Flu Season: Preparing For Biological Warfare

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A good span of these United States got our first taste of winter earlier this week with the first snow of the season. Here in Toledo, the daily highs are hovering in the upper 30s. This sort of “cold” is nothing compared to what will come in two months, but it does usher in something more dreadful than wind-chills: cold & flu season.

Before long, the Kenny G Christmas album on the office speakers will be joined by a chorus of hacks, coughs, sniffles, sneezes, snorts, blows, groans and wheezes. Adult sick days really suck, and if you don’t remain vigilant, your virus-ridden coworkers will infect you with all manner of vile diseases. A healthy dash of preparedness can mean the difference between a pleasant holiday and a near-death experience.

Let’s start with the very basics: Clorox wipes. Wipe down every hard surface in your cubicle at least once a day. This should take you approximately 75 minutes…if you’re being truly thorough. Your boss should pay for the time it takes – after all, if you get sick, you won’t be working at all, will you? Your phone, mouse and keyboard are, at this very moment, a veritable hive of disgust. General Clorox Bleach will kill them dead in a matter of minutes! If your cubicle doesn’t have enough evaporating bleach fumes to make your eyes bleed, you weren’t thorough enough. Get back in there, do it again, and this time don’t be such a pansy.

Okay, so you got all the hard surfaces, but that doesn’t cover your chair or the carpet. For those, we need to perform a two-step procedure. First of all, we’ll need to soak the fabric down with an all-purpose disinfectant. I’ve found that Lysol makes a nice professional disinfectant that they sell in concentrated gallons. Soak both the chair fabric and the carpet with the concentrate. Ignore the “mix with water” instructions. Champions don’t need chasers. Once both are good and drenched, take your portable UV Disinfection Scanner Wand (Only $106 on Amazon!) and carefully go over every thread. Mold spores love to bury into fabrics, so don’t cut any corners here! If you don’t have a UV wand, high-pressure steam cleaners are available at The Home Depot.

Finally, we need to make sure you’re not breathing in any airborne maladies, and for that we’re going to rely on our trusty, industrial strength, ionizing, air sanitation system. A good system will run you at least $350, but doctor’s bills can be a helluva lot higher than that so consider it a healthy investment. Desktop air sanitizers look cute, but do you really think it’s going to do a damn thing? Get real. Your cubicle neighbor has one of those and he sounds like he’s going to hack up a goddamn lung in five minutes. In fact, we don’t want his pestilence floating over the wall like some evil fog, so lets go ahead and just cordon off your entire cube. Polyethylene sheeting should be taped from the ceiling to your cube walls, effectively sealing you off from all the microbes that breed in the air. All business transactions should be performed like this…

There you have it! You’re now guaranteed to have a healthy, plague-free winter season! You’ll work harder because you’re working smarter. While your coworkers are bent over the porcelain throne wondering why the hell they even bother with the free company-sponsored flu shot, you’ll be cranking out reports, sales numbers, new clients and just generally being the awesome closer you are. There’s a promotion in it for you, I guarantee it.*

*RESULTS MAY VARY

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Spaceman Spiff

Now a graduate with a few years of business "experience", Spiff didn't exactly turn into the interplanetary explorer extraordinaire he had hoped to become. Instead, he spends his days as a cynical desk jockey, moonlighting as a Contributing Writer for PGP and marching ever closer to the big 3-0, which has only fueled his transition from quarter-life crisis straight into thrisis.