Stood My Ground at Work Today Relating to a Personal Injury

How about strictly hands-off advisory work, non-office, but keeping other hands-on people on track?

Too bad your boss is a schmuck, but that's a common phenomenon.

In search of compromise, go by your large animal vet and pick up the glove they use for rectal inspections on cows and horses.

Goes to your shoulder

And be the laughing stock of the crew. :)

Not to be used on his boss.

I would report for work, give my boss the written recommendations from the physician, and let the boss make the decision on what to do....Follow his decision....If you think he wants you to do anything that puts you at risk of injury, have him sign a note saying that he has read the physicians recommendations and takes responsibility for your safety on behalf of the company...If you are then injured further because of the risk your boss put you at, you can sue the company and him....or you can just tell 'em to F off and see what happens...

Actually that was the starting point of this pissing match yesterday. After my emergency room visit I was refereed to a hand surgeon who was more qualified to diagnose my injury.

He agreed that I can not do the physical parts of my job for at least another week but it was clear that he is an office type person who typically deals with other office people and has no clue about what actual hands on labor is. That and English is his second language which further complicated the problem.

From their I went strait to my manager and explained the situation and gave him full copies of all of my medical papers. The first argument was that the emergency room doctor wrote me up for absolutely no work for a minimum of four days. He took it that from there I should be able to come back to work Saturday. I told him no way in hell. The four day minimum was so that I could get enough time to schedule a proper examination by a specialist which was where I was just before I came in to work.

From there the discussion rather spiraled out in to unrelated BS about how he wouldn't have went to the hospital and how he would come to work injured regardless of the consequences and how he and another coworker are upset about having to work an extra two days this week to cover my shifts. BTW I was only scheduled for 4 shifts this week any way.

He did actually bring up the concept of the garbage bag and duct tape along with some sheets of packaging foam wrapped around my hand and arm.

I shot that down faster than he could say it.

The legal issues did come up and from what I can see this isn't much of a case. I did mention that if he gets me written statement that I have to work I will come in and do my best however I will be taking my full recommended amount of Percoset, three pills, before I get to work and we will see if I can get through one day without our company making it onto national or international news for a massive fuel truck spill and train wreck incident.

Seriously just one pill of that stuff messes me up something wonderful!

You know what's really sad, based on your comments I didn't put that in there as a joke (and it looks like I was right).

Well you shouldn't be operating heavy machinery if the drugs you are supposed to take effect your ability to drive, again your boss would be liable if something happened.

Sometimes management must be protected from themselves.

You can't risk nerve damage, that's just ludicrous.
You are absolutely right to tell him so.
It's the old old story...
I remember dragging myself into work with a real nasty sinus type cold to finish this 'urgent' job so it could get shipped out.
I ended up having 3 weeks off with acute sinusitis (ok it wasn't that cute.. boom boom).
I got back to work, and yes, of course, the job was still sitting there.
The world won't stop if you have a week off, your boss is just seeing how high up the wall he can pee.
Tell him a few days off now will save months off later and a huge compensation claim.
Failing that, just smack him in the mouth (taking care to use the uninjured arm)
Del

Let him know that the release form has the limits of what you can do.

His option is to have him send you to a company appointed doctor to have you released for full work duty. Which no doctor in there right mind is going to contradict another doctor.

Even if they do any additional damage would fall under workman's comp. And you would have grounds for mal-practice suit.

That being said I know with this economy jobs are hard to find. But is any job worth doing permanent damage to yourself. Report to work do what you can. If outside the bounds of your release refuse. Let him make the decision of your employment.

I told my boss that if he does not like the situation he can fire me over it since I would really like to have the whole summer off to work on our new house anyway.

He didn't like that option being it would require him to work every day until a new person was found and trained in and going by how long it took to find the last guy it could take months!

So the real issue is he has to work and get dirty. And all he can do is bitch and make you feel bad about it. Don't get sucked into his ploy and hurt your self more.

The thing is whenever he or anyone else has wanted a day off I have always filled in for them without complaint or question and when all of this is done if they want their extra work days back I have no problem putting the extra time to balance things out.

Also should anyone else get hurt or simply takes a vacation time requiring time off I wont have any issue with putting in extra days to fill in their spots as long as needed either. I believe in keeping things fair that way.

I really don't mind continually getting written up at work for putting too many hours!

Well as far as your injury goes there is not much he can do about it. If he can't find you work under the limits of your doctors release. All he can do is send you home. Under the family leave and medical act you got three months to heal before he can do anything.

Other then try and make your life miserable when you do return to full work status. Which the duration if any won't be long if you are filling in for others that much. You know don't bit the hand that feeds you. Sounds like your working the extra hours solves a lot of problems for him. Shame if that went away for him.

Thats what has bugged me since yesterday about this. Its a completely pointless pissing match that comes down to some petty and selfish laziness on his part.

If the roles were reversed and I had to deal with I'm being injured I wouldn't have questioned the doctors views and I would have told him to take as long as reasonably needed to get better even if it meant being gone for two to four weeks for things to heal up properly.

Our job is not hard but it does require regular short durations of fairly heavy exertion and dexterity at times but over all putting extra shifts is not a big deal by any means which is why I have never mind doing it when its truly needed.

Personally I would rather be at work right now. Having very limited use of one hand is proving to be at minimal very annoying while I am home. I cant even work on my stuff to any great degree either and its starting to itch and pinch something terrible now too.

tcm,

Sorry to hear of your injury. Hope you heal fast and complete.

Just a thought...........can you go back to your doctor, explain that given your job duties, it is imposable for you to work - PERIOD.

Ask him to revise your release to state that given your present duties, you can not work - PERIOD.

I don't think this is an unreasonable request.

Sucks that your boss does not understand the potential risk of additional injury and cannot accommodate you by placing you in a temporary position that will not put you in harms way.

I believe that the way your provisional work release it worded now, if you work and aggravate your present injury you will NOT be able to claim the additional injury on work as a Workman's comp case.

I agree that you did the right thing not going in but a revised work release statement from your doctor would be a help.

Good luck to you - hope everything works.

Hi there,

you found a conundrum eh? especially if your boss is the company or if your boss is you.

the cost is the future use of the injured limb or your job; you can get another job; or a temporary worker. either way this is when you need let the doctor step-in to the picture at work.

By the way you are actually just following doctors orders not standing alone.

Heal then return to work according to instructions of the medical prof

In a way this brought up a rather obvious issue with the companies HR department. Despite being a very large base company they apparently have very few reserve people with the proper qualifications to do the actual bottom end line of work that the company is based on. All available qualified people at this time are already assigned to other places.

There are lots of office people available but it sounds as if few to none have the required class A CDL and HasMat endorsements required to do the workload that the company is built on and the few who do have them will fight tooth and nail to keep from having to leave their office and travel several states away all the way to ND to sling dirty fuel hoses around in a train yard for a week or so.

I can see the situation you are in. You are risking losing your job in a period of high unemployment. It may not be easy to find another job. Your boss sounds like an uncaring person. I would try to get a note from the doctor explaining the severity of your burns and the fact that you are taking pain killers and shouldn't drive. At any rate, try not to antagonize him too much.

Fortunately around here people like me who have Class A Commercial Drivers Licenses with full HasMat endorsements plus a spotless driving record can pretty much write our own ticket in the oil fields here any day of the week. No shortage of high paying work for me by any means.

The thing is I like my job and its close to home plus the work load is reasonable as well and I would prefer to keep it if I can but no loosing it would not be the end of the world for me either.

Tough situation, but it sounds as though you have it under control. I hope the pain goes of quickly.

After I read about him, I was astounded at the Godlike stature accorded Vince Lombardi, he tried to guilt his players into playing with injuries that could be made worse on the field. To me, he sounded like your boss.

Very much so! Guilt, cornering, trying to get me to contradict what the paper work said, and in a way belittling my manhood because he knows a girl who got burned worse than me who went back to work, in an office of course.

Fortunately I know I have a bigger pecker than him and I can pee on the ceiling so I wasn't all that shaken. My wife doesn't call me "Batman" because of my dark brooding personality.

The thing is I have dealt with similar situations before with management types and I learned the hard way about how I act in these situations from day one ultimately determines how I will be treated until the end of my employment. I stand my ground and have no fear of what others who don't may say about me later.

I have family who have been in management positions for over 20 years and the word from their experience is you don't touch injured people with a ten foot pole about what they can or can not do until the doctors give them a full medical release paper. If you do its just asking for a hornets nest of legal action to get ripped open.

Hope it turns out good for you and above all else, get well soon !

There are many ways to make "Reasonable Accomodations" especially for short term. If I'm not mistaken the law concerns Handicapped and those injured in work or otherwise to maintain their jobs. It is up to your boss to comply with your doctors orders. He can either make you sweep floors or type memos as long as you stay within your restrictions.

I got a call from one of the big bosses, from a few states away, today and we worked out a deal. I am at work now and well wrapped up and in return I have a few favors I can pull in at any time now which means my coworkers have to play nice and stuff when ever I want time off for what ever reason.

I am still documenting this whole thing though and should I get hurt tonight or rip anything open its off to the emergency room for me and all of this becomes workmans comp and the companies safety departments problems.

I still hate company politics as much as ever though.

Question; do you belong to a union? If yes, you have more leverage. If not; sounds like you have everything under control.

It seems pretty rough.

If you have sick or medical leave coming, take it.

Or PTO (Paid Time Off), or vacation, Take it.

I do not know what kind of employer/employee laws are in your state (such as right to work) so I'm not even going to guess. But I will say, only Number One will look after Number One.

I had an engineer that worked for me that came into work with pink eye. I could not believe I had to tell an engineer to go home. And then have to explain to him, why.

It's not him I'm looking after, it was everyone else.