2 posts tagged “broken bones”

Have you ever broken a bone? If not, what's the worst injury you've sustained?

I broke three bones in the one ankle just falling down a single step at work.  How embarrassing!  My boss at the time was a complete sociopath and actually intimated to the rest of the team that I had done it on purpose to get out of going to work.  As if!  It was bloody awful, ie, happened at the beginning of a heat wave shortly after we had moved to Sydney so I was stuck at home baking to death with no one to talk to or to help me pick up things from the floor etc.  I got really fed up with this so hopped (literally) on a plane first to my parents place in Melbourne and then to my parents in law's place on an island in the South Pacific (which just added to my psycho boss's conviction that I was 'faking'!).  I was not allowed to "weight bear" on that ankle for six weeks and then had about six months of physio to try and get everything working again.  I gained quite a lot of weight from sitting on my backside so much (meant I had to endure "looking fat" in my wedding photos) and still have some stiffness in that ankle.

This was not the worst injury I have sustained though.  that award would have to go to my teeth which you all know all about by now! 

70s me

What's the biggest mistake you've ever made at a job?

Accepting a job at a particular place that "sounded cool" after I first moved to Sydney more than 10 years ago.  I had heard it was a rather dysfunctional place to work but thought I could handle it.  Wrong!  I lasted a bit more than a year there during which time I shattered my ankle falling down the front steps of the building (and no I wasn't pushed - but my lovely manager at the time did try and suggest that I had done it on purpose to get workers compensation!!!).  One (or I should say two) good things came out of this experience though.  Two of the women I worked with there became and remain very good friends (one was actually my birth support person when my daughter was born and the other was on standby to do the same when I had my son).  Funny how adversity in the workplace can bring people closer together.