Fuzzy head, achy back and snotty nose? Bad luck – you’re ill. The good news? So’s everyone in The Debriefoffice. So, not only does that mean you can come join our club of sneezy snotbots (welcome), it also means we’ve spent the past few days figuring out how to get through the work day while our head feels like a giant muscus bucket. Here’s your cut-out-and-keep guide.
Go to work
Don’t take the day off if you can possibly bear it. No one will believe you for starters, which is always upsetting. Instead, muster the energy to get out of bed by thinking of it a day you can bank for future use when you’re hungover. You’ll get loads of sympathy today – and absolutely none the next time you’re hungover.
Craft the perfect email
If you really can’t leave your bed, let your boss know you're not coming to work in the best way possible. Avoid texts at all costs. It looks flippant. By typing an apology from your work mail, it looks like you’ve already attempted to do a bit of work. Try to also stay on just the right side of martyrdom – no: ‘Oh, I’ll try to come in later if I can possibly drag myself from my deathbed,’ crap. Also, avoid graphic detail – documenting exactly how many hours sleep you had due to excess mucus sounds made up. Be practical and matter of fact. Only use the word ‘sorry’ once.
Buy all of the Lemsip. Accept no imitation
Don’t bother with cold and flu tablets, skip straight to Lemsips, they work approximately 1,000 times better. Also, as we just discovered, there’s now apple and cinnamon and honey and ginger flavours. Which is good. Blackcurrant and lemon had started to make us feel vomity.
Get those tissues with balsam in
It kind of a no duh situation, but splash out on tissues. Don’t be tight and use toilet paper – your workplace has probably scrimped on it meaning it’s the equivalent of rubbing your nose with sandpaper. Not only does that start to hurt after a while, it leaves dry skin that looks like errant bogeys escaping from your nostrils.
Be strict with yourself in terms of moaning
No-one likes a moaner. A mournful: ‘Oh, I feel rubbish,’ when you walk in is suffice to set the tone. From then on, schedule a few well-timed sniffs/sneezes to keep the issue at the forefront of people’s mind. Don’t bring it up again until someone asks, which they will, people like to talk about mundane rubbish at work. Then you’ve got license to rant as much as you bloody well like before walking away with your head held high, knowing that person now thinks of you not as bellyaching crybaby but as a brave little soldier.
Try to lose your voice
It just sounds more authentic, doesn’t it? Talk a lot – and loudly.
Put off hard work until tomorrow
Make a folder on your desktop and put any task that requires actual thought into it, you can pick it up tomorrow. Stick to simple tasks like deleting crap from your inbox, reorganising the stationary cupboard and ‘researching’ - also known as mining the internet for pictures of Darcy The Hedgehog.
Follow Jess on Twitter @jess_commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.