Hello guys, you all have helped me in the past with my POS car and now I need some opinions on another matter. I'll apologize now for the length. Please read and help me.
I work at a garage doing mostly tire work and oil changes and stuff like that. Over the past two years of repetitive use of my wrists, mainly the left one, I have developed tendonitis. My doctor told me I have it in both wrists, but it’s only really bad in my left one. The earliest I remember feeling the pain was last fall. It wasn't real bad at the time so I never really did anything about it. I talked to the boss that I had at that time and he thinks he remembers me commenting about it back then. It just gradually got worse over the months. I'm only 20 years old, so I never really knew how work related injuries work. I know ignorance is not an excuse. Anyways, I believe it was August the 8th that it was so unbearable that I had to go see a doctor. Me being the young fool that I am didn't even want to go to my family doctor because I didn't think they would not even be able to tell what it is. I wanted to go to a specialist or something. I didn't think a regular doctor would be able to do anything about it. Like I said, I'm a young fool. Well, when the doctor came in, she said right away that she could tell that I had tendonitis. Little did I know my left wrist had a huge inflammation? The doctor left the room and I was just staying at my wrists comparing it and couldn't believe I never noticed it before.
The doctor told me to rest it and take off work for a week. Instead of actually taking off work, they moved me to "light duty" which was working behind the counter, talking to customers and what not. After I returned to the doctors a week later, it was still not better. Two more weeks later it was still not better. Now, a month later, I tried to work my old job back in, because I was feeling guilty not working out there, plus I hate working behind the counter. There was no chance I could continue working. In fact, my wrist is killing me as I type this.
The big problem is that I hate the company I am working for and I've wanted to quit all summer long. Now, it is worse than ever and I can't stand going to that place. I'm a full time student, so I only go there after classes for a few hours, but during the summer I was working over 60 hours at times. I want to leave this job but my wrist is still not better. There are so many things that I cannot do because of it. Such as ride my motorcycle that I bought this past spring. Totally ruins the joy of owning one don't you think? I can't work out like I used to. I used to go to the gym everyday at school and now I can't lift weights. I used to run 3 to 4 miles several times a week and do a bunch of exercises after that. I can still run fine but now I can't do push-ups at all, or pull-ups. I can't even work on my POS car for crying out loud. I still haven't even aimed my headlights that I got from ICESHARK, and I was on the original build. I have ball joints waiting for me to put in; I have a new coolant leak that I need to take care of. I am driving a car that gets dangerously hot because I can't ride my bike to school because of my wrist.
All of these things because of my work... For 9.50 per hour, I lose all these things that I once taken for granted.
What rights do I have as an employee? What can I do? I am not looking to take advantage of this situation. I'm not looking to commit insurance fraud; I just want my old life back. I don't know what to do. Should I look into getting an attorney?
My one co-worker asked me what I was going to do about my wrist and I told him, "quit" and he nearly flipped out on me. It was for my own good, he was telling me to never do that because if I can't do my job because of an injury at work, I should be compensated. What do I need to do about that?
I have no idea what do to do anymore.
Please help out a fellow member