Purell: An Office Obsessed

Almost exactly a month ago I started work at the new gig, and not in the most ideal first-day-of-work state. Pummeling through that first week, I was about as sick as I get - hacking cough, runny nose, the chills, sweats, visions of death, "daymares" about babies named Moses...the works. I rolled up in the dub room blowing my Jewish honker about once every five minutes, my damp, transparent tissues forming a snot pyramid on the corner of my desk while I waited for the arrival of my new garbage pail. So I wasn't all that surprised when my lovely co-worker K-Boogie asked me an hour into my first shift if I had "gotten [my] bottle of Purell" yet. When I answered no, she handed me an economy size pump bottle of the clearish goo - ten pounds worth of antibacterial power-slime. But I did kind of look like I was bitten by the monkey in Outbreak at the time, so I figured K-Boogie was dropping a subtle and valid hint that I might want to try and contain my germage for the sake of the office. Turns out people in this office are just freakishly obsessed with that Purell shit.

Purell has always seemed pointless to me. Perhaps the sticky, antibacterial gel is useful in airplanes, porta potties and other unfortunate places in which access to running water is lacking, but I still have issue with the fact that hand sanitizers don't eradicate bacteria. These products simply KILL the little guys, leaving thousands, millions of dead bacterial cells on the surface of your skin. YUM. But my coworkers seem convinced that applying this shit seven and eight times a day keeps them healthy in this science experiment of an office environment.

A few different arguments have been presented to me to emphasize the value of Purell use and the product's indespensibility in the workplace. The dubbers are particularly devoted to the preventative slop, and have recounted frequent incidents of unsanitary practices committed by other officemates as grounds for conversion to frequent, water-free sanitation. They are particularly emphatic in their descriptions of men who leave the bathroom without washing their hands (unapologetically) and blatantly sick coworkers who refill their water bottles by sticking the nozzle right up and around the communal tap after they've put the container to their germ-ridden lips.

"I open the bathroom door with a paper towel now." my coworker T-Money told me one day. "And I buy water bottles to bring to the office. I won't drink from the water cooler anymore."

I don't know if it's out of disbelief that these incidences occur as frequently as the dubbers propose, or if it's just sheer laziness, but I couldn't give a rat's ass about what lingers on the communal water dispenser. Both before and after these germcentric, germphobic conversations I have grabbed the door handles in the bathroom, full palm to metal, and I drink about twice a day from that infected cooler. I never really saw the logic in worrying about those little things. The dude that doesn't wash his hands in the bathroom before he opens the door also touches the coffee pot you're gonna pick up ten minutes from now, so what's the difference if you pick up his ass-paramecium now or later? You ingest, on average, somewhere between 7 and 10 spiders a year. You won't die from a little bathroom bacilli.

Another point I have made in the Purell debates is the familiar argument that hand sanitizers kill off both harmful and benign bacteria and the lack of exposure to these germs that we have been living with for centuries (peacefully and realtively healthily I might add), makes us more suceptible to their negative effects. By attempting to create an unnaturally sterile environment in the workplace, one essentially makes him/herself more vulnerable to attack by bacteria in the future. Instead of bathing in Purell these people should be going to the gym to build up their overall immune system. Or playing in dirt for Christ's sake.

I personally like the tactic employed by an old coworker in the Citi. "The Popcorn Man," as he was called, visited the counter flanking my cubicle every day for the entire month of February to stick his bare hands into a massive tub of Popcorn Factory Popcorn. A few notable things about this tin o' corn:

1. It arrived in the office in early December.
2. Almost everyone in the office contributed their special brand of microscopic creature to the tin's cheese and caramel-covered contents.
3. At least one woman attributed her rapid-fire 24-hour virus to her consumption of the popcorn. Chances are there were many more silent victims.

Did this seemingly poisonous substance kill The Popcorn Man? Hells no! The Popcporn Man just kept on coming, dipping his adventurous paws right in there. Sure enough, like the Dread Pirate Roberts with his Iocaine powder, The Popcorn Man developed an immunity to the contents of that snowflake-adorned petri dish, one cup at a time. I believe that man could work in a classroom full of snot-covered first graders and never get a cold. He could have sex with Pam Anderson and not catch the Hep-C. If New York were struck in Biological warfare, The Popcorn Man would be the only one left standing.

So as I enter my second month at the new yabbo, on the verge of an illness as irritating as the first one, I look up to The Popcorn Man for guidance and inspiration. My coworkers will tell me I'm sick because I refuse to lather up with their gooey gunk. They'll tell me Purell's 62% ethyl alcohol content will kill off the germs that plague me. But I'll embrace my illness and I'll touch the goddamn doorknob sans papertowel, because that's what The Motherfucking Popcorn Man would do. And that guy's gonna live forever.