Did you get your flu shot? Are you washing or sanitizing your hands? And more to the point, what's the absentee level at your office?

Here at the Chicago Summit Business Media office where AA&B is based, we've had at least two fairly lengthy employee absences because of some form of flu. Although one case was inconclusive, the other employee is still waiting to get the word from her doctor on whether the illness that kept her out for a week was officially swine flu (which brings up the subject of the H1N1 vaccine shortages, for one thing, but that's another story).

And while two cases may not sound like much, it seems as if the rest of us are just feeling under the weather to some degree or another — aches and pains, coughing, sneezing, and a general malaise (or maybe it's just the power of suggestion). Maybe it's the time of year — daylight savings time, effective last weekend, makes 5 p.m. seem like midnight. Most of us are suffering through not H1N1, but a cold or some less extreme form of the annual annoyance that is the flu (the official line of demarcation between flu and H1N1 is whether or not you get a fever and have stomach issues).

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