To Work Or Not

It was a nice morning for a walk in the park. It was a little brisk (48 degrees), but the sun was shining brightly. There had been a little rain earlier, but the clouds had moved on. I enjoyed the fresh air while hubby went for his annual flu shot. I was surprised that he beat me back home – it was the first day for the flu shots, so we expected there to be a line.

From Fall 1990 through Fall 1993, I worked at a local health clinic. The administrators were quite smart – they had the nurses line us all up every fall and give all the employees a flu shot. The office was open from 9 am until 6 pm......and you lost count of the times you were sneezed on throughout the day!

Sadly, that flu shot wasn't a miracle vaccine. We still got sick. I spent quite a bit of time one of those winters fighting bronchitis. Very few of the employees would stay home when they were under the weather, so we shared a lot in terms of germs.

It's always interesting in the workplace to watch the different personalities when it comes to not feeling well. I remember one co-worker who would start talking in the early afternoon about not feeling “quite right”. I could count on her being out the next few days (I would have to do both our jobs when she was gone). I remember well one Friday when she started saying that – I wondered how it would play out. Sure enough, the first part of the next week she was at home. I seem to remember that she did make a comment about being okay over the weekend and then it hit her on Sunday night. Hmmm.

I've worked with people who wouldn't leave work regardless – and I've worked with people who would call in sick if they had a hang nail. I'm sure everyone's had these experiences. One co-worker even decided it was just too much to work 40 hours at the job she'd been hired for, plus an extra 4 hours on Saturday at a different job. She asked for, and was given, every Wednesday off so she was working only five days a week (but not 40 hours). Most everyone else thought that was ridiculous – it also left me in the position of doing both our jobs every Wednesday. It gave me leverage for negotiation.

You wouldn't necessarily think of clerical work as being risky, but I've had a few very strange workplace issues. Early in my career, I was working at a graduate school. We had an ancient offset printer we used for our printing. It was big, noisy, and in a room by itself. The premise of how the printer worked was really hard rubber rollers that pressed together tightly enough to squeeze a thick, oil-based ink onto the print rollers.

I had really long hair then......and I'm sure you're starting to anticipate where this is going. I was in that room by myself printing a large quantity of copies. We had to watch the front of the printer, where the paper was taken in – and also the back end, where the copies were coming out. I leaned toward the front to check on the darkness of the copies, and those rubber rollers grabbed my hair. I was very calm as I managed to find the toggle switch and turn the thing off. My co-workers came in to see why the printer was making such a strange noise. They had to take the printer apart to get me loose. I had that oil-based ink all through my hair and on my clothing. My co-workers were panicked – I stayed calm until it was all over, then I fell apart. The pressure of those rollers was so tight, it snapped off the hair they had caught. I ended up having bangs cut because of all the broken hair.

Not all that long ago I was working at a two-pieced wooden desk that had a wooden hutch on top of it. One Monday morning, about half hour after starting work, I heard a strange noise – and the wooden hutch fell over on me. Again, I was calm while everyone else screamed and jumped to lift the hutch off me. That day, I remained calm.......all I could do was shake my head in disbelief. Who would think those pieces of heavy furniture weren't fastened together? (They were by the end of the day!)

After a trip to ER to make sure I didn't have a concussion, and after stopping by the optometrist's office to get my glasses straightened, I went back to work – black eye, headache and all. The boss couldn't believe I was there, but I told him I could have a headache there just as easily as at home.

Yep, I'm one of the ones who doesn't miss work unless they just can't get out of bed!