tsk tsk!

       I just got back to working my graveyard shifts and just about getting my groove back. I was told in a few weeks I am to be assigned to the dayshift account. Turns out the said account requires vet analysts to do the job for the agents back there do practically everything. My boss really don’t have a choice but assign me and the other vet analyst in an alternating schedule. Everything was okay with me. Was even excited I’d get to spend evenings with the kids. And being in this industry, that’s very rare and therefore, precious.
       But wait, there’s more! I’ve just started training for the said account when I learned of a really unfortunate thing. One of the agents in the team - that I would be monitoring and coaching closely, daily - was diagnosed with tuberculosis, STAGE 3!!! My immediate reaction was a mere "oh!". Then compassion. The agent in question was formerly included in my roster back in the graveyard shift. He was selected for the dayshift account for he’s developed to be quite a topseller which the said account requires. I’ve seen him developed from a hardly-able-to-speak-english noob to an assertive seller and quality performer. He’s one of the agents I am proud of. He’s one of the agents who inspires me and reminds me something good actually comes out of what I’m doing. And that’s important to me. Then this. I really felt sorry, for him, and for his wife and kids.
     Again, there’s more. The human being in me started to think selfishly. I realized that while he’s in a sorry situation, he also put his colleagues at risk. TB is highly contagious owing to the fact that the bacteria causing it is airborne. A sneeze could carry thousands of them at least ten feet from the source. And needless to say, everybody who got wind of the news got scared. One girl even went absent the next day to go and have herself checked up. Tongues went wagging here and unfortunately, I really couldn’t blame them. It IS indeed SCARY.
    He was given a couple of weeks leave. Yes, 14 days… ONLY! The manager’s reason? It’s curable. The hell it’s curable! Does she think anybody gives a rat’s ass about that? Isn’t it enough that a lot of people were already unnecessarily and unknowingly exposed to potential harm. The guy needs the job, that he still wants to go to work. And the manager, AGREED! uhhh…DOLE, is this even legal???
     As sorry as I am. I have to be selfish somehow. I really couldn’t expose myself to potential harm when I know I could possibly share that harm with my kids. And I have a toddler and a newborn to boot. They really don’t have enough resistance for such. So yes, I thought selfish, I still am. and now I am faced with the dilemma of whether I’d take the assignment silently as I usually do and risk the aforementioned. Or I can voice out my concern to my immediate boss.  I would not want himto be sacked. As I’ve said he’s gotten good in doing his job. I just would like to be assured he’d only be coming back when he’s well and good, for his and for everybody else’s sake. But how I would do that without sounding unfeeling is beyond me.
      And I am just wondering how come the department who handles these sort of things isn’t lifting a finger to straighten everything out, help this person with his situation and calm everybody else down. Why would they allow him to go back when everybody knows he isn’t well not only to do his job but simply to be with other people. I only hope they’re not going to wait for something else to happen before they take action. I only have a few weeks left in the graveyard schedule and really this has been of the things constantly nagging me. To do something about it or not to, that is the question.