The Reyes Report

… just heard this whilst sitting in my cube and had to report. Ah, out of the mouths of babes:

Executive: <sneeze>

His employee in cube next door:  Gzeundheit

Executive: Thank you

Assistant in other neighboring cube: What does “gzeun,..” mean

Employee: The same thing as “Bless you” — we say it when someone sneezes…

Exec: Do you notice that no one says “God bless you” in Asia when you sneeze?

Assistant: Yes we do!! Well, we say “Bless you,” we don’t say the God part

Employee: Do you know the history of that? It’s from the plague. When someone sneezed, it meant they might have caught the sickness … people were hoping you didn’t die.

Assistant: Ah, that makes sense. <Executive>, maybe that’s why no one says it to you!