Saving My Knees: How I Proved My Doctors Wrong and Beat Chronic Knee Pain by Richard Bedard

Author:Richard Bedard [Bedard, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Health
Publisher: Fresh Visions Press
Published: 2011-01-15T23:00:00+00:00

9 Trying to Heal

Before hurting my knees, I’d never had much to do with human resources people. I knew they were involved in the hiring paperwork when you first joined a company, then sort of faded into the background. They resurfaced occasionally to lead sessions that alerted employees to such things as the career perils of sexual harassment. At one place I worked, they redesigned the yearly evaluations: a several-page form grew to about ten pages, requiring numbers and comments for a seemingly endless series of little boxes.

Now that I needed them to approve my plan to heal, I was eager to open a dialogue. I wanted to share what I had discovered about bad knees that my doctors apparently didn’t know yet. Their unflagging smiles were inscrutable though. It was impossible to figure out what they really thought about anything because their point of view seemed to have become one with the corporate hive mind. Their expressed “thoughts” sounded like iterations of policies.

To capture the essence of my frustration with human resources, in an inspired moment I thought up the parable of Grog and Nog:

During prehistoric times, Grog and Nog worked for Painted Rocks ‘R Us. They painted small decorative boulders that they carried to caves and arranged in the interior to maximum aesthetic effect. The company they belonged to was small but growing fast.

One weekend Grog hurt his foot in the woolly mammoth hunt. He went to work, limping noticeably. His job required lugging heavy rocks all day long, and he couldn’t do it comfortably. Finally he went to the company owner, Borg, and pleaded for a month off so his injury could heal.

“I like you,” Borg said, clapping him on the back. “You’re a really good worker. Take a month off. See you in September.” A month later, refreshed and healed, Grog returned to Painted Rocks ‘R Us.

Meanwhile, the company’s explosive growth continued. Large colored rocks became the must-have cave accessory for the troglodyte with taste. Revenue and profits spiked higher. More workers were added to keep pace with demand. Eventually a new company executive drew Borg aside.

“This operation is much, much too informal,” the executive said, shaking his head. “You let people take off a month or two when they hurt their feet, you’ve got no written guidelines for sickness or pregnancy or the accrual of vacation time, and that’s just for starters.”

“If someone doesn’t feel good, I just tell him to stay home until he feels better,” Borg said, blinking in puzzlement.

“Well, that’s all wrong. Some of your workers take one day, others a week or two. How can you be sure someone isn’t taking advantage of you? Besides, you’re not treating everyone fairly. You need rules, policies, and procedures.”

Chastened, Borg said, “Okay.” And so, over the next few months, a special team spent many hours discussing and debating and then writing down pages of rules, policies, and procedures.

Soon afterwards, Nog was out late one weekend vigorously flinging spears at a pterodactyl. He showed up at work Monday, moaning.

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