How do you do that? If you’re going to an interview, or meeting your kid’s principal or a client and s/he outstretches her/his hand for a shake, what do you say?
::shoving hands behind back::
Say, have you ever watched Monk?
How do you make it through business/social occasions while refusing to shake hands with anyone? Most people would consider that really disrespectful, I would imagine. That, or it would be increadibly akward. When you meet someone in a business situation (not so much social), that’s what you do. You shake hands. It’s a social norm. I doubt anyone would come to the automatic conclusion that you’re just a germaphobe when you refuse to do it. Most likely they’d think you deemed yourself “above” shaking hands with them, or didn’t know how to conduct yourself in such a situation. What do you do if they outstretch their hand? Do you just refuse to take it? Now that’s just rude.
Honestly, some of ya’ll sound like freaks 
The only time I’ve ever got all crazy about germs was when my boss came into our office while sick as a dog and proceeded to sit at all of our desks at some point and use all of our phones (it wasn’t his home office). Even then, I waited until he was out of site and discreetly wiped everything he had breathed on or touched with an antiseptic wipe. I would never have done it with him watching though, boss or no. Yes, it was rude of him to come into our office and “infect” everything, but I would have appeared just as rude and offensive had I followed him with the wipe, glaring at him all the while. Or demanded to know if he’d washed his hands upon returning from the restroom. One person’s rude behavior should not act as a green light for another’s, IMHO.
I think the above also answers the questions you directed to me, ruadh.
Amen! We’re surrounded by filthy, filthy microbial germs that seek to corrupt our bodily fluids and shorten our lives. I question why people touch anything–who knows where that e. narcosepsisium bacterium is lurking. Is it on your keyboard? Those nail clippers? The doorway? The steering-wheel? I don’t know why any sane person would every question my refusal to have any contact with a surface, biological or otherwise, that hasn’t been sprayed with a bleach solution heated to at least 185.3 degrees F. Thank good for kleenex boxes! I’m reasonably sure they’re clean, and they make fine, inexpensive foot-coverings to protect me from the filth. While we’re on the subject, does anyone know where I can get some latex gloves with extra-long fingers? There’s no way I’m bringing some filthy, germ-ridden nail clipper near my nail-beds, and my finger-nails keep breaking through the tips of the double-layered latex gloves I usually wear.
What questions did I direct at you?
Whoops. I meant to say your response to me.
My viewpoint on this has been dramatically altered since my last job (working with the developmentally disabled). Needless to say, you can’t enforce good hygene on some of these people. Therefore, we had some employees coming down with pinworms, and the people we cared for were always getting them. Think about it—PINWORMS.
You can catch PINWORMS from a clear, almost invisible gelatinous substance (that can be anywhere—a countertop, door handle, etc.) that contains the PINWORM eggs. Now, granted, most people don’t get PINWORMS, but if someone lives in a household with small children or anyone who might have poor hygene, it doesn’t matter if their hygene is good—they can still catch the PINWORMS. You just never know.
It’s really sobering to realize that you’ve been exposed to PINWORMS and you may end up doing what I did—looking at your poop in the toilet for any telltale signs of thin, white, thready PINWORMS in there. (Thankfully, I never caught them.) ::shudder:: PINWORMS!!!
But you never know what is lurking out there. So while I may not avoid shaking hands and I may not freak out about those icky germs everywhere, I cannot forget how I was scrutinizing my own SHIT for PINWORMS and I am mindful of how easy it is to catch them (not to mention many other types of cooties). All it takes is touching a counter or door handle.
All I expect from others right now is that they WASH THEIR DAMNED HANDS. This cannot be waved off as if it is some trivial or “optional” thing. My gosh, are some of these people raised by wolves? What is their problem? WASH YOUR DAMNED HANDS. And I swear, I don’t blame ruadh’s coworker for asking this stupid, silly woman about not washing her damned hands. It is, frankly, astonishing that someone wouldn’t know that it’s a matter of general courtesy.
Make fun all you like, Metacom (I assume your post was meant as a satyrical example of germ-wariness taken to the extreme degree), but I know what I know - hands are dirty; really, really dirty, and I don’t want other people’s viruses, bacteria, and PINWORMS on my hands. I will still shake hands with people, but I’m off like a shot to the washroom to have a good wash with soap as soon as I can after. I do this from knowledge, not from ignorance or fear.
Hey, don’t get me wrong, I think failing to wash ones hands after using the restroom is just as nasty as the next person.
I’m just saying, I thought what her co-worker did (in asking about her washing her hands) was out of line. It was rude. Just because the action that warranted the rudeness was rude in itself, doesn’t excuse the latter rudeness.
It’s just not the kind of thing one adult asks another adult. It’s more in the parent/child realm. That’s what makes it rude, IMHO.
I make sure that I have stuff in my hands, and I smile and nod and act personable without having to suffer someone’s sweaty, meaty paw mauling my delicate manicure. 
Seriously, in this part of New York, I don’t find it that difficult. Perhaps that’s because people are more sensitive to the various cultural issues which make handshaking difficult (if not outright impossible) for many.
Lezlers, with all due respect, I think you have some very interesting notions about what’s rude and what’s not. It is far more rude to insist upon touching than to gracefully demur via refusal. It is far more rude to spread coliform and other bacteria around a workplace than to ask someone (no doubt aghast and in utter surprise) why they aren’t engaging in the most common, simple act of hygiene known in the western world.
Furthermore, back to the OP’s co-worker: being allergic to the soap wouldn’t make her allergic to water. Even if she couldn’t lather up, she could’ve rinsed her hands well with hot water and then used antibacterial hand gel or lotion. Heck, she could’ve just rinsed. That she didn’t even do that suggests that she’s just a filthy, disgusting pig of a woman who ought not be employed outside of her home until she’s learned how to keep her bodily waste germs to herself.
Who’s talking about “insisting upon touching”? Are you claiming it’s somehow rude to outstretch your hand when first meeting someone? I know New York and California are different parts of the country, but I never realized they were entirely different countries.
As for the second notion, as I told Yosemitebabe, when assessing whether or not something is rude (IMHO, of course), I try to avoid comparing the act of rudeness to the act that induced it in order to determine whether or not it was rude, period. I just don’t feel that rudeness is ever justified. Rude is rude. A rather bad hypothetical would be “speed monitors” on the highway. Say I see someone speeding and cutting people off, and I cut them off. I mean, hell, they’re endangering others and are in general, being obnoxious. So is my action now any less rude? Hell no, it isn’t. Cutting someone off is still rude, no matter what the provocation is.
Is calling someone on their rudeness (and their possible spreading disease to others) rude? I don’t think so. I don’t want to stand by, politely, as someone else gets away with that shit. Speaking up is not rude. It’s what they deserve.
No, it’s telling someone (or asking them) about their speeding. It’s not doing it yourself. If someone is doing something nasty, I don’t think it’s rude to ask them about it, or even to ask them to stop. It’s nasty. And it affects us all. If they were just being nasty but it didn’t affect anyone else, then very likely saying something would be more rude. It for all we know, they’re spreading PINWORM eggs and I’m telling you, I don’t appreciate inspecting my own poop in the toilet anymore than I have to. The hell with that.
If someone is behaving like a swine, I say that there’s nothing wrong with speaking up and telling them.
In fact, I think we should do more of this speaking up business. People have been getting away with this nastiness for far too long.
Some of you sterilize your hands after shaking someones hand? Just move into the freaking bubble already!
That was uncalled for, TwistofFate. Those of us who feel other people’s cleanliness may be suspect have defended our position repeatedly in this thread, we are backed up by microbiologists and Cecil himself, and yet you still seem to feel the need to mock us.
I seriously think you are being way too obsessive if you feel you have to wash your hands every time you shake hands with someone. It’s a scary thought that people are getting more and more afraid to physically make contact with other people. Thats bordering on Howard Hughes terroritory.
Sometimes it’s actually beneficial to you to be exposed to some germs.
I’m probably taking complete bollocks, but I wouldn’t be in the least bit suprised if the recent trend for sterilizing as much as possible as often as possible isn’t responsible for the increase in allergies in children.
Hey, if the parisitology lessons aren’t enough to get you washing up, maybe a nice SARS crisis will.
There was a study last year, after the SARS outbreak in Toronto, of handwashing in airports.
In most airports people washed their hands 40-60% of the time - in Toronto, it was something like 97%.
I became a compulsive hand-washer. And I haven’t gotten a single cold since then.
Just working in retail for a few months had me obsessing about the cleanliness of my hands. I made every effort to keep my hands away from my face while working at the cash register, where customers would come up, cough wetly into a hand, then hand me their credit card with the selfsame hand. People are gross. If they do that right in front of you, what the hell do they do when you can’t see them?
It’s just a fact that our hands tend to carry the germs that make us sick. Handwashing is an essential element of politeness.
As for handshaking, I’m considering giving it up as well. One radio personality has suggested substituting the salute. If you don’t want to explain that you suspect the person’s hands are filthy, you can always say “I won’t shake your hand, because I have a cold.”
Yosemite, I think we’re going to just have to agree to disagree here.
I don’t equate failing to wash your hands after using the restroom with “being a filthy cow” or any of the other over-the-top, gratitious insults you’ve been throwing around in your responses. IMO, you are overreacting to the extreme. Your obsession with PINWHEELS!!! is a bit disconcerting as well. Your responses have come across as crazy paranoid.
I just don’t think heading straight for the door after using the restroom requires justification. You don’t know why this person didn’t wash. Maybe she’s normally a hygiene junkie but simply had her head in the clouds that time. Maybe she just went in the stall to blow her nose, fart, fix her pantyhose or whatever (I’ve done that and if you called me a filthy cow for it…). It’s not a question of how viable any of those options are, it’s simply a matter of you don’t know, therefore who the hell are you to
#1. Demand justification from another adult as to their hygiene
#2. Jump to some ridiculous conclusions and overreactions such as someone being a “filthy cow” or a “swine” from one minor infraction.
I could see where the OP and others who I felt were being a little over-the-top were coming from and tried to be rational when communicating with them. Your paranoia, hyperbole and general freakyness, however, I can’t honestly take seriously. It’d be funny if I knew you weren’t legit.
Shame, because I normally really like and respect your posts.
Sigh. Yeah, I guess so.
It’s nasty. It’s nasty. I don’t think that it would be appropriate to screech at them and tell them that they’re nasty, but raised eyebrows and “aren’t you going to wash your hands?” is certainly not out of line.
You can’t even get the word right! It’s PINWORMS. And maybe if you’d had a brush with them you’d feel the way I do. (And just for the record, I don’t freak out at shaking anyone’s hands, I don’t call people names, and I’ve never questioned someone about not washing their hands, but I would if I saw them not doing it.)
Getting back to the PINWORMS, they’re these nasty worms that are spread hand to mouth. They live in your intestines and the worms crawl out of your ass when you sleep and lay eggs on your ass. Then if you scratch or touch your ass area you get the invisible eggs on your hands. Then if you touch something else (door handle, etc.) without washing your hands, you can then spread the eggs to any surface. Anyone who comes in contact with the eggs (which are virtually invisible) can come down with PINWORMS too.
In my previous job, I had to directly deal with people who had these nasty things. Thin, thready worms in their shit. It’s nasty. Trying to keep everything clean so you don’t get the worms too is a huge hassle. And worrying if you got them too (because you touched a counter top or a door handle) is also stressful. You become reduced to looking at your poop in the toilet to see if you’ve got them. It’s not pleasant. And trust me, I wasn’t the only one freaking out about the PINWORMS, everyone I worked with felt the same way. It’s nasty. (Granted, in our case, the people who were getting the PINWORMS were unable to know any better, bless their hearts. But most people do know better and I expect them to act like they know better.)
I don’t really care why someone is being nasty, but if they are being nasty in a way that may affect me (like give me cooties) then I think I have a right to raise my eyebrows and ask them why.
And then she won’t mind being reminded, will she?
And if someone raised your eyebrows at you, you could simply shrug your shoulders and say “I was just fixing my hose. Don’t worry.” What’s so hard about that?
Because I don’t want to get PINWORMS or something else. If their hygene does not affect me, I don’t care. When it does, I care. I don’t think that raised eyebrows and a simple question is totally over the line here.
I’m not saying that, and I don’t think anyone else here is either. It’s not a matter of forgetting once (though for most of us, it’s so ingrained that I cannot imagine forgetting, no matter how “in the clouds” our brains are), it’s not doing it, EVER, which is what the woman in the OP was doing.
I don’t freak out and I am not a clean freak (I have too many cats for that). But I know nasty when I see nasty and someone who refuses to wash their hands after peeing or shitting is nasty. They’re nasty because they’re helping spread germs that affect all of us. That’s nasty. Are raised eyebrows too much to ask? So perhaps they’ll realize that they’re being nasty and will feel some social pressure to be less nasty? I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
That’s okay. I am assuming that you haven’t had a brush with nastiness like some of the rest of us have. When you have, perhaps you’ll understand a little better.
Damn, yosemite. That was beautiful.
I actually agree with you on this point - I believe that you should challenge your immune system regularly to keep it healthy, not wrap yourself in a sterile bubble. It should be a gentle challenge, though, not exposing yourself to the Ebola virus every day (that was hyperbole for effect, by the way. I don’t think most people carry the Ebola virus. What they do have on their hands, however, is beyond how much I want to challenge my immune system.)