2003-05-05 - 4:10 p.m.
This morning when I came in to work an unusual sound greeted my ears: silence. Or at least what I might call silence�the sounds of a sleepy Monday morning in the office. The rustle of paper, the murmur of voices, the occasional jingle of the phone. Conspicuous in it�s absence was the sound that usually sends me scrambling for my headphones the moment I arrive in the morning (if you are easily grossed out, stop reading here) --the sound of coughing and hacking and gagging and spitting.
I think I have made references to the hacker in our office before, but over the last few months, it has been getting worse and worse. A woman sitting only a cubicle wall away from me has a horrible chronic smoker�s cough, and not only does she cough but she throws her �voice� into it in such an exaggerated way that the noise is disruptive. But that is not all� oh, no. She coughs until she gags herself, and then loudly, vocally hocks it up and spits. (Where? I don�t know�.. In the wastebasket?) There is nothing that grosses me out any more than this sound�.. Believe me there is a good reason I don�t work in the health care field.
For a while I tried to deal with it, ignore it�.. I thought maybe she would get �better.� But it wasn�t getting better, and the only break we had from her horrible hacking was when she went outside to smoke another cigarette. I hate to complain. But after a while, I realized I was having trouble even thinking about work in this environment. I was just cowering in my cubicle, trying to get something done while listening to really loud music, and waiting for the next disgusting eruption. (Which unfortunately even the music couldn�t camouflage completely)
One of reasons it made me mad as well as sick was that I know she had been repeatedly asked by both her former and current supervisors to cover her mouth, to excuse herself to the restroom to cough, and not to spit at the front desk. But she only complied with those requests in the supervisor�s presence. The rest of the time she hacked away. She just defiantly didn�t care who she bothered.
I�ve seen the look of horror on the faces of students when they realized they were going to have to deal with this person. It doesn�t help that she is gross in other aspects of her personal hygiene: dirty hair, an aura of b.o. and stale smoke�.. that she has no teeth (she�s only about forty) and refuses to wear dentures�. that she is obese and wears inappropriate, skin tight clothing that barely stretches to cover her body.
What is this person even doing here? I think the former supervisor hired her in a weak moment, at a time when there were no applicants for the job and we were going into a busy period. I think she asked her to �clean up her act� and present herself more professionally, but there was no consequence when she didn�t. (Well, I think she might have quit wearing her Harley tank tops to work.) And of course now she will never leave�..who on earth would hire a person like that? She is ours.
It isn�t that I think people have to be attractive to exist, or be a paragon of professionalism to do a seven dollar an hour clerical job. I guess I was rounding out the description just to show that this is a person who truly does not recognize any of the standards of decorum by which the rest of us live. It has me wondering where the line is to be drawn. Is it too much to expect that a workplace employing twenty people and providing services to hundreds of students would have some minimum standards for appropriate hygiene, appearance and behavior? I doubt anyone ever thought of putting it into the employee handbook:
Cover your mouth when coughing.
No gagging and spitting at your desk.
Teeth are required at all times.
No fashions that reveal the brassiere.
I complained to her boss and to my boss and finally wrote a formal letter of complaint to HR. All I have heard for weeks was how nothing could be done. She has all these legal rights, apparently, to be as gross as she wants to be. So even though everyone was sympathetic, all I have been hearing is that there was nothing they could do.
But this morning when I came to work she was gone, and her supervisor told me that she had been asked to take a week of �medical leave.� I�m not sure what that means for the future, but anyway I will have a week of peace. I can�t believe what a difference it makes.
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