Spreading the...joy?

Not exactly, unless you enjoy the effects of influenza.

Of course I haven't helped the situation any. I sit and complain about people that come to work with a cold or the flu in an environment in which we share confined spaces and headphones and wind up infecting me...while I too am at work. My excuse is that as a new employee I don't qualify for sick pay until after 90 days. But in truth, none of us is wealthy enough to be missing work very often. So this bug is sure to be going around for a while yet.

I now believe one of the worst jobs to have with an illness that causes you to sneeze and cough constantly and clogs your sinuses completely is one that requires you to talk to people on the phone 8 hours a day. It has to qualify as a form of torture. I'll bet I took half the number of calls last night that I usually do, simply because I had to pause after each one to blow my nose and pop a coughdrop in my mouth.

And my attitude really takes a dive when I don't feel well. I'm one of those cranky sick people. It takes all my 20+ years of customer service skills to remain pleasant and upbeat on the phone. I've noticed that it's also very difficult to troubleshoot a problem when your brain is fuzzy with antihistamines. Usually I try to think in a flow-chart fashion, from easy to hard, simple to complex. Hopped up on DayQuil, my mind seems to wander all over the place. "Oh shoot, let's go back to device manager for the third time and let's check another thing I should have had you check the last two times we were there." Blah...I hate doing that to people. At least they know I'm not following a script. No one would write a script that screwy.