I'm a tradie and I recently suffered an injury to my wrist at work. Repetitive strain motion has caused some of my tendons to flare up and I've been seeing a physio every Monday for the past 3 weeks.
She said I should avoid strain and recommended light duties.
Since there are no light duties at my job, I've been sent to our headquarters to sit around and do nothing for 40hs a week, and still get paid. My company has a big issue with allowing people to take time off during recovery of a work injury. It looks better on their records to have people on 'light duties' rather than signed off.
Today I received an email from my manager that said the following:
“I have a couple of things to ask regarding your injury:
1)Can you please let me know if you are alright with the physio and your GP giving us a report for your progress and recommendations going forward? If yes, can you please share their details with me and I’ll contact them to ask for the information.
2)Are you still required to wear the brace?
I hope your appointment on Monday goes well and I hope you have a lovely long weekend! I’ll catch you next week at some point Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.”
I feel extremely uneasy about them contacting my doctors without my envolvement. I have no problem providing reports from my doctor, but I don't think it's appropriate for my work place to get in touch with them.
I was given a brace to provide support if I do strenuous activities (cooking, driving). I've been wearing it at work, I forgot to put it on today and I guess my manager noticed? I find the question about weather I need my brace or not a bit odd, and honestly, controlling.
I'm suffering from a lot of anxiety at the moment and I find it hard to evaluate if this are normal requests and concerns. I've been feeling for a while that my workplace is quite toxic, but I struggle to evaluate objectively.
What do you think?