Monday, June 15, 2009

Swine and Cheese Party

First off - is it rude to put a "Please Knock" sign on our office door?
There is this one doctor here who thinks he has the right to barge in whenever the spirit moves him. It pisses me off. I think if it were any other doctor it would bother me significantly less, but because it's him and I know him well-ish and I know he's an a-hole, I want to get all passive aggressive on his ass and put up a sign. Ugh, why do I even care really? It's all quite ridiculous.

I probably shouldn't even bother. I should probably wait until someone is hired to sit at the desk he's always rummaging through (apparently there are files in a cabinet here, left behind by a nearly fired coworker, that he needs access to). Then when he comes in someone can be all "Excuse me?! What are you doing?" Heh. I think another irksome factor is that he just walked in here with an intern telling him what he needed done over the summer and was like 'Oh just come in here and do xyz blah blah." Not without knocking, you shifty bastard!

You can tell I am in a somewhat feisty mood today. It is partly fueled by last week's exposure to H1N1 aka "Swine Flu." My coworker, who has been reprimanded once before for coming to work sick and contagious, decided that she needed to come to work to finish a certain task despite the fact that she had been coughing and sneezing and flu-like for the past week. We found out on Friday that she had a pathologically confirmed case of swine flu. This didn't leave me running for the hills or preparing a will or anything like that, but I did wonder about the implications for my other coworker and myself, given our close proximity to the six one (me, six inches, her six feet or so). Turns out I had to take a 10 day prophylactic course of tamiflu.

We-ell that's all well and good, especially since it was free at the hospital pharmacy, given the work-related exposure, but it has some foul side effects. I won't go into the long boring details, but I have thrown up in my mouth four times. EWWW.

I was willing to accept my punishment if it meant a week of Mxxxxxx not sitting next to me being irritating. HOWEVER, I walk into my office today and there she is, sitting pretty at her computer. I said "Oh good morning" She says "Good morning." I say "I take it you didn't have swine flu. Thank goodness, that Tamiflu sh*t is messing up my stomach." "Oh no," she clarifies, "I had it. I'm just better now. How'd you know I had it anyways?"

UM. BECAUSE YOU WORK IN A F*CKING CANCER HOSPITAL WITH SICK PEOPLE AND THE DPH MAKES DR'S REPORT IT!
OMG!
And because of it's pandemic proportions (i.e. spreadability) we had to take the proper precautions not to infect the entire hospital, which means tamiflu prophylaxis and calling in the second we feel sick. Gosh.

I said "I am on Tamiflu for 10 days and I was told I had to sterilize my workspace!"

Her reply "Oh.....sorry...."

OMG I wanted to hit her. It's not that I thought I would die from the swine flu, or even catch it, it's simply the blatant disregard for the health of those around you. It's selfish and it's ignorant behavior. I somehow managed to be nice about sending her home, which I have no authority to actually do, but pretended I did. "And email health services before you come back to be cleared" I yelled after her.

SO there's my day today. I'm thinking I might get one of those swine flu warning signs to go with the "please knock" sign.

No one would probably pay attention anyways, though...

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