Ah, ah, ACHOOOO! Excuse me. I just fictitiously sneezed all over my computer screen.
Now let’s apply that same sneeze into a real setting. How about the lobby? Or better yet, the entrance to one, perhaps a mere space of approximately 10 feet wide and 12 or 13 feet across.
While some may feel that’s the exact size of their studio apartment, it’s still considered a small area in which germs can easily spread.
Now filter in another doorperson sneezing, and another, plus a resident or two with some kind of cough, hand trucks being wheeled in by all types of delivery people, strollers, workers, men and women of all kind.
All of them walk in and out of the lobby while the doorman stands his ground, breathing in germs flying through the air, and touching all kinds of potentially disease carrying things during his shift.
It can make you paranoid—justifiably, I would argue.
Malevolent microbes are on the door handles, mailboxes, the desk, intercom, windows, and elevators.
And then there’s all the other possibly germ-contaminated things we touch.
Dropped pieces of food in an elevator from an infant that may have had too much in their mouth at the time.
The stuff we have to pry off the sidewalk because it’s stuck there despite our sweeping.
Bottles of chemicals to keep the lobby spiffy. Rags used by another doorman, and the porter, and the super.
While I don’t wish white gloves would come back in style for doormen, at least they would be a barrier between our hands and all the microbes that may be out there.
Instead I constantly Purell my hands, which supposedly doesn’t really kill everything but makes it hard for viruses to stick around. I don’t do it every time I open the door or shake someone’s hand. That would be treading into OCD territory.
But I also try to shake hands less. I invite you to do the same with me.
You could also your mouth when coughing and sneezing while you’re at it.
See all A Doorman Speaks.
