No one believed me when I called sick on St. Patrick's Day in Dublin
Before moving to Dublin, I was a lousy professional. I was always late and would miss work for whatever excuse I could find. I used to say to myself that I delivered results, which wasn’t a lie, but still…
However, things changed when I moved to Ireland. People would start to call me out when I arrived with my usual 5-minute delay. I used to work in a pub, and my colleagues would always laugh and point, “Ha, a Brazilian being a Brazilian…”
Then, the big day arrived. 17th of March. Crowded streets, drunk people… Time for pubs to make loads of money. And I called sick. No one believed me, of course. I sent a picture of the thermometer to my boss, marking my nearly 40° C fever. “Stop this. If you don’t come to work, you’re fired.”
Infuriated, I took my cocktail of medicines and walked to the pub on that sunny but windy day. I had a 12-hour shift, but managed to do “only” 8. At the end, I told my boss that I wasn’t feeling well. “Damn, Rafi, you really are sick”, he said after touching my forehead. I walked home, nearly dragged by the lovely, typical Irish “breeze”.
The next morning, I woke up with a massive swelling on my face. I had the mumps (aka ‘caxumba’ to my BR friends), a highly contagious virus. I think I served pints and drinks to hundreds of people, so I may have been responsible for an epidemic…
This happened 7 years ago, but I still remember it every 17th of March.
Happy St. Paddy’s Day! And if you were in Dublin in 2019 and got the mumps… Sorry!