Business Owners Cope With Flu Bug.

GOT the chills, a nagging cough, and an all-over achy feeling you just can't shake? Of course you do.

Many Angelenos are fighting, or have already had, this year's nasty flu. The fierce strain has descended upon L.A. and refuses to leave, rendering some who have caught the bug bedridden for weeks.

More than most other flu seasons, businesses are finding themselves short-staffed. So they're reassigning work to the few employees who have fended off the sickness, allowing workers to telecommute until they're germ-free, and taking measures like getting their employees flu shots or ordering the ill ones to stay at home so as not to infect the rest of the office.

"The most popular item at any meeting is Kleenex. The agenda is half issues and half 'pass the medicine,'" said Hal ash, president of P.R. agency Cerrell Associates. "I' v been at Cerrell for 22 years, and I have never seen a staff impacted so greatly by the flu, as well as my clients. Trying to keep a staff together, keep clients focused, plus juggle the holidays has been a Herculean task."

If it's a Herculean task for businesses, it's an epic battle for local hospitals.

"We're inundated with patients coming down with the flu," aid Dr. Daniel Higgins, medical director of the emergency department at St. Francis in Lynwood. "This is an unusually heavy flu epidemic we're having."

Angelenos have become well aware that this season's flu isn't just about fending off the sniffles.

A manager at Lawry's The Prime Rib on La Cienega Boulevard was rushed to the emergency room on a recent Saturday night, according to Ellen Fremaux, the restaurant's sales and marketing manager.

"Everyone here, from wait staff on up to managerial. staff, has been hit with it," Fremaux said. "We have a very broad base of staff, so we are able to cover pretty comfortably when wait staff is sick. Managerial is tough because we don't have replacement managers."

Just as they are at restaurants like Lawry's, managers at businesses across L.A. are making do with smaller staffs. Often, that means less efficient operations.

"Our exhibitions secretary, out for two weeks;" said Adam Coyne, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "So when you're needing things, you have to be a little more flexible and understanding. You have to prioritize and say, 'What do I need to do and what are other ways to do that?'"

Of course, it's easier to be patient and sympathetic toward the ill when you've had the bug yourself. "I was out almost a week and a half in December," Coyne said. "I can't remember personally the last time I was this sick."

Dash at Cerrell agreed that flexibility is key "We've had some conference calls with people who are in slippers and bathrobes," he said. "In terms of productivity and assignments, it's really a challenge, and it's one we've never experienced to this degree."

Cary Baker, co-owner of P.R. agency Baker/Northrop Media Group, was so sick a few weeks ago that the self-proclaimed Mr. Holistic Medicine" went to the doctor to get a prescription for a brand-new drug inhaler that combats the flu. In this case, Western medicine worked, and the inhaler helped Baker recover.

But what most helped Baker avoid falling behind on the job was being able to work from home.

"Fortunately I have a clone office at home," he said. "Hopefully in this age of telecommunicating, more people will have that and will be able to work from home and get more done."

Besides staff, customers also are feeling the effects. "I know it affected the holiday party," said Fremaux at Lawry's. "They were calling and changing the guest counts for e New Year's Eve party we had. It was prepaid and we had a lot of emergency refunds that night."

If anyone is benefiting from all these sick days, it's temp agencies.

"We do feel it's increased our business," said Janet Jobe, assistant manager at AppleOne Employment Services' Glendale office. "It's a profitable time. It's good for business, but unfortunately at the expense of someone else not feeling well."

Jobe said business has been busier than usual since the flu first struck in November. But it hasn't been all rosy, because temporary workers and the agency's permanent employees weren't immune.

"We're having to replace our temp employees," with other temp employees," she said. "We've all had it, in some form or another. Because it happened over the holiday period, which is very stressful in general and a very busy time for us in the temp business, we're overly stressed out and can't take a lunch break, which lowers our resistance."

The flu has been circulating through the creative services department at local television station KTLA-TV Channel 5. But only half of the workers in the 12-person department have had to stay home sick, and none have been out more than a couple of days.

"I was out one day," said spokeswoman Carolyn Aguayo. "I knew I was coming down with it, I tried to nip it in the bud... We say if you're sick, don't come in. And if you think you're getting sick, it's best to take a day and get better."

An average of 10 to 20 percent of Americans contract the flu each season, according to the Centers for Disease Control Web site. In the last two weeks of 1999, however, 3.1 percent of patients had contracted the flu, according to the CDC's most recent Influenza Summary Report.

The percentage of deaths attributable to the flu and pneumonia during those last two we were 8 and 8.4 percent, respectively, up from averages of 7.1 and 7:2 percent.

Fremaux, for one, isn't expecting things to get better anytime soon. "The bad news is, the say it hasn't even peaked yet."