I injured myself at work two nights ago. Smashed my ring finger on my dominant hand between a cart and a doorframe.
The kind of thing that just 'happens' sometimes. Swelled and purpled immediately. One of those moments you know immediately you just f'ed up.
I iced it right away and went to tell the manager. She said I didn't need to do an incident form unless i was getting treated. I decided not to go. I could somewhat bend the finger, my manager also advised wait and see, and i didn't really want to go anyway.
It was no better — color worse and stiff now — in the AM. I called out that day to go get treatment. I don't have a car, so I walked 1.5 miles to my in network, employer-preferred urgent care to find out their xray guy is on vacation. So I walked all the way back and went to the ER literally next to my house instead. Luckily workplace injuries are fully covered in my state iif you follow all care instructions and the injury wasn't due to gross negligence.
Not broken (whew). Doctor says it's still pretty bad, and im definitely in pain, so he says to take another day. I can't really use my hand anyway. But that means I'm missing two plus days of work now. If I don't follow instructions and stay home, I'm told L&I could deny my claim for the bill and ill be on the hook.
Here's the internalized capitalism part. I have been crying with guilt about hurting myself, and now I feel guilty for getting treated, because now I have to miss more work or be stuck with an xray bill I can't really afford even with my insurance. I just had them increase my hours a few weeks ago, and im terrified they will take that away. They agreed to the increase, but the deal was I was to try to be exemplary for attendance. I feel bad for letting my team down becausewe are already understaffed. Sick time will cover part of what I missed but I didn't have enough for all of it. And no, work won't pay the wages anyway even though it happened there, just the medical bill.
Now I'm on my couch, feeling useless and a burden, because of an accident that could happen to any of us, and because I dared to get medical attention.
Thanks, capitalism!