Guest Post
by AM Golden
About a month ago, I got my hair cut at a salon that is part of a nationwide chain. It was a couple of days before my vacation. During the cut, the stylist coughed several times into her arm.
Correction: she held her arm out and coughed in its general direction. You know what I mean, right? The arm is extended out front, allowing the cough to have plenty of space to spew germs out into the air with nothing to buffer them.
She complained about sinuses. I sympathized. Sinuses are tough. It didn’t pass my notice, however, that one cough seemed a little congested.
At checkout, I told her I hoped her sinuses got better. It was then that she disclosed that it was harder because she was also recovering from bronchitis.
Cue internal Homer Simpson-esque scream and flight.
I am highly susceptible to bronchial infections, especially this time of year. It was 35 years ago that I caught pneumonia while in college which caused me to miss two weeks of classes and three weeks of work at McDonald’s. I returned to classes the day mid-terms began. The day I returned to work, they put me in the drive-thru and assured my mother they would take me out as soon as it got dark and too cold. They didn’t. Fast food work sucks.
Probably for that reason, I am sympathetic to people in customer-facing positions because they are paid by the hour, generally don’t have sick time or much sick time and often have to make the choice of earning money to pay their bills or staying home unpaid when sick.
I get it.
But she didn’t even come close to acceptable coughing procedure. Even if it had just been sinuses, germs can still infect the air and be passed to others. I question the efficacy of masks, but I will wear them when I’m sick and in public, especially indoors.
In fact, when going on trips and to conventions – which were notorious super-spreader events prior to the pandemic – I regularly include both ibuprofen (for sore backs and feet) and face masks in the event of surprise con crud (the term for cold and/or flu-like illnesses that are caught when surrounded in a convention hall by hundreds of strangers who practice varying degrees of hygiene).
Two mornings later, with no symptoms having developed, we prepared to leave on our trip. I packed the ibuprofen, the masks…and then, preferring to be safe rather than sorry, grabbed a lunchbox and threw in daytime and nighttime cough syrup, cough drops, a thermometer. As we left the driveway, it occurred to me that I should have packed throat spray, but I was feeling fine and getting sick was a worst-case scenario anyway.
That day also passed with no issues.
The third day after exposure, we headed to our first destination. I want to tell you how terrific the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL is. A docent who was retired from NASA regaled us with stories. Just walking underneath the Saturn V rocket is awe-inspiring. I just sat there in the hall and looked at it (There’s a replica of Wernher von Braun’s office, too. Though the Center does not pretend that von Braun’s past didn’t exist, it doesn’t dwell overwhelmingly on it either. You will walk away from the Saturn V exhibit knowing about his S.S. past, the V-2 rocket program and the use of slave labor. You will also not walk away from it thinking that those are the only things that matter and that the U.S. Space Program is yet another notch in the board of systemic oppression).
After lunch, we began driving down to Georgia. It was during this trip that I began to feel a slight tightening of the throat that one might feel if one’s throat is about to become sore. A tell-tale sign of the beginnings of a sickness. But I had also been worried about it, so it could have just been psychosomatic.
At a Wal-Mart bathroom stop, I insisted Mr. Golden give me a minute to buy throat spray just in case. From that point forward, I began medicating myself. The next morning, my throat was definitely sore. The day after that, I began to cough. The day after that, I began sneezing.
I was very unhappy.
A great deal of our trip was outside, fortunately. The Carter burial site in Plains. Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park near Warm Springs. Both attractions we had to ourselves. I continued heavily medicating to recover as quickly as possible.
Since this is an ethical situation that any of us might run into and that affects people every day, I wanted to get your thoughts.
Observations:
- Some people will argue that this is the reason why there should be mandatory minimum sick time given to employees. Perhaps. But customer-facing positions are not easy and, let’s face it, Americans often try to take advantage. Part of the reason why these types of businesses are short-handed is because people don’t show up for work – sometimes the reasons are legitimate; sometimes not. Back in the McDonald’s days, an employee once called in sick only for the manager to run into her shopping at a local retail store that same day. The employee was fired. When ethics fail, the law steps in. In this case, when employees regularly abuse sick time to take days off, businesses respond by limiting the number of days. Or stop paying for them. Or stop offering them at all.
- The stylist mentioned she was working six days in a row. It was okay with her. The sixth day was only a half-day anyway. How many people did she infect over that six-day period besides me?
- Would anything have been accomplished by just covering her cough with something? By wearing a mask?
- Should the stylist have disclosed prior to cutting my hair that she was recovering from bronchitis instead of complaining of sinuses during the cut and disclosing the bronchitis after it was all said and done? This is not the first time I have been infected by people who did not disclose that they had been sick or exposed to someone who was until well into our encounter, even after hugging or kissing me. (“but I’m not contagious!” Oh, yes, you were!)
- Prior to my throat tightening on the way to Georgia from Huntsville, I had felt no ill effects. Now that I know that I was indeed infected, I feel badly about who I may have infected between the haircut and the moment it became clear I was sick. I did try to be very careful for the rest of the trip, but I most certainly was contagious. We were already on the road and had pre-paid, non-refundable tickets to attractions and events. I realize that is a rationalization, probably no different from my stylist’s reasoning for going to work sick. At least, I took steps to minimize contaminating others (Rationalization #22: It’s not the worst thing).
What would you have done?
Ethics Alarms 
I accept that colds, infections are a fact of life. For several winters I would develop some sort of bronchial infections to the point where I lost my voice. or I would have that cough that never seems to go away. Then again there were winters that were not that bad; gone in a couple of days. I work in a school system so yeah lots of people would be getting sick at one time or another.
It seems like a toss of the dice whether I catch or transmit to someone else that I don’t feel all that responsible. I am only talking about that time between when I possibly could have been infected and when I actually became infected. If someone were to ask, I would be honest in the sense that yes I work in a school system so I could very well be infectious.
I’m just not accustomed to asking people before interacting with them if they are sick.
Coupla weeks ago I was making my way through the Metro Market produce section and observed an older (I’m 70) woman hacking away, with a productive cough.
She made absolutely no effort to cover up, seemingly oblivious to her behavior’s affect on the open fruit-n-vegetable displays, which I found resoundingly disgusting.
I understand the “Duty To Confront,” but I’m 6’1″/190 pounds and she was decidedly under 5′ and 90 pounds.
Thinking that bringing this to her attention, in…um…no uncertain terms, might launch her into vapor lock, I held my tongue; right call?
PWS
I have spent some time in Japan, which as I’m sure everyone knows is a very densely populated country. If people have any symptoms (of a cold or anything else plausibly transmittable) they wear a mask, to protect others, which does in fact, provide some protection. However, before Covid, this practice was pretty much unknown (as far as I can tell) in the US outside of medical settings.
Why? One cultural difference is that the Japanese learn from a young age to pay attention to and respect the needs of others, so this behavior seems obviously the thing any reasonable person would do. In the US, however, Americans seemed to have a great deal of difficulty during the early days of the pandemic grasping the concept of wearing a mask TO PROTECT OTHERS — hence the heated debate and constantly changing information etc. about how much masks PROTECT THE WEARER — which seemed to be the only easily graspable motive in our culture.
One of the unfortunate results of masks becoming part of the “culture wars” is that when I wore a mask while flying a few years ago because my partner had come down with some concerning symptoms just before I left on my trip (turned out to be Covid–I was actually fine) I encountered HOSTILITY from some people in the airport and on the plane, because what? Was wearing a mask a sign I was a radical left idiot or maybe a deluded sheep (terrified of an imaginary virus) or maybe just fundamentally politically incorrect because I was doing other people a courtesy?
No idea if your stylist never actually grasped the concept of wearing a mask to protect others, or whether she perhaps had seen or encountered evidence that doing this could be interpreted as some sort of political signal (or sign of sheepish cowardice) to be either applauded or deplored.
Sigh……
I just wanted to comment on the person who called in sick and went shopping. I frequently HAVE to shop when I’m sick. I need food, medication, or something else. I try to be in and out. It may be that you meant something more specific than just retail, which basically covers all stores.
And it’s possible that’s what the person was doing. I wasn’t there. I just remember the manager was the one who caught her (it was in the store right behind the restaurant, too) and did not mention if there was evidence the employee wasn’t sick.
glad to hear you enjoyed the space and rocket center in Huntsville. My son is the safety officer there, my priest friend (before he became a priest) was a design engineer for that very rocket. Did they show you the space camp facilities. Thousand of youngsters come each year to experience slave science.
We did not go in to the Space Camp. We saw the museum, the Garden of Rockets and the huge showcase building with the Saturn V and all of the exhibits concerning it. I weighed myself and found that Mars weight suits me just fine.
L-lysine! I take before and/or after I’m going to be in a crowd like a festival or concert. I take it after too. I take it when someone says their sick. I take it depending on what I know about a person. For example, if I have a friend or family member who I know has less-than-stellar hygiene- not covering a cough or sneeze or has a dirty house or works around kids or certain populations, or whatever situation makes me think twice, I take L-lysine. I’m not a health professional. I am someone with a compromised immune system and work with families, often in their home.
Thus far I have either avoided many colds & flus including Covid-19 aka The Rona a few times possibly.
For me masks are a huge problem for my health. I have asthma and though I’m sure other asthmatics could handle it, I just couldn’t and can’t. I truly feel like I can’t breathe. I used a shield when I worked at a part-time public facing job. Some people thought it was a fair compromise. Some were mad I wasn’t in a tighter mask. Some thought I shouldn’t have worn anything at all. But most people were kind and I was doing my best. Even then, I now have a permanent case of dermatitis due to the mask and shield. My face even today hurts. I have to take steroids on my face for possibly the rest of my life. Apparently facial issues from acne to eczema was a “silent pandemic” then but some people still don’t care, they want that mask on no matter the fallout in the short or long term from negative consequences to the wearer.
In the grocer during the pandemic, I had just gotten off work, my face was on fire and even the shield made me feel like my breathing was labored, so I was just trying to catch a breath. This lady got rather shitty with me & told me to put a mask on. I told her that she didn’t know my story and to mind her own business.
A white owned eatery in town had a George Floyd art piece on their wall that said Black Lives Matter. At one point, they would let people who showed proof of vaccination go without a mask. So here I am, a part black woman, who chose not to get the shot because I felt there wasn’t enough data related to the spike protein and autoimmune issues. And wearing a mask hurt. So I literally couldn’t go into the eatery. Talk about segregation!
People are nasty. Sorry but that’s a fact. I don’t know if Americans are worse but even during the pandemic, I’d see people lick their fingers, then touch a shared ketchup bottle on a restaurant table. Some wore the same disgusting mask 10, 20, 100 times and then would want to hug you while wearing it. People still sneezed on their hands and touched handles and doorknobs.
Hygiene should never be underestimated! Proper placement of a sneeze or cough, consideration to move away from others or stay at home can make a huge difference. Using a napkin or sleeve on handles, shared items, etc. is kindness incarnate. More awareness about the role of hygiene and pandemics should become common knowledge, as well as how to be less gross.
My wife and I used to work with someone who always came to work sick. He didn’t even need the money according to him. He felt it was his duty to always be there. I don’t know how many people he made sick over the years and when I think about it, I still feel irritated with him. I wish I had known about L-lysine then. But what about the folks who don’t have sick time, sick pay, and can’t afford recovery time? Here in Oregon we have a safety net for situations like this and I have known a few people in such a situation that benefited from the program. It’s called Paid Leave Oregon. It may not help everyone but a lot more people can now stay home when it counts.
Thanks for a great question!
Thank you for your answer. It really brought up a number of problems I hadn’t considered. I had no idea about the dermatological angle of masks. My niece sewn hundreds of masks with themed characters and patterns on them, such as holidays. She even included extended ear loops for men so the masks wouldn’t be so tight.
It never occurred to me that masking could cause skin problems.
I work at home now, but I was one of those people who would show up to work in all conditions.
The pandemic certainly brought out a certain awareness of various medical issues.