Flu season is upon us, which means I’ve been sticking needles in people’s arms so they don’t end up catching the bug. Now and then I get people refusing to get a flu shot, some for good reason, others for reasons that I have no choice but to classify them in the category of STUPID.
Decent reason to refuse:
I had a family come in asking about our flu shots. When I informed them that it was an all-in-one dose that included the H1N1 vaccine (aka swine flu), they politely refused. They were uncomfortable with getting the H1N1 part of it, and just wanted the seasonal flu shot. I assured them it was proven to be safe, but I wasn’t going to push it if they weren’t comfortable…I’ll admit I was a little wary of the H1N1 vaccine as well when it first came out, just because I felt like it was released into the market WAY too quickly as a kneejerk reaction to last year’s outbreak. I’d say it’s a pretty good legitimate reason to refuse the flu shot.
Stupid reason to refuse:
I had a guy come in to ask about our flu shots. I wasn’t too swamped with work at the time, so I told him I could get him to fill out some paperwork, prepare one for him, and have him out in about 15 minutes. He exclaims “15 MINUTES?? For a SHOT? You can’t just give it to me?? Forget it,” and storms off. Listen jackass, if you went to your doctor’s office, you’d probably be waiting for 15 minutes just to have them call your name out before you even get a chance to SEE the poor schmuck that has to stick a needle in you.
Even stupider reason to refuse:
Some dude asks me about flu shots. Again, I’m not too terribly busy at the moment, so I tell him I can get him to fill out some paperwork and have one out for him in about 15 minutes…he tells me he’s in a hurry, but says he’ll come back the next day. In cases like these, I prepare as much of the paperwork as I can ahead of time, and have the syringe drawn up and ready to go. This way when he shows up the next day, all he needs to do is fill out the consent form, and then I can ring him up and pop the needle in his arm. He shows up the next day, and I’ve got everything ready for him. I give him the consent form and ask him to fill it out. He looks at the form and says “Oh no no no, I didn’t want to fill out any paperwork.” I politely tell him it wouldn’t take long, and that all he needed to do was fill it out and sign it at the bottom. He says “No no, I left my glasses at home…if I knew there was paperwork for me to fill out, I wouldn’t have bothered with the shot. I don’t want to waste my time on this!” And he walks away.
Uhh…I guess good luck on finding a flu shot that DOESN’T require some form of paperwork.
The Good: Well, I guess those are some reasonable concerns. It’s certainly better than some of the other concerns I had heard when the vaccine was first released last year. “It’s filled with neurotoxins!”
The Bad: Sickness and death is Nature’s way of telling you to SLOOOOW DOOOOOOWN.
The WTF: Apparently, paper trails are horrible, horrible things. The fuzz is out to get you.
@Tristan: Haha, I’m still in shock about the guy not wanting to fill out paperwork. Looking back on it, I realized maybe the guy seriously didn’t want to waste his time squinting at the papers (which still would’ve been a stupid reason), or a slightly more legitimate reason could be that maybe he couldn’t read and was too embarrassed to admit it. Either way, it ain’t worth catching the flu.
Agreed. Pride is only worth so much. If one is illiterate, fine. Not everyone’s life growing up composed of sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns. If you don’t want to take the time to read it because of vision problems, it shouldn’t take over one’s life if it can be helped. There are nice magnifying devices out there even if one cannot wear/afford contacts or glasses.
Ooops. Got a little bit irked there. Pride is just a nasty stumbling block that more often than not holds people back. A pet peeve of mine.