When I first found the lump in my wrist and went to the doctor I knew I would have to have surgery. I knew it would have to be soon, it was growing fast and affecting me in a pretty substantial way.
I went to the HR office at one point to discuss time off and insurance issues. Man, I was assured that my total outlay for this thing was going to be $500. Just $500 and that’s it, easy enough, that’s my deductible and I won’t have to pay anymore for the rest of the year.
Of course, considering the wildly different answers I got week by week concerning the amount of time I was taking off and what was covered under sick time and short term disability I should have known it would not be that simple.
It seems that the initial $500 is to be given to a short, ugly, bespectacled bureaucrat who will take it outside and burn it in a trash can. It actually covers nothing. Nothing. I’m getting seperate bills from the hospital, from the surgeon, from the orthopedic clinic and today the anesthesiologist sent me a bill. I expect tomorrow I will be getting bills from the nurses, the lady who checked me in and the little old lady who wheeled me from the recovery room to the front door when I left. I mean, i know she wore a tag that said “Volunteer” but I am sure she will find it in her shrivelled old lady heart to demand $40-$50 from me for her services. She’ll probably say I was fatter than she should have been expected to push around and there’s a fat girl tax. I didn’t want her to push me to the door, it seemed so very wrong to have such a little old lady pushing me in a wheelchair, but they didn’t let me walk.
So, please keep in mind, short term disability does not kick in after 5 days, you DO have to use all of your sick time before short term disability does kick in, you can take a 2 week vacation with a minimum of harassment but you cannot take 2 weeks off to recover without a 2 notes from your doctor, a dead goat and 14 pounds of distressed denim given as a sacrifice and your “one time only” $500 charge will quickly turn into $1000!!!
Good lord, this this this this is the reason why people start drinking at lunch! I’m packing up my flask for tomorrow and anyone who challenges me will get whatever is closest to my hands at the time shoved up their asses.
sideways.