Sorry No Sniffles Allowed

Almost anyone who has ever had to work in an office environment can relate to the article on CNN: My coworkers are making me sick. Everyone I know seems to go into work sick, myself included. The problem is that you can never tell how sick you are going to get. Are you just coming down with a cold? What if it is going to be a seven day cold and you are going to be really sick on day four and five? Will taking days two and three off help or will they just drain your sick days which we all know have been merged with vacation days which means you are using potential days off where you could have been on a beach somewhere.

I wonder, did we all used to exchange our germs so readily or are we all stressed out and more at risk of catching every little thing? Or are the viruses so much stronger these days that we are helpless in their precense.

There are two things I see for the future. One, telecommuting when sick to avoid spreading germs will become mandatory. For a lot of office jobs, why not just work at home? Two, sickness sensors. I can see having to go through a security checkpoint that inhales your breath and if the machine sneezes, you are on mandatory sickleave. Or maybe someday we'll all have a completely opposite feeling towards being sick. Maybe a discovery will be made that it's very important to get all those little colds when you are young to avoid getting sick when you are old and people will exchange their germs happily.