It was inevitable

Everyone in my area at work has been sick over the past two weeks.  Everyone.

I have been using sanitizing wipes daily on all shared surfaces (copiers, fax machine, etc), but people wandering around not covering their mouths when they cough and sneeze is not something one can keep up with by using sanitizing wipes!

I woke up overnight Friday with a fever and scratchy throat.  The fever has stayed below 100, but I feel like crap.

If the fever goes above 100, off to urgent care we go.  Yay.

My employer imposes an absurd number of restrictions on our use of our earned time off.  As a result, people HAVE to come to work when they're sick, or risk disciplinary action.

As a further result, when it's a bad cold and flu season, like this year is, everyone gets sick.

It's really counter intuitive to punish us for taking care of ourselves, but that's how it is.

Folks have been let go because they used their sick time and earned too many "occurrences."

I currently am the only person who has zero occurrences.

If I still have a fever in the morning, I will get an occurrence, because I can afford to stay home.  

The single mom who sits next to me has been hit with 5 occurrences in the past couple of months because her kids have been sick.

She got written up for excessive absences, so  SHE could NOT afford to stay home, and had to come to work sick this past week.  She was the one who got me sick in December, too, for the same reason.

The other lady, who wanders around coughing on everyone, is trying not to use her time because she has an ailing father, and could need to go to Texas to care for him at the drop of a hat.

She also has occurrences from having to do that over the holidays. If she takes another occurrence for taking care of HERSELF, her time off request to go take care of her dad could be denied.

Yes. Seriously.

So, you see, it was inevitable that I would eventually get sick.  Again.

Last winter in our office was really good. Not many people got the "crud."  This year, not so much.

The good thing is that it hit me on the weekend, so chances are, I will be in pretty good shape tomorrow.  We'll see.

It's supposed to be a cloudy, gloomy day, and that will improve my chances of being able to get some extra sleep.

I've been pretty restless the past two nights with this fever.

Nothing much else to report.