Office/Work Injuries

Sometimes I bang my knee on the side of my desk. That kinda hurts.

I have mild carpal tunnel issues, but it only flares up when I get a new Playstation game. (This is true, btw.)

I ran over my big toe with a wheel from a hortizontal pulley that was carrying over 400 pounds of paper on it once. Toenail was black for months.

Oh, and I've been electrocuted many a time while working on our radio transmitter.

Well... two stories... one is sorta work related and the other is work related for someone I know.

When I was 22 I worked in the call center industry. My job was about 15ish miles away (pretty far in Vegas at the time, like, 1 1/2 hours bus ride to get there or back with a transfer). I had a car at the time though, it was a POS but it was a free car so I couldn't complain (given to me for free that is) the only problem with the car was, had to replace the clutch every 6 or so months. Long story short, after everyone helped me and showed me how to do it the first few times I tried to do it solo and had the car fall off of the ramp (front 2) and the blocks (back 2) and land on me (my chest) after being trapped for i figure 30-40 minutes and losing my voice from screaming I lifted the car off of my and shimmied out (lift, shimmy 2 inches, lift shimmy 2 inches......etc) my father came back from the mailbox and discovered me climbing the front stairs to our house covered in blood and took me to the hospital, I lucked out but never drove the car again and had to take a bus for four days until payday and I went out and bought a new car, financed and all. I consider it a work related story since I wouldn't have stayed at my job if I had to take the bus... nothing like a 3 hour round trip commute.

the other story is about my father. he bought his own buisness in Vegas when he first moved out there, sealcoating parking lots(actually a huge industry out there due to the sun baking the oil out of pavement). One of the things we did for lots was crack fill (put 450 degree rubber in the cracks on the pavement. What happens is, you take a big machine (like a pressure cooker almost) and put solid blocks of rubber in and it melts it to liquid that flows like water (450 degrees)... any who. One day he accidently put his hand under the spout that pours the rubber into the device that you fill the cracks with and covered his hand in rubber, after going to the emergency room (first went home to see what he should do..... he didn't have insurance at the time, family buisness) he lost most of the skinon that hand and it had to grow back, fortunatly he was a paramedic for a while and knew what to do, put his hand in a bucket of ice to cool it faster.

NOTE, 450 degree hot rubber during summer in las vegas is like, SOOOOooooooooooo not fun. Especially when you have to use a propane blow torch to burn anything in the cracks first, like grass or cigarette butts)

The most I've gotten has been a steam burn or two. Nothing serious just irratating as hell.

I had a cork-board fall on my head during my last summer job at Target. That hurt like hell.

In my second day on the job at Circuit City working in the warehouse, we had these super narrow slots to drive the power loader(kind of a fork lift with a big platform instead of forks that you stand on while driving). I was trying to change from one lane to the other which required some overly sophisticated manuevers and just when I thought I had it and amped up the power I plowed into a rack which wrinkled and snapped the metal shelves and cut my forearm in the process. Of course I told no one for fear of getting in trouble for wrecking the loader and spent the next hour pounding out the shelf with a mallet to try and make it flat again. The cut was long but not too deep so it didnt need stiches or anything.

I worked for a screenprinter last summer. My job mostly consisted of cleaning screens after they'd been printed. We used these shitty hoses for the de-inking stuff that we sprayed on the screens. One day one of them had a small leak and wouldn't spray, so in the spirit of Wile E. Coyote I brought it up to my face to look closer. It decided to break completely at that point and I got a mouthful and eyeful of ink remover. My eyes burned like hell for a few hours and my food tasted funny for the next day or so.

My friend Brian worked at a warehouse where a guy got cut in half by a forklift. That was apparently an injury.

I hope he got workman's comp. Or is it workmen's comp?

Klaus?

A guy put my head through a window when I played rentacop between high school and University. I spent the rest of the night being checked for a concussion and flirting with the X-Ray tech, but all that was hurt was my pride.

I put myself through school doing hard labour: dropping tv cable, moving furniture, working construction sites, working on assembly lines, that kind of thing. Not a scratch. Nothing worse than sunburn. Then I get a deskjob and . . . I slip moving my fucking desk. I did my back an injury that has cost me thousands in physiotherapy over the years and to this day hurts at least a little bit more often than not.

I do data entry for a health insurance company. My dignity suffers injuries on a daily basis.

Let's not be sexist...we are talking about the workplace. It's "workperson's comp".

When I was in High School I was a busboy at the local Mazzio's Pizza. The floor in the back was exceptionally slippery (not really sure why though - it was just your basic tile). One evening while carrying a bin of dishes to the back to be washed, my weight was shifted awkwardly cause I had overstuffed the bin and I slipped. My feet shot out in front of me and I was on my back. In the midst of falling I somehow threw the bin in the air. All the plates and silverware landed safely away from me, but the cups full of soda and the left over pizza found it's way onto me. Didn't really injure myself but my pride was in traction and my back was a little sore for the next day. I quit that night.

Apart from RSI which has made it impossible for me to use a mouse with my right hand I've been lucky.

<fx: touches wood>