Arbpen - Adrienne Boswell

Infection in the Work Place

I have a elementary school child. When he was in preschool, parents received a letter stating that if your child had a fever, had a runny nose, was coughing and/or sneezing, or just able to spread cold or flu germs, you were to keep your child at home to help prevent the spread of infection.

I thought this was a great policy. I didn't want my child to get sick from another child, and I didn't want my child to infect other children.

Yet, in the workplace, an employee is thought of as a hero when he or she comes to work, obviously ill with an infectious malady. She dragged herself out of bed, took some cold relief medicine, and came into the office. Some of her co-workers will find this admirable, that is until they catch the same cold or flu she has. Then they, too, will find it in themselves to also come into the office, and infect others. That infectious employee is not only infecting other workers, she may be spreading germs as she goes to work on public transportation, or at the gas station, spreading germs in the elevator, on door knobs, on phones and other office equipment.

That employee is also not doing a good job at work. The report that usually takes an hour will take two. Sickness makes the brain slow because its first priority is the immune system, not some report. The worker will also feel stressed knowing that the work needs to be completed, but is having difficulty because of the illness. Stress makes the immune system work even harder. It's a vicious circle.

With the immune system compromised, and now vulnerable, that cold or flu can easily turn into something worse, like killer pneumonia.

That employee is likely to infect at least five other people in the office. That's five more people who are not going to be able to do their jobs properly, who will pass the illness on to others. Is this efficient? For humans no – for the virus, yes.

What Can I Do To Prevent Getting Sick?

If you are around others who are sick, there are some things you can do.

• Wash your hands frequently. Use an anti-bacterial liquid if you cannot get soap and hot water.
• Try not to touch your face. You may have picked up a virus on some surface, and getting that virus near your eyes, nose or mouth could get you sick.
• If those around you are coughing and sneezing and not covering up, nicely remind them to do so. Especially, remind them not to cough or sneeze into their bare hand. Remind them to use the inside corner of their elbow if they do not have a disposable tissue at hand.
• Clean surfaces regularly with either an anti-bacterial solution, hot water and soap, or a solution of 1/3 bleach and 2/3 water. Be sure to get door knobs, phones, and other surfaces people frequently touch.
• Don't be afraid to be "Monkish". Use a wipe or anti-bacterial liquid after you shake hands with someone.
• Never, ever, let someone use your tooth brush.
• Don't share drinks or food with others.
• Wear a protective mask if everyone around you is sick.

What Can I Do If I Do Get Sick?

While I am not a doctor, I have found these methods to be helpful. Of course, if you are running a very high fever, see your doctor right away.

Don'ts

• Don't take a fever reducer. Fevers are the bodies natural means of killing the virus that is making you sick. Help your immune system along by making your body as unfriendly as possible. Get under as many covers as you can, and rest. Watch your fever, carefully, however. If your fever goes above 103 or lasts for more than three days, seek medical help right away.
• Don't take a decongestant. When your nose is stuffed, it's stuffed for a reason - to raise the temperature and kill viruses. When you take a decongestant, you are just making it harder on your immune system.
• Don't take something for a runny nose, either. A runny nose is the body's way of flushing dead and dying viruses.

Do's

• Do take garlic. Using FRESH garlic, take a clove and cut it into pieces about the size of a vitamin. Take the garlic pieces with a glass of water. Don't chew them because people won't want to be around you!
• Do drink hot tea with honey. It's soothing, and honey has it's own natural benefits. Use raw honey.
• Do have hot chicken soup with a little hot sauce in it. Viruses don't like hot stuff, whether it's temperature or spice.

In Conclusion

Let's all do our part to stay healthy. Colds and flu really hurt our economy.

So, employers, please make it policy for employees with colds or flu to stay home for one day until after the fever is gone without the use of a fever reducer – this means the virus is dead and cannot be spread. There is significant cost savings in time, doctor visits, insurance, etc., when sick employees stay home instead of coming to work.

I lucked out and found a nice Compaq laptop at the Goodwill for Spane. It cost $135.00, and it's in good condition. The only issue is that the battery will not keep a charge, and for some reason the Internet connection drops. I don't care about either one of those issues - he can use regular power, and eventually I'll get the Internet part fixed - he doesn't need it that badly.

Windows 7 has Family Safety which will restrict a user's time on the computer. Windows XP does not, but, there is hope. There is a way to do it through the command interface. It's not that hard, and truth be told, it was nice to use the DOS command line again. I actually prefer it to this GUI thing.

To make things easier on myself, I put this stuff into three batch files, one for regular time, one for vacation time, and one for removing all the time restrictions. I also created another user account, Mom, so I could administer the computer any time I needed (Mom doesn't have any time restrictions).

One thing that had me a little confused was the user name. WinXP is so strange, and the Home edition doesn't have a lot of backdoors that Pro has. When I got Spane the computer, it had Compaq User as the user name. I went into User Accounts, and changed it to Spane. That only changed it on the logon screen, according to the system the user Spane did not exist, so my neat batch file didn't run correctly the first time.

1. Here's how you can find out what users are on the computer: 1. Start - Run 2. Type cmd and hit Enter 3. Type net user and hit Enter. A list of users will appear, you want to look for the one that is your child. In my case it was the Compaq User.

   Once you have that information, you're well on your way to having time restrictions on your kid's computer.

2. At this point, I suggest you add another account, like Mom or Dad, as an administrator. Simply Start -> Control Panel -> User Accounts -> Add User. The parental account will not have any restrictions, so if you mess up, you can log on under that account and undo anything you might have done in your child's account.
3. I suggest making a folder off the root and call it maybe, timesheet. You're going to want to save the batch files you are making in that folder.
4. If you have a plain text editor other than Notepad, I suggest using it. If you don't have one, I highly recommend EditPad http://www.editpadlite.com. If you are going to use Notepad, please remember that it wants to open and save everything as a .txt file, so you have to tell it All Files when opening or saving a batch file.
5. Here's what a regular time could look like, just change USER to you child's name. One "gotcha" - if there is a space in the name, you have to enclose it in quotation marks, so Compaq User becomes "Compaq User".

   rem This is for regular time
   @echo off
   net user USER /time: M-F, 19:00-21:00; F,19:00-22:00; Sa, 11:00-22:00; Su, 11:00-21:00
   exit
   

   This schedule allows Monday through Friday 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm, Friday gets an additional hour to 10:00 pm, Saturday from 11:00 am to 10:00 pm (they have to do their chores in the morning, right?), and on Sunday, from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm. Here's another "gotcha" - the times HAVE to be on the HOUR, I don't know why. I prefer using 24 hour time format, but you can use am/pm if you want. Now, save the file as regtime.bat in the timesheet folder you just created.
6. Then create another batch file called vactime.bat, and put the time restrictions for vacations.

   rem This is for vacations
   @echo off
   net user USER /time:M-Sa, 10:00-22:00; Su, 10:00-21:00
   exit
   

7. Last, you will want to make one more batch file that allows ALL time, for when your child is sick, is on holiday, etc.

   rem This removes all time restrictions
   @echo off
   net user USER /time:all
   exit
   

8. If you are logged in as the child, logout and login as the parent. When you logon, you should be at the desktop. If not, then get to the desk top. Right click and choose New-> Shortcut. Browse for the batch file you created in step five, choose it, and hit Next. Type in a name for the shortcut, I used Regular Time. Now the shortcut will be on your desktop. Repeat this for the other batch files. IMPORTANT: DO NOT DO THIS ON THE CHILD'S DESKTOP.
9. Log out. If your child tries to logon at a time that is not within the parameters, a message will pop up that says "Your account has time restrictions. You cannot logon at this time. Try later"

   Well, there you have it, a way to restrict your child's time on the computer. I'm still working on a way to get the computer to logoff when the time has expired. I'll be posting when I figure it out - in the meantime, it's a matter of telling your child, "Hey, it's time to go to bed". I still want to have the computer turn off by itself at a scheduled time. I found some older software that does the trick, it's called Poweroff, and it's available at Jorgen Bosman's site.

   You can find out more information about this at Microsoft's site: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816666.

   Good luck, and good parenting!