The plague

[Certifried]

Sorry to hear it. I wonder if it’s going around, I was feeling pretty ill Sunday/Monday, but got over it relatively unscathed (kept all meals down).

[Terpfan]

@thecyclingeconomist 32204 wrote:

So, after coming down with a helluva-bug… spending 3 days in bed, and having to drive/metro it into work this week… I can say that I miss my commute terribly. The weather is perfect, the recharge-time it gives on the trail, the exercise, the feeling of freedom… all of it gone, and what do you get instead? Angry-lunatic-drivers (I think I was in more danger driving amongst them then riding between them)… crazed metro riders, squished in like sardines…oh yeah, then pay for it all too! $33 to park for 2 days, $10 for metro/bus for one day… CRAZY!

Praying that my body is good to go for riding tomorrow (and I guess I don’t care if it is or not… I’m riding).

Doesn’t your work have a “no heroes” policy? My old boss used to say “there are no heroes here, if you’re sick, stay home.” Hope you feel better soon. The weather has been awesome.

[mstone]

@Terpfan 32208 wrote:

Doesn’t your work have a “no heroes” policy? My old boss used to say “there are no heroes here, if you’re sick, stay home.” Hope you feel better soon. The weather has been awesome.

Most places have eliminated sick time, so people are sometimes faced with the choice of dragging themselves in or cancelling vacation time with their family, etc. So on the one hand employees are told, “it’s important not to come in while sick”, while on the other they’re told “but not important enough for us to pay for it”.

[rcannon100]

It’s good to work for an office with a good sick leave policy and a good telecommuting policy. More and more if people arent feeling great, they just work from home — and everyone is happier. Nothing worse than a “hero” who simply feels morally obliged to have perfect attendance at work, infecting everyone else in the building.

The allergies have just been brutal.

[Certifried]

I think a lot of companies got away from the separation of time off vs. sick time and combined them. Ultimately, it should work out to the same amount of time off, and it’s up to the employee to manage it. I prefer that (I don’t get sick often), though when I was at AT&T Gov’t Solutions they had a free sick time policy. You could take as much sick time as you wanted as long as you called in to your manager. This tended to keep people out of the office when they were sick. The theory is that if a sick person has “free” time to use, they will stay at home and not spread their illness. In practice, it seemed to work, but it did get abused occasionally (there’s always 1 bad apple). Not long after I started I got REALLY sick. It was 2003 (http://articles.cnn.com/2003-11-27/health/bad.flu.season_1_flu-season-flu-activity-health-care-workers?_s=PM:HEALTH) when some really bad bug was going around. I stayed out for about a week, violently ill the entire time, so I really appreciated the free time and I’m sure many people appreciated me not spreading the flu.

[mstone]

@Certifried 32233 wrote:

Ultimately, it should work out to the same amount of time off

I suppose that’s possible, but I’ve never seen that. Usually the sales pitch is along the lines of “yes, it’s a few less days, but why can’t you see that it’s BETTER!” often at the same time as “oh, and stop rolling days over from year to year”.

[Dickie]

Hope you feel better soon, if I remember correctly you were starting to feel bad at the Happy Hour last week…. that’ll teach you for not drinking a pint of the black-stuff with me… I am certain that is what helped Certifried avoid the same plague…. that and his bionic heart!

[consularrider]

And here I thought someone was bringing up that the gnat swarms are back! Don’t forget to ride with your mouth closed.

[PotomacCyclist]

Gnats have protein. Protein is good for the body. “Keeps you strong and fit like ox.” – Anonymous Russian cyclist

A clean diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables, lean protein and healthy fat might help, along with the regular exercise of cycling. It’s not a wonder drug, but I honestly can’t remember the last time that I got sick. About a decade ago, I started getting one cold each winter, more annoying than serious. But when I was younger, I rarely got colds. Since I got into cycling, running and triathlons, I stopped getting the annual winter cold. (I hope I’m not jinxing myself with this post.)

[dasgeh]

Plague-ridden folks keep coming to work in my office, despite the fact that we have old-school sick leave. I’ve caught two different bugs during the past three weeks, and they’ve definitely been the type of bug to hit pregnant women a lot harder than non-pregnant folks. So thanks, folks that come to work sick. I love using up the sick leave on your plague that I would otherwise use for maternity leave.

[consularrider]

@PotomacCyclist 32279 wrote:

Gnats have protein. Protein is good for the body. “Keeps you strong and fit like ox.” – Anonymous Russian cyclist

A clean diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables, lean protein and healthy fat might help, along with the regular exercise of cycling. It’s not a wonder drug, but I honestly can’t remember the last time that I got sick. About a decade ago, I started getting one cold each winter, more annoying than serious. But when I was younger, I rarely got colds. Since I got into cycling, running and triathlons, I stopped getting the annual winter cold. (I hope I’m not jinxing myself with this post.)

No, but you’ve probably jinxed the rest of us. I also seem to have managed to overcome my old tendency to come down with a cold in late September that would hang around forever. My last cold that laid me out was about four years ago. The good thing about that was that it was during the only period of single digit weather we’ve had in the area since I first came here (close to the river, that is).

[Certifried]

@consularrider 32271 wrote:

And here I thought someone was bringing up that the gnat swarms are back! Don’t forget to ride with your mouth closed.

OH MY GOD! What is up with that?! You can tell I’m a noob commuter just by how many gnats I have stuck in my teeth when I arrive at my destination.

I told this story to a couple folks at the happy hour, but feel I should share it with everyone else. It was the Tuesday evening before the happy hour, this very large bug (gonna guess a moth or firefly, and pray it wasn’t a stink bug) flew (intentionally, no doubt) straight in to my mouth. Actually, he deep throated me, bastard. He got just far enough back that I couldn’t cough him out, my throat muscles took over and there was nothing I could do ’bout it. As my higher (but slower) brain was registering exactly what was happening, the lower (and faster) brain was slowly flexing away, working that bug down my throat in to my stomach. I felt that little sucker squirm as my throat muscles involuntarily took hold and caterpillared him to his death, and my disgust.

[PotomacCyclist]

The gnats seem to come out shortly before and around sundown. Besides getting into mouths, they can also get in your hair and your eyes, even if you wear glasses or sunglasses. Sometimes I’m tempted to wear my aero helmet on casual rides because it has a full-face shield. Keeps gnats, dragonflies and assorted objects out of my eyes.

[creadinger]

I was out today for a long one and man the gnats were swarming! I put on sunscreen in Purcelville and as soon as I did that I started collecting a mat of dead gnats on my arms. Very gross. Do they really only come out for short seasonal spells or couldn’t they take the heat of summer this year? I remember them being around all summer in the past.

I don’t get sick often, so I don’t appreciate people coming in to work sick and spreading their germs to me. About a year and a half ago, my wife’s boss was really sick and came in too soon. Of course she passed it on to my wife and then I picked it up too. Won’t get into details, but the symptoms were basically like cholera. It was terrible, especially in a 1-bathroom apartment!

The sick/vacation/annual leave available to the American worker these days is laughable and pathetic. We get the LEAST amount of paid time off of any industrialized country except for maybe Japan. If any politician came forward and said he or she would mandate 4-weeks of paid leave/year for all full-time workers they’d likely get my vote.

[thecyclingeconomist]

Thankfully, back on the bike today…

I love insects! Free protein hit… don’t have to carry a cliffbar on the ride if you aim for enough of the gnat swarms… delish!

Ok… so they are harsh, but I don’t think the gnats are any worse than the rest of the bugs right at sun-up/ sundown. They especially love to fly towards me when it’s pitch black out because of my lights…

[Author]

Posts