My company has been fixated on taking a group picture because they couldn’t for the last two years. They send it out in an e-mail to clients and it has clearly been the subject of much fixation.
Last weekend, I caught the gnarliest bug I’ve had in a while. Slept 14 hours, fever dreams, pounding headache. Long story short, it turned out to be Covid.
I tell my supervisor mid-week.
“Are you going to be in the group photo?”
I almost drop to the ground from my eye roll. I mean, come on, America. We should’ve at least figured this one out by now.
I politely tell her no, I don’t think I’ll be well that soon.
The day of the photo comes along. I’m mostly feeling well in my place but I had a bad episode going out for groceries (felt breathless, almost fell) and switched to delivery for a fortune.
A co-worker calls who knows I have Covid. “When will you come in for the photo? It’s like in 20 minutes.”
I swear I just about screamed. I explained very slowly I just about fell in a grocery store, so I wasn’t even leaving my apartment.
Part of me wished work was closer, so I could go, probably have some medical episode that would scare the heck out of them and possibly infect a few of the executives so the deranged return to office project they tried to implement would end for a while. “There’s your photo, genius!”