If you think about it, working in IT is kind of like… being a daycare teacher.

People come to you all the day long with questions they should probably already know the answers to, it being necessary to their lives and all.

A majority of the people don’t understand the rules of what you should and shouldn’t do.

And if one of them gets sick, you are exposed directly to it and are probably going to catch it.

It never fails.

You may go an entire quarter and not see this one user, but then the third day they have the flu, with a racking cough and runny nose, they’re knocking down your door with some problem that needs immediate attention.

“I can’t print!” she says hoarsely, and hacks a lung up into the tissues wadded damply in her hand.

Oh, God, I think. Maybe it’ll just be printer failure, and then I won’t have to step into her Should-be-Quarantined Office and touch her Keyboard of Death.

And indeed, part of it was printer failure. I hovered outside her office door and urged her to try her print job again, after I had cleared the shredded paper from the innards of the machine and made naughty promises to the paper drawer if it would stop reading faux paper jams. (That works every time.)

She tried it again… and I discovered the printer wasn’t even getting the data.

Damn it.

I tried to hold my breath while I was in there.

And when I was done, I made a mad dash to the bathroom and tried to scrub away any virus that escaped on my hands.

But I’m probably already infected.

Don’t people know that’s what SICK TIME is for? There’s a reason companies give you that: so when you’re really sick, you don’t drag your sorry ass to work and spread your disease all around, you freaking walking infection! Bah!