Officially three stories in my world have culminated into one big shit storm.... a sort of "perfect storm" if you will. And for me to tell these stories I need to go back to the day after the transplant while I was lying in my hospital bed dealing with some early issues related to my transplant. Now you might wonder why I'm writing a transplant related story in my Robots in the Paint blog. And the answer is that I want my Kevin's Kidney blog to remain as a positive story line and the stories I'm about to tell don't make me very happy. So lets get into it.
Story line one: A tale of two bosses.
It's the day after the transplant and people are texting and emailing me but I'm not much up to texting everyone back or replying to email so I mostly blow off everyone. I did feel the need to let my bosses know that the transplant went down and that they wouldn't be seeing me for a few weeks. One of my bosses had texted me before I sent my email. In his text he wanted to know when I thought I would be back to work.
My bosses are brothers and this boss is the less talkative of the two. He's always short with words and very to the point. Sometimes you ask him a question of did you mean this or did you mean that and he answers "yes". The other brother is far more talkative and shares funny stories. This text was from the less talkative so it wasn't too surprising that his text was short and to the point. Still... there was no "hope you're doing ok" or "how did it go?" Furthermore in the weeks since I've been out there's never been a card, or a fruit basket or any indication that they wish me well or that they hope I'm doing well. All contact has been through this one brother and it's been all about the work and when do I think I'll be back.
At one point I planned on stopping by to pick up my laptop so I could start working 20 hour weeks from home. I emailed them to let them know I was planning this... for a few days no response. Then I wrote to them again to mention that I was thinking of coming by the following Monday to pick up the laptop. Again no response. Monday morning came and I was on my way to have my labs done and I emailed them again to say that I was on my way to get my labs and to ask if on the way back I should stop by to get the laptop. The response finally came in... it was simply the word "NO" in caps. That was all that was said.
A few days later I had sent them a status update, which I had been doing weekly to keep them informed on what was going on over in my world. They never replied to any of those updates. But a few days after I had sent that update the same brother replied telling me that they didn't need me to do any work for them until I was capable of doing a full 40 hours. He gave a few reasons for this, none of which seemed to be logical to me... but these guys are old school and their thoughts while ridiculous to me were valid to them and so what could I do or say? They made their decision and I wasn't going to be able to change their minds.
All the while I've only ever heard from the one brother and the one who usually has less to say... the other brother hasn't been heard from in 6 weeks. There's a little bit more to tell regarding this story, but only after I tell you the other two stories.
Story line two: Monster
For the last 25 years I've had an account on Monster.com. At some point during those 25 years I had set up a search agent. Do you know what that is? It's just a daily search of jobs that meet certain keywords, and Monster.com sends you daily email of any of these jobs that have the keywords in their title or description. I'm always too lazy to shut them off when I'm working at a job that I'm happy at and so these email come in daily whether I'm looking or not.
About two weeks after the transplant I had noticed that the daily email coming in were no longer specific to my keywords. They were about all these random jobs that had nothing to do with what I do for a living. So after a week or so of these email I went into my Monster.com account and discovered that on the 6th of November someone had changed my search agent. The fields had all been emptied out but the search agent had been left in place and active. I thought this was odd, how could someone access my account? Unless of course they had access to a computer upon which I had opened my account previously and allowed that computer to "remember me" so I didn't have to log in every time I looked at a potential job. The only two places that would be the case would be here at home or on the laptop I used at work.
It's not a big jump to make to think its possible that someone in my office opened the Monster web site on my computer and could see my account all logged in. In fact I couldn't think of any other possibility except that I did it myself while in some kind of stupor since the transplant, but I don't recall any such thing happening and neither does Meg, who was my baby sitter in those early days.
Now, if I were them and I opened my Monster and saw the active search agent I might assume that I was looking to leave my job. So is that something that happened. Is there a connection there between the lack of hearing from the brothers and this odd happening on my Monster account? I just don't know, but it's certainly a possibility.
For the record while I was not currently looking there was a brief period last winter when I was considering it. Not because I was unhappy, but because I had just met with the transplant team and the financial coordinator had mentioned the expenses that would hit me during the first six months following the transplant and that made me suddenly aware that our company didn't offer Short Term or Long Term Disability coverage. I got nervous that the transplant would come any day, now that I knew I had no coverage. I started looking at potential jobs between mid January and mid March. Thinking the sooner I get a job with STD coverage the better off I would be. But mid March came and there was some hub bub around the company regarding new benefits packages on April first and there was an email asking us if we wanted STD and LTD options. So as of April first I now had STD and LTD. The company didn't offer to pick up any part of the cost, but at $13.00 dollars a week for STD and $22.00 per week for LTD, it seemed worth it to have coverage once the time came for the transplant. So once again I was perfectly happy at the company and felt good knowing that I had that security blanket.
Story line three: STD (not that STD... the other STD)
About ten days out from my transplant I was feeling pretty good. I had just spent another night in the hospital from having some kind of digestion related issue but was now feeling fine and was back home and started thinking about my Short Term Disability (STD). I personally hadn't done anything regarding the STD and was assuming that somehow the gal that handles all of our personal related issues and benefit related issues would have triggered the STD, but I wasn't certain. So on a Friday morning almost two weeks out from the transplant I texted the gal and asked her if she had done anything for me regarding this. She hadn't and wasn't even sure what was supposed to be done. She gave me their number and a web address and left it up to me.
My first thought was "wow... my company sucks sometimes". I called up the number she gave me and told the woman on the other end that I need to file my STD claim. She said it would be easier if my company filed it for me. Alas I knew the gal at the office wasn't too keen on having to do it, nor did I trust her to do it right, so I did it myself. when I was done doing it I had texted the gal from our company back and told her that they told me it was easier if she had done it. She replied telling me that it was illegal for her to do it. Sounds like bullshit to me... but whatever.
The woman I had spoke with when I filed the claim told me it would take at least seven days before they would know if I would get my STD approved. In my mind it was a no brainer... of course I would be approved. Seventeen days later I finally heard back from them. Thirty-one days after I had last worked I finally got the news that I was denied Short Term Disability. Shwew, what a relief to know... wait! What? I was denied? What the fuck? I just had a life saving organ transplant and I can't be around people right now because my immune system is being compromised by the anti-rejection meds. Not to mention that I had spent several days following the transplant in the hospital, sometimes in pain and vomiting a dozen times in a single day. And even when I got home from all of that it took another week or two before I could even consider taking on some workload and when I asked my bosses if I could grab my computer so I could do some work they told me NO, not until I could give them 40 hours. She replied "yes, but yours is a pre-existing condition that you received treatment for within the three months prior to signing up for STD so that disqualifies you".
The culmination of stories: Hostage
My doctors would say that I shouldn't go back to work until late January. My pockets and my bank account say I should have gone back to work two or three weeks ago. My bosses didn't want me back to work unless I could give them 40 hours a week. And I feel like a hostage because it's not like my bosses have laid me off so I could at least attempt to collect unemployment, but meanwhile they'll only take me back if I give them 40 hours a week and I don't even know if I can handle 40 hours. But I have no choice, I have to go back in and this Monday will be my first day back. I'll have doctor's appointments every other week and lab draws every week that will make it harder to do 40 than it might otherwise be.
I could repeal the STD decision but they'll have 45 to 90 days to make a new decision and by that time I'll have fallen too far behind on rent & bills and how will we eat, and Annie's birthday is this month as well as Christmas. So I have no choice but to go back. This will put my life and my new organ at risk, but this is the world I'm living in right now and it's had me very angry.
Then there's the whole Monster.com thing. Am I going to walk into work and discover that my bosses think I'm trying to jump ship? And what's worse is that the way I've been treated by them and the fact their STD that they contracted with is so crappy it almost makes me want to jump ship. But finding a company on the North Shore that does what we do can be difficult and I don't want to get back into the business of driving into Cambridge or Boston for work, but that's where 80% of the companies that do what we do are located.
Truth is, I've had it pretty good at this company despite their lack of concern for my health. They've given me plenty of breathing room. They're never standing over me and pushing me to get something done on some unrealistic schedule and when any job we've been on has tried to push me to meet unrealistic deadlines these brothers have always had my back and pushed back on these companies, which is more than some of the other companies I've worked for seemed willing to do.
So I'm stressed, angry, broke and disappointed and its impacting my ability to try and write. On the other hand we have some neighbors who have been very involved with keeping up with us since the transplant and they were very aware of all that was going on and they helped me to pay my December rent and while that makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, I'm simultaneously so very thankful for their kindness.
Its certainly strange to be in this position. To be allowing others to help us out. And I'm experiencing anxiety about going to work Monday on two fronts. One being how I'll be treated, the other how well I'll handle working for 40 hours or as close to 40 as I can handle. And what if I can't handle more than 20? Will they tell me to not come back until I can handle 40? STD was supposed to give me the ability to not worry about these things, instead it's pissed me off that I've paid over $450 for a STD plan that didn't even help me out and I see that my LTD has the same disqualifier so there's another $770 I've spent that if I needed it for reasons related to my transplant it wouldn't help. These things keep me up at night.
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