Going to Work Sick (Restaurant Edition)

This is kind of a touchy topic.  It is hard to even begin to start with this one.  When is going to work sick necessary and when is going to sick not recommended.  This is a topic that just recently hit home with me in a bad way, and thus, I am going to blog about it.

For any of those who have followed me in the past, they would know that I also have a second blog titled "Gastroparesis Theories."  This blog was posted because I was diagnosed with Gastroparesis in March of 2012.  One of the potential causes of gastroparesis is viral infection (like a very bad norovirus or food poisoning).  My gastroparesis results in me having a slower than normal rate of digestion, ergo the food sits in my stomach about 3 times longer than in a normal person.  This results in more bloating with me and a few other annoying effects.  I, however, have managed to keep the condition managed pretty well by keeping tabs on my digestive health (as well as avoiding other people's digestive ailments to the best of my ability).  This brings me to recent.

I went to a buffet restaurant on 06/08/15.  I sat in a booth, drank my drinks, and proceeded to eat the food.  No big deal.  Towards the end of my visit there, I happened to see a woman busting tables and refilling drinks.  She proceeded to hold her gut looking very flushed and then ran off.  She had put my drink on the table.  Now, naturally as paranoid as I am about stuff like that, I had asked the manager if she was sick (to which he acknowledged that she was having stomach issues).  I immediately requested he take my drink back and get me a new drink.  However... the damage was done.

Foward to two days later.  I spend the whole entire day with diarrhea followed by a large episode of vomiting.  Every belch the whole entire day was sour.  (Sour stomach is a BAD sign for me, because the bacteria is already at full capacity at that point).  So, from the get-go, I knew I was in trouble.  My fiance had previously speculated that the woman was pregnant, but after the event of getting sick to my stomach, I ended up dismissing that notion.  She went to work sick.  And got me sick as a result.

Now, I understand that in this day and age, we need to work more than ever.  Some people can not afford to miss a day of work.  I am one of those people that prefer to not miss work due to illness, but I also understand that if the roles were reversed, I WOULD NOT WANT ANYONE SICK WORKING AROUND ME!!!  So, understandably, it would seem like an expectation that if someone is sick, they do not go to work.  (But call me slightly paranoid about that).

The problem is this.  In a food service industry, going to work IS NOT sanitary.  It is not healthy.  If you are sick to your stomach, you should NOT be working in an industry that exposes countless numbers of people to your illness.  Someone like me, who has this life-affecting condition, can not afford to be exposed to digestive issues like that due to risk of it throwing my maintained gastroparesis out of whack.  I can not afford to get sick, so why bring your illness to my table?  (Or to the tables of all of the people you served that day).   In fact, serving people at their table with a contagious illness IS a health code violation.  Health code states that if a waitress or a worker is sick, they must either be sent home or put on jobs that do not allow them to touch prepared foods (or beverages). If I were a health inspector and I saw that, the restaurant would have been FINED or shut down.  But no, I was a patron who caught on too late that the server around me was sick.

And after this spell of running off holding her gut, she was back to work and even handed us our fortune cookies.  I, obviously, refused to touch the accursed things and gave a very poor tip.

The moral of the story.  Restaurant owners:  if you have a sick employee DO NOT LET THEM NEAR THE FOOD OR THE GUESTS.  Patrons of this restaurants:  If you notice that your waitress or waiter is sick, notify the manager.  Let the manager know that by continuing to let them work, they are committing a health code violation and politely request a different waiter (or just pay for the meal and leave in disgust).

Wax In, Wax Out

Ear irrigation...  More like ear irritation.  For some reason, I've always had an issue with ear wax.  Most of the time, I had been able to get the wax out no problem and be just fine.  This time... not so lucky.  I ended up getting a cerumen impaction.  Yes.  I clogged my ear with ear wax... beautiful.

This meant being almost deaf in one ear.

So, after suffering a whole night of work with the inability to hear out of one ear, and the pressure building up in that ear, I did something I had never had to do in the past.

I got my ear irrigated.

Let's describe this process.  I went into the doctor's office and he took his oroscope (ear camera) and looked in both ears.  Ordered an irrigation for BOTH ears.  I only thought I needed the one.  Ended up getting both.  Now, I was slightly nervous.

So, now, the nurse comes back in with this huge metal looking syringe.  I asked, "Is this going to hurt?" (having never experienced the process before).  Her answer, "I hope not."  -{NOT VERY REASSURING!!!!}-

She got some really warm water and sucked a huge amount of water into this syringe and started shooting.

Let us pause for a minute to implant this image into your head.  This is what the actual process entails.  Go to an automatic car wash.  Sit inside of your car with the automated car wash going.  See the water shooting the side windows?  See that?  That is being done in the inside of your ear.  What it felt like???  Imagine a shower with enough power to sheer the skin off of your body.  Not dial it back a couple of notches, so it is just achy and painful but the skin still remains.  This is what it felt like.

The end result:  Clean ears, followed by a day or two of swelling inside the ear canals.  I could hear just fine again, but there was still some discomfort from pressure resulting from the high pressure wash.

Oh.  And the caveat of all of this.  I had to hold a white tray for the ear flush to fall into.  The nurse actually showed me the ear wax in the trays.  "I don't even know if this will go down the drain," she said.  Yeah...  the wax was BIG.  I would admit, even I, was a little grossed out by my own wax.

But I more enjoyed the fact I could hear again.

Now, would I do this again?  Despite the discomfort of the procedure, it may be a possibility.  It was a low cost procedure that did give a good result.  There may be a little pressure remaining in the ears after the procedure, but being blasted at high velocity would cause anyone some prolonged discomfort following the procedure.  I would not do it again unless it was a major necessity (affecting hearing, etc).  The method may seem primitive, but sometimes primitive is the best.