The New York City health code mandates that all fast food restaurant employees must wear plastic gloves when handling or serving food.

But, writes Russell Marlow in the New York Times, it seems that many of those employees in New York think that gloves — no matter how long they have been on their hands — are some sort of amulet, a magical talisman that wards off any type of germ. As long as they are wearing them, they can do anything they like with their hands.

I have often seen food servers go from cleaning to serving without changing their gloves. I have seen them eating, handling money, even smoking with their gloves on before going back to serving. I have seen them coughing and wiping their noses with their gloves. I have witnessed, on more than one occasion, gloved food servers taking out bags of garbage before returning to serving food with the same gloves.