Germ of an idea

Whenever I hear "It's the season!" I know whoever said it means the Christmas, Joy To The World, Goodwill Towards All time of year. I'm all for it (except for the Mariah Carey Christmas song Macy's has on a loop).

But the holiday season happens to coincide with another, less popular one—cold and flu season.

If you work in an office like I do—with central air-conditioning you thought was your friend—you know colds and flu shoot through the workplace like wildfire.

It's basically a game of dominoes. Once the first person falls, it's only a matter of time before everyone else does.

You can't help getting sick, but you can help other people from getting sick. It's easy, here's the trick: stay home until you're completely better.

Not a lot better.

Not better than you were.

Not almost better.

All the way better. The way you were before you had any inkling you were coming down with anything. It's only common sense and common courtesy, amiright?

But as we all know, there are people who, in spite of a phlegmy, hacking cough, juicy sneezes, noses running faster than Usain Bolt, fever so high they could fry eggs on their foreheads and fatigue so intense they're asleep standing up, for some reason insist on coming to work.

I suppose they might feel a certain sense of responsibility to the job. Or have an unrelenting work ethic that doesn't allow them to put themselves before the job, which they feel must get done regardless of their current state of affliction.

Both things I know nothing about. Just ask anyone I work with.

I hate it when people do that for two reasons. First, the idea of coming to work in general is one I resist with everything I've got pretty much on a daily basis. Maybe it's because I've been freelance so long, or the fact I appreciate my freedom and want to set my own schedule. Maybe it's because I'm an only child and the world revolves around me (but you already knew that). It could be that I'm just a lazy bastard who'd rather sit on the couch and binge Breaking Bad, again, than earn money to pay my bills and feed my family.

A man can dream can't he?

Anyway, the idea of coming to work when I'm sick wouldn't even occur to me. Besides, hard to imagine as it is, I'm even less productive when I'm sick. And getting back to that common courtesy thought, color me old-fashioned, but I just think it'd be better not to pass along the creeping crud I'm fighting to my fellow workers. They'll remember it come Secret Santa time, which means better re-giftable items for me.

And since no one's giving out medals or raises to people who drag their sorry asses in while they're on their death beds, there's really no percentage in it.

Besides, can you ever get enough daytime television? I think not.

Sorry for the rant, but occasionally you have to knock some sense into people so they do the right thing, like stay home when they're sick, get well, and not infect anyone else along the way because they have. to. get. back. to. work.

I'm not saying this post is directed at anyone in particular, but I'm not saying it isn't. With any luck, maybe they'll read it while they're having a fever delirium in their sick bed.

Or at their desk.

The golden rule

So this evening I was sitting in the porcelain chair in our reading room, perusing the pages of Fortune magazine. As one does. I found an article that talked about how much employees who work for the Four Seasons Hotels love their company.

Not their jobs, their company.

Sure there are the perks you'd expect. Ridiculous employee room rates at any hotel in the chain, anywhere in the world. The ability to transfer to hotels in other countries, and live out that adventure in style.

But the one reason they love the company so much, and, by extension, customers love the company so much, is the one main rule they have for their employees: treat others as you want to be treated. Simple recipe for success, right?

They're not the only company that shares that point of view.

There's a little shmata shop you may have heard of called Nordstrom which also operates under the same golden rule. It's the reason their sales people are more like helpful, leave-you-alone-until-you're-ready people.

The sad thing about good service is that it's as surprising as it is refreshing. As customers, we've reached a point where we're so used to bad service it's like being hit with cold water when you encounter someone who's genuinely there to make sure you're happy.

When was the last time you said, "That guy was so nice! I can't wait to visit the DMV again!"

It's ashame more people don't make it a personal philosophy no matter who they work for. I work at a lot of ad agencies where no one treats anyone the way they want to be treated. And if they do want to be treated that way, they have bigger issues to worry about. But most of the time the philosophy is "Do unto others before they do it unto you."

Yes, it is a glamour business.

Still, I'm nothing if not an optimist. I believe the glass is always half full. Sure it's with rusty, dirty, chemically polluted tap water from a municipal reservoir homeless people bathe and pee in, but still.

I remain filled with hope that one day we'll all treat each other just a little kinder, a little better and a lot more like the way we'd like people to treat us.

Now if this asshole in front of me would just make up his freakin' mind. I need an ice vanilla spice latte like you can't believe.