No idea of anywhere else that I can put this out there. I have a chronic pain issue and surgeries, specialists, and pills make my life bearable. I work hard to not make my pain worse or live my life dictated by it. My work is moving back to office and so I requested to continue my work from home status. My pain is worse when I got to the office and I wanted to continue to work from where I can get through the day without sobbing from pain. My work is a desk job and my performance, according to my manager, has done nothing but get better. I made my request to the proper channels and got two blank forms. No instructions or guidance came along, simply have your doctor fill this out. After paying out of pocket to have my pain management specialist fill this form out and send it back in I was told that work made a “reasonable exception” for me by moving my parking place. Driving and the walk from the parking garage we’re both listed as reasons as well as others. The best part is that the parking garage they moved me too they also moved my entire team to. After going to HR I was informed they have no control over this and my best option was to have the doctor (after another consultation fee) fill out the paperwork in a different way. No medical professionals on my company side examined this and even though I signed a medical release for them to view the large and documented history of this they did not.
I have no option to leave as I need the insurance for my condition. I am hunting for another job and one that will allow me to work remote full time, but until that ship comes in it’s back to 9 out of 10 on the pain scale sitting in a cube. All anyone says is “I’m sorry” like they can do nothing except they are the decision makers who made this choice in the first place. Being forced to tell strangers about my condition and what it does to me only adds to this humiliation. I’ve had to describe and explain what it is I go through everyday to try and justify my request. How do I make them see pain? I just am frustrated and have no one or nothing that can help except trying to do what they want and see if this time I can find the magic phrase they want.