When The Job Expects You To Toe The Line

I broke my big toe, and I’m at the hospital. When it becomes apparent that I’m going to be here a while, I call the grocery store where I work to let them know.

Me: “I’m going to be late. I’m at the hospital.”

I explain the situation, but my boss seems unconvinced.

Boss: “How convenient that you broke your toe before your Black Friday shift.”

Me: “No, you mean how inconvenient I broke my toe at Thanksgiving and woke up in a world of pain.”

Boss: “You know the rules for today. No call-outs. You don’t come in today, you’re fired.” 

So, instead of finishing up in the waiting room, I leave the medical office and head into work (driving with a broken toe was not my finest hour) and decide upon arrival that it’s too painful to wear shoes on that particular foot.

The customers were appalled when they saw my broken toe through my sandal, with blood on my sock. When they complained, I directed them all to my boss, who, after being berated by the third angry customer in a row, told me to just leave.

The doctor finally got to see me that night and told me if I’d kept off my foot that day, it would have recovered in a couple of days, but now that I’d been moving around all day, I would need to be off the whole week at least. Score!