Editing 2277: Business Greetings

{{comic
| number    = 2277
| date      = March 6, 2020
| title     = Business Greetings
| image     = business_greetings.png
| titletext = We have email and social media now, so we probably don't need to keep exchanging business cards by pressing them gently against each others' faces with an open palm and smearing them around.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic is the third comic in a row in a [[:Category:COVID-19|series of comics]] about the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}}. With this comic also on that topic, all comics of that week were about the pandemic. This continued for many more weeks.

As a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, people are refraining from personal contact. This leads to changes with customs in the workplace, such as {{w|handshake|shaking hands}} at the beginning of a meeting.

The comic shows [[Beret Guy]] addressing his employees at [[:Category:Beret Guy's Business|his eccentric company]] ([[Ponytail]], [[Hairy]] and [[Hairbun]], see also [[1997: Business Update]]). He states that although they should not overreact to the coronavirus, they should at least stop their custom of beginning meetings by "licking each others' eyeballs". Virus or not, it is not common for people to lick anyone's eyeballs at meetings,{{Citation needed}} but it could be an extreme stretch of intimate behavior to make an analogy to some cultures' norm of kissing acquaintances in greeting.

The fun thing is that his employees state that they will miss this human contact, but that they at least understand.

Contact between saliva and eyes are a very common way to spread the disease. However, this usually occurs from one infected person sneezing and airborne particles randomly coming in contact with an uninfected bystander's eye, or people touching their own faces and eyes after having touched an infected surface, not by applying the saliva directly to a person's eyeball by means of another person's tongue. Also, most people's eyelids instinctually close when they see an object, including someone else's tongue, about to hit them in order to protect the eyeballs, so actually licking each others' eyeballs, as opposed to merely each others' eye''lids'', would be very difficult for most people, but Beret Guy being able to do this would not be very surprising considering his other abilities, such as being immune to his head being impaled.

The title text refers to an actual business custom (exchanging {{w|business card}}s), but one which is absurdly altered to promote the spread of disease by touching cards and hands to faces. It is not clear whether this is safer or more dangerous than Beret Guy's previous practice of eating business cards, see [[1032: Networking]].

==Transcript==
:[Beret Guy is standing to the left addressing Ponytail, Hairy and Hairbun sitting in office chairs at a table. Hairbun is at the end of the table. All three have one arm on the table.]
:Beret Guy: I don't think we should overreact to the coronavirus,
:Beret Guy: But it might be time to put an end to the custom of starting business meetings by everyone licking each others' eyeballs.
:Hairy: I'll miss the human contact, but that's fair.
:Hairbun: Gotta change with the times.

==Trivia==
*When the comic was first published, it did not have a title-text; it was added later during the day of release. 
**This has almost exclusively occurred previously with special interactive or dynamic comics. 
***Absence of title-text is so unusual that it broke at least one xkcd client ([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.floern.xkcd Browser for xkcd by Floern]). 
*The phrase "each other" is actually singular. It should be "each other's eyeballs" (the eyeballs of each other person) and "each other's face" (the face of each other person).

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Beret Guy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
[[Category:Beret Guy's Business]]
[[Category:Social interactions]]

[[Category:COVID-19]]