you prefer. Chicken soup or broth from bullion cubes, as much as you can stand. Hot water with lemon wedge, likewise. I’m not big on it, but my Mom used to feed me clear (colored) Jello when I was sick. Fruity herbal teas, in between the soup and the lemon water. Hot toddies in reasonable quantity, for a flavor change. The lotsa-fluid plan is a winner IMHO, just make sure you are getting some electrolytes in the mix. My sweetie used to believe in the alcohol cure, but that one not only makes you more mixed up in the head, it gives you hangover…and potentially worse than that, so use with care.
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Weird. WordMess seems to be double-notifying on some comments today. This one is the second comment I’ve see twice in my email, but only once on the page.
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I forgot to mention the Airplane Strategy: take (real) sudafed type decongestant, the kind you sign the drug log for, and also at the same time take the liquefying type of cough syrup, the kind that “loosens phlegm”. This over the counter method replicates a little pill my doctor gives that we call “Dr. Maynards little bombshells.”
It’s not so bad now, but for years I refused to get onto a plane without taking Sudafed. I know for a fact that my sinuses can hurt out to the end of my eyebrows. Along with the tunnel hearing thing where you don’t really know what’s going on around you.
I hope you’re feeling better real soon.
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“What I do know is that, as a society, we’ve become very cavalier about illness.”
I would disagree strongly with this statement. Entirely too many people these days look for any sort of excuse to miss work. I’m not saying you should go to work while infectious with the measles, but there are way too many people that stay home any time they are feeling a little under the weather, or their back hurts, or they are hungover from staying out to late last night drinking, etc.
A lot of this is at least partially the fault of employers (government is the absolute worst) giving a large number of days of ‘sick’ leave. People use it as extra vacation days. And a lot of employers require people apply well ahead of time for vacation, while you can call in the morning and take sick leave if you don’t feel like going to work.
You used Jane Austen as an example, but during the time frame of Pride and Prejudice only the wealthy and particularly women (because wealthy women were supposedly fragile) had the luxury of laying in bed when they didn’t feel up to par. A working man (or working woman) of that time period didn’t get to take time off, even if sick with serious contagious illnesses such as TB, if they wanted to eat.
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I flew with a sinus infection after defending my dissertation many years ago. My equilibrium and hearing were shot by the time the plane touched down. How I made the two hour drive from the airport without getting pulled on suspicion of DUI, I’ll never know. Arrived home at 3:00 in the morning to find the better half keeping warm a celebratory dinner. Stepped from the car, lost my balance, tripped over the edge of the sidewalk and broke my foot. I should have learned a lesson, but honestly don’t think I did.
Feel better Sarah.
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I stopped getting sick all the time the day I quit eating carbs. Used to be I’d be laid up for a week or more, at least twice a year. I’m not sure why, but fixing my insulin resistance has significantly improved my immune system.
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I’m on extremely low carb. The issue is my hvac and my younger son bringing stuff home from college. Low carb fixed my heartburn, though.
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If you’ve become a Zombie, stay out of Government offices; you could starve!
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Or worse yet, hire you as a fellow bureaucrat!
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or be offered a job. possibly elected.
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Would this be a bad time to mention: *I* *was* the kid with the perfect attendance record in school? Never got sick — worst I had to deal with was allergies from the mustard seed growing in the CA desert (whenever the “Santa Ana winds” blew, my sinuses packed up tight; it was a sort of nasal Pearl Harbor — “East Wind Drain”…. >;) ).
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Sarah, I had colds/allergies for years, until I started drinking Orange Juice every day. Minimum 6 oz., max 8oz. I also eat Onions on burgers, when facing cold/sinus season. Find an aromatic spicy food you can tolerate, and eat lots of it. Also, drink _strong, hot_ tea. WalMart has some _really_ good, “generic” green tea. It’s on a par with Constant Comment brand, quality. What I used to do was make tea in the coffee maker. 4 bags, for “6” cups, was the minimum strength. If you do “by the cup,” let it steep until the tea is dark. Green tea has anti-oxidants, and the hot fluid is good for sinus/ear infections. It’s also low on caffeine. If you can handle the sugar rush, put in a lot of sugar (or good substitute). Drunk hot, it loosens congestion, and is like a person sized sauna. :-) Better, and *cheaper* than cough syrup, plus you can drink it by the gallon.
Get better soon, and don’t die yet.
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I learned this afternoon that I may be called in to teach a lot more this year than last, so I suppose my immune system will get readjusted to this year’s viri. Whee.
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