The current job I have requires a lot of physical activity. I’m constantly walking, lifting, climbing, tugging, and pulling my body in various directions. At any given moment, I’m finding bruises on my body but can’t always identify how those bruises occurred on the job. One might say I’m in an abusive work relationship, and this wouldn’t be far from the truth.
Although collectively I wouldn’t say that everyone on the job shares the same ideas regarding employee care, it’s a problem for me even if one person in a position of power and authority shows a sign that an employee’s personal wellbeing doesn’t matter. No matter how well a superior may speak in terms of employee care, if that superior doesn’t show this care, then there is no care.
Let me explain …
I’ve had a number of bumps and bruises on this job, but I’ve only considered two incidents to be serious enough to report. Because of those incidents, I suffered injuries severe enough to request workman’s compensation and take time off of work. Yet, neither time, did any the team leads seem to heed my injuries as sufficient enough for their care at least until a superior over them saw their actions as a problem.
It was the second major incident that I had on the job that made an overall manager take note that something was seriously wrong with the application of assistance for an employee’s wellbeing within the workplace. Through no fault of my own, both times the major incidents occurred, I suffered horrific injuries that nearly took me off of my feet. The first was damage to an ankle, and the second was damage to one of my toes.
It wasn’t until the second injury that my first injury was even known about, despite the fact that I’d reported both incidents the moment they happened to me. It took the second incident, that almost went undocumented, that a manager was horrified to find that proper protocol for some injured employees wasn’t being followed by some team leads. As if I already didn’t feel that I’m targeted on this job by narcissistic bullies, this situation only seemed to exasperate my plight.
To make a very long story somewhat brief, on two separate occasions, almost six months apart, my ankle was severely injured by a rolling object, and my toe was broken by a falling object. I reported both incidents the moment they occurred, but nothing was readily done about either of them. I went to the doctor to be treated, and despite written notes by the physicians regarding my care, the first incident was completely ignored by team leads, coaches, and managers.
It was not until the second injury I suffered that something was done, but only after days had gone by, and I’d already medically taken care of the injury myself. At least one of the coaches changed my work duties as soon as he heard about my injury; otherwise, it would appear to me that absolutely no one in authority actually cared about my wellbeing. The fact that I didn’t take any time off from work shows my insanity, but I’m a trooper, and I’ve suffered injuries far greater than this. So I pushed through it.
Nevertheless, the second time around, the toe pain and the inability to truly walk on my foot pushed me to demand that my incident receive the proper attention. When I originally reported my injury to a team lead only minutes after the injury occurring, I was told that I needed to file a an injury report so that a compensation claim could be filed on my behalf. Yet, the only way to do this was for the team lead to take down my information regarding what happened. Oddly, the team leader never got around to doing this even though there was plenty of time to attend to it the moment after I reported it.
Instead of the team lead doing what was necessary for them to do, they procrastinated the task and put it off until another team lead had to take over almost a week later. Because I didn’t want this situation to go unreported, I mentioned the issue everyday I was present at work to the team lead to do something about, but the team lead still never filed the report. Instead, the team lead gaslighted me into attempting to make me believe it was my responsibility to write up the report when I had no authority to do so.
In fact, each day I had to remind the team lead of their responsibilities regarding my injury report, and each day I reminded them, they always deflected their responsibilities back onto me. “You haven’t taken care of that yet?” “Just go to the doctor and we’ll take care of the bill.” “We’ll get that taken care of by the end of the day.” At some point, I began to realize that this team lead didn’t want to handle this aspect of their job, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the issue was me or them.
I’d already read the procedures for injuries, and I’d also been told what to expect by a few coworkers in terms of how my situation was supposed to have been handled by a team lead. However, the team lead simply wouldn’t attend to the issue. I kept wondering why it was my responsibility to stay on top of the team lead to handle the matter that was their responsibility to write up. It just didn’t make sense.
According to policy, the team lead had to file the injury report within seven days of my reporting the incident. Well, the end of the seven days had come, and this team lead still had not attended to the issue. I was left with no choice but to take matters into my own hands. I sought the counsel of a manager in charge and was met with what I considered to be a shocking response. Again, I felt as if I was being made to take the blame for the issue until the manager realized that I wasn’t at fault.
“Why have you waited this long to report this?” That was the response I was met with when I talked to one of the managers. “I didn’t wait. I reported it shortly after it happened, and each day I came to work, I continued to remind the team lead that the injury report needed to be filed. I know from reading the employee manual that today is the last day that a team lead can file after it’s been reported,” I said.
The manager I spoke to was shocked as a look of bewilderment spread across their face. The manager seemed to not understand me because they began asking the same questions all over again as if there’s some possible way they might have misunderstood me the first time I explained what happened. It was then that another team lead was called in to file my report, but the manager stuck around to make sure that the report was done.
At no time was I ever to file the injury report myself because it was not the proper protocol. So the manager was confused as to why my injury hadn’t been taken seriously – particularly since it was found that the injury resulted in my broken toe. “I believe it was taken seriously but simply not handled properly. At least it was acknowledged, unlike the last time,” I told the manager. The manager looked at me in disbelief and said, “What?”
I went on to explain to the manager how I’d been injured before, told three team leads of my injury, and even brought in a doctor’s note discussing the details of my injury and the recommendations for care on the job. Although the team leads had seen the doctor’s note and heard my explanation of what took place, neither of them filed an injury report on my behalf, and neither of them said anything in response to my injury. Instead, they seemed to ignore me, and despite the ankle injury slowing up my pace, I was still expected to stay on my feet and work. To my explanation of these events, the manager shook his head in puzzling wonderment.
“I always follow protocol, and what I gained from my former career is that documentation is everything. I can give you dates, times, notations, and even pictures, but none of that matters if the team leads don’t do their part to acknowledge the issue on my behalf. But what it does for me is show my evidence and how it was all ignored just in case I need it later,” I calmly explained. Based on the facial expressions of this particular manager and the things they said to me, I could tell that this situation and the previous one would not go unchallenged when they decided to talk to the team leads in question. Since two team lead managers have left the job, I could tell the concern this manager had about present and possibly future situations.
Legally, I had a case, but more than that, I wanted to reiterate a point. For whatever reason, I wasn’t receiving the same treatment as mostly everyone else, and these previous incidents that were ignored are proof. A standard of care that I needed didn’t matter to these team lead managers. Only one manager, besides this one, knew about my injuries and altered my work schedule to accommodate my injury. Strangely, I’d not seen that particular manager almost the entire time those accommodations had been made on my behalf.
Even more interesting is the fact that the team lead who was supposed to handle my injury report was off the last day the report could be filed so that another team lead had to complete it on their behalf. In addition, the team lead who should have handled things from the start began behaving towards me in a retaliatory way – stonewalling me, giving me the silent treatment, and addressing me in such a robotic way that I asked if something was wrong.
When I consider what I’ve learned over the course of my time on this job, the particular team who should have written up the report has always given me the vibe that they are for the employees, but after first beginning this job, I was sadly disappointed to see that this team lead is only for the employees who don’t cause friction within the workplace. Now I don’t intentionally cause friction for the sake of doing so, but when I do, it’s usually because of my tendency to ask questions and speak up about what appears to be an alignment issue.
Mainly, I will advocate for others, but I will particularly advocate for myself. If I have questions, I ask, and I have a tendency to look for justice in everything. If something is off to me, I question it, and I continue to question it until I receive an adequate response. If I don’t receive what I perceive to be to a truthful response, then I pull back and discern my way through the maze. My steadfast persistence often rubs some people the wrong way.
So it has been with this particular team lead. Despite the fact that this team lead shows an outward appearance of being firm, kind, and gentle, I have seen their outward displays of injustice and catty ploys too. They like to stir up trouble and create chaos, but it’s so subtly done that no one else would ever credit this team lead as being an agent of chaos. I’ve seen it, and I’ve been on the side of this team lead’s lies to me about the simplest of things, and if I didn’t suspect this team lead could be down with the coworkers I call mobsters because they silently like to bully, I’d have no doubt that this team lead would stand on the side of them and advocate for my removal.
After another team lead took over my injury report and completed it, the team lead who was supposed to originally report it no longer speaks to me in the same way. I take their silent and cold actions towards me to be their form of silent retaliation, but I don’t care. I now know what I know about them as confirmation, and their negative behavior towards me will not deter me from continuing to be me. I never considered this team lead to be an ally for me to begin with, but now I know and see the truth.
My Experience: The Way It Is In The Corporate World
In some ways, the actions I experience within this corporate setting are no different from the actions I experienced within my former profession within the educational arena. It just seems more pronounced and in my face now. It somewhat reminds me of interactions with people from the church world too. Some coworkers are so venomous and seemingly for no reason, except to be evil. I’m simply trying to do a job and go home, but then there are some people who get in the way of that aspect. I get that things happen, and I get that people will do as they please, but it’s annoying to have to constantly deal with a lot of immature behaving adults.
In this corporate world, I’ve learned a lot – mainly that my physical well being matters very little on the job to some. I must take care of myself and also advocate for myself because no one else will do so for me. It’s ruthless, and sometimes I feel that I’m going through obstacles that most coworkers would never experience on this job. Some coworkers make work life appear easy, and that all one has to do is go to the work space, perform their work duties, and go home. Why can’t I?
My Voice Unchained 