h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have a compromised immune system, so I'd complain to your boss if I came to your work and you were ill as just a regular cold can knock me out almost like I had flu

Yeah. Good point. Know what you mean bout the elderly too. I worked with elderly people for 6 months and while I was doing it I came down with 2 of the worst colds I'd had in years. My bosses never suggested that I not work.

I'm sorry TB.... It's one of those dilemma's I'm never sure about. You're not supposed to go out and infect people if you're sick but at the same time you're more or less expected to go unless you're practically dying. If it's any comfort I wash my hands constantly.

Yeah, good idea. Might depend on what you're actually doing for the person too. Like if you're cooking for them, or putting on laundry, requires a different level of contact and risk.

I always have baby wipes in my car anyway, so that can help.

I've not had to do any food prep but I will tomorrow as I'm working all day alone. I'll be sure to wash my hands well and hopefully it's just a bowl of cereal.

Wear gloves too if you can. At least there are things you can do to protect yourself and the people you're out to see.

That's true. I didn't think of wearing gloves but I did wash my hands continuously. A very good idea though.

Gloves can come in handy as a 2 way barrier to stuff, though there's no point wearing them to clean the bathroom then make lunch.

Mayb e a bit of gloves and a bit of handwaashing is good. Was always told to use different gloves for different things and wash your hands afterwards anyway. Like in my work, we have pink gloves for washing the dishes in the office, and yellow gloves for cloeaning the tenants' flats. Thin k that was my fault after it occured to me that people wore gloves to clean a bathroom, then the same gloves were used to wash the dishes we then used for our lunch.

I'm currently dying of plague*, which I almost certainly caught from someone who thought "It's just a little sniffle, I'll be fine"




*This may be a minor exaggeration

Oh yes, man-flu!!

Suppose it's up to our bosses to have guidelines taking into account our contact with the public and frail people and for us all to have common sense too.

Yes indeed, that's why from about 21:30 sunday, until about 07:15 monday I was vomiting almost continuously. Which, I might add, got really fun around 0200 monday morning when there was finally nothing at all left in my stomach for me to bring up...didn't stop my body trying though.

Oh and tomorrow will mark one week since I became symptomatic.

You have my sympathy, for what it's worth.

Wearing gloves to clean the bathroom and then make food!!!??? We have disposable gloves so it's a new pair for each new task.

Disposable gloves is good. We had disposable gloves and we had to wash our hands when we went into and when we left a resident's room. Oh and we had alcohol gel too.

Wow. Sounds very thorough. I do that at work... but without the alcohol gel. I'm sure we have some though.

Sounds great. You need to do things like that. You never know what infections people can have that could be passed on.

Though something I hate are swing bins. You've just washed your hanbds but have to touch the bin to dispose of the paper towel you've dried your hands on.

Hope you're feeling better TB.

I agree with you on the swing bins thing. They make no sense. I try and press it down with the paper towel I've just used and sometimes that works but sometimes you touch it with your hand and then I feel like going to wash my hands again but I don't because it just seems so pointless.

yeah. I always have to wash my hands after touching a bin anyway, so it defeats the purpose to then have to go put the paper towel in. Especially communal/kitchen bins that end up covered in tea stains and stuff.

Ick. Yes, I agree. I find I'm constantly washing my hands while doing cleaning. It's probably obsessive. After I wipe the tables, after I windex the mirrors, after I sweep the floor. I think partly I don't like the smell of chemicals on my hands and partly cleaning in my mind is associated with dirtyness and so have to wash up.

Yeah, even though you know that the cleaning products are used for *cleaning*, you still feel like your hands are dirty afterwards. Always have to wash my hands and use handcream coz my hands just feel iky and dry.

I heard a nurse say a while ago, that when you did nurse training years ago, it was standard practice to wash your hands a lot and there was a ward matron to supervise each ward. Now nurses wear gloves so they don't get the same dirty sensation on their hands and so don't wash them as much, and they've gotr rid of the matrons so there's not the same supervision.

Ah that makes me feel good about hospitals....

Even when wearing gloves I feel I have to wash my hands after. I dont know why but gloves make my hands feel strange.

I've been forgetting my hand cream. My hands feel all dry and gross. Putting it on at night before bed just isn't doing it for me. I guess it's because of washing my hands so often.