Business Greetings
Business Greetings
[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.

This comic is the third comic in a row in a series of comics about the 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 shaking hands at the beginning of a meeting.
The comic shows Beret Guy addressing his employees at 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.
Humorously, 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 business cards ), 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 .
[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.
