What Would Happen If An Injury Forced You Away From Work?

It’s a question that I’d genuinely never considered before. Going to work the next day always seemed like a given, just as it was for the day after, and the day after that.

But one sudden slip, and a tear of the ACL, changed all of that. All of the sudden, going to work the next day isn’t an option. There’s a need to find urgent care. Once you find out where to get urgent care, there’s the matter of figuring out a way to get there. Once you’ve received urgent care, there’s a need to find a specialist.

But you don’t want just any specialist, of course. You want the best. Then again, your first choice may be booked for weeks, and you need a diagnosis as soon as possible. So choosing the one who’s most available will do, for now at least. After all, you’ll likely need to set an appointment for a MRI afterwards, and this process is already inconvenient as it is.

On the other side of a diagnosis, surgery or rehabilitation might be necessary. But you don’t know any of that yet. For now, there’s just uncertainty, which complicates the task of answering two of the thousand questions on your mind: What exactly do I tell everyone at work, and do I even have the time and resources to figure this all out?

In my case, there were a few lucky advantages that made an invariably difficult process much less difficult than it could have been. Not least among those advantages is the basic fact: Writers can work from home and still perform reasonably well.

But I wondered about others. I was curious about how much easier or harder it would be for a completely different employee at a completely different job. So I asked other LinkedIn members.

(Photo via Flickr Creative Commons)

In an exchange with one member, concern about taking care of a child came up.

“If I were to leave my job I’d be in a really bad spot,” said Charity, an administrative assistant based in Georgia. “I really wouldn’t be able to afford the stop of income, since it’s my only form of income and I have a toddler. Honestly with the nature of business in general I’d probably be replaced.”

In another case, a member said a leave of absence would be possible, but only under certain conditions and for a certain amount of time.

“My job has provisions for long-term disability but any other leave will not be tolerated for more than a short period of time,” said Quinn, an IT support specialist in Pennsylvania. “While my departmental leadership would do their best to cover me and allow me to return to work, I don't imagine I would be able to leave for more than a month.”

Another member pointed out the intricacies that come with being a contractor: Getting the time off might not be much of a problem, but pay would be.

”Generally if I requested leave it gets approved by my supervisor,” said Dildeep, another IT specialist. “My contracting company is responsible for my pay. As a contractor we get no overtime or paid time off so any missed day goes without pay. That being said I could take a significant amount of time off but won’t get paid for those days.”

Of course, the conversation about paid leave varies case by case, especially for injuries or events that occur outside of the work area says Debra Lancaster, a professor at the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations.

”That’s when legistilation like New Jersey’s earned sick time would come into play if an employer doesn’t already have policies that support an employees,” told LinkedIn.

Only 10 states and Washington D.C. have paid sick leave laws, per the National Conference Of State Legislatures. In cases outside those states, at jobs without policies to support workers in cases on non-work related injuries, a leave from work could well be much more challenging.

How would you deal with having to take a leave of absence from work? Would you be able to work away from your job’s location if you suffered an injury? What are the immediately challenges that would arise? Share your thoughts in the comments below.