Broken wrist, cant drive - 6 weeks off work or alternate transport....

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Broken wrist, cant drive - 6 weeks off work or alternate transport....

36 posts & 23 voices | Started 1 year ago by FunkyDunc | Latest reply from rewski

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FunkyDunc - Member

....if I normally commute by car from Bradford to Sheffield everyday ?

I broke my wrist on Friday and there is no way the pot will let me drive. My normal commute is 100 miles each day and on a good day takes 3 hours in total. The cast will be on for 6 weeeks.

My job is office based, mainly computer work and meetings, and its my left wrist so can write no problems, so there is nothing to stop me doing my job. The company have always declined my request to do home work in the past.

Looking at trains it would mean a 3 hour each way journey and being in the office for a max of 4 hours each day!

I'm certainly not work shy, indeed I know I will be bored in a weeks time, but is it unreasonable for my company to request I come in with such a long train commute everday?

The alternative is to ask the doc for a 6 week sick note, apparently something they do all the time for people with similar injuries...

I've not had the discussions with work yet, I just am wondering what experiences other people have had.

Ta

Posted 1 year ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

Your difficulty in getting to work is not the companies problem. If you are fit to work you are fit to work,your transport difficulties is your issue.

Your best bet is to have a chat with your boss / HR and hope they are kind to you and allow some home working.

Buy / hire / lease an auto car?

Posted 1 year ago #
maxray - Member

I did the twice as long commute option interspersed with the occasional lift from a colleague. It was a ball ache tbh so started driving as soon as I could manouver the gear stick with my cast.

Posted 1 year ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

Check with your insurers about driving. there are issues with driving with a cast on

Posted 1 year ago #
allthepies - Member

Wot TJ said. 100 mile / day commute seems crazy to me and now unfortunately you're suffering the consequences.

Posted 1 year ago #
FunkyDunc - Member

Yep insurance will be invalid, and I wouldnt fancy driving with only one hand. The cast is at such an angle that the palm of my hand is angled away from the steering wheel.

As above they have always refused home working.

Posted 1 year ago #
TurnerGuy - Member

B&B or small hotel...

Posted 1 year ago #
julianwilson - Member

How flexible would they be under these circumstaces?

Do you have kids?

If no, have a look at how much it would cost you to spend the money you would have spent on fuel (500 miles a week ust be quite a few quid) on a cheap-as-chips b&b walking distance from work, then ask if you can do flexi-time/longer days to cut it down to four days a week and three nights in b&b. Lots of our student nurses/doctors/OT's do this as they often don't drive, their training placements are so far away but not long enough (in months) to bother moving there. You will have absolutely no life for six weeks, mind!

Posted 1 year ago #
TandemJeremy - Member

Trains are an hour and a bit each way by the way
http://www.thetrainline.com/buytickets/

Posted 1 year ago #
FunkyDunc - Member

Yep 1 year old child and wife that works very long hours (hospital doc) so cant be away in the week.

TJ I dont live next to Bradford station or work next to Sheffield station. It would be 3 trains and a 20 min walk.

If the company Mrs FD and I both work for hadnt relocated her from Sheffield to Leeds we wouldnt be in this problem ....

Posted 1 year ago #
jamiep - Member

will you be able to type? I recently broke hand/wrist/fingers and couldnt use that hand at all. Typing with one good hand quickly caused pain, in the hand, forearm, shoulder, neck.

Posted 1 year ago #
steveh - Member

The best bet is to talk to your boss about what you can do. Could you go in a couple of days a week on the train to "collect work" and work on it at home the rest of the time. In my experience if you're seen to be trying to work most companies are quite decent.

Posted 1 year ago #
rocketman - Member

when i did my scaphoid in, work paid for a taxi 5 days a week for 17 weeks

Posted 1 year ago #
imnotverygood - Member

Somehow I can tell he's able to type

Posted 1 year ago #
nsbikescore1 - Member

I broke my collar bone 2 weeks ago and the consultant gave me a 6 week med cert. However, my intention is to go to the gp to get a fit note saying I can do certain tasks.

Posted 1 year ago #
TurnerGuy - Member

more than 2 weeks off for a broken collarbone is pushing it...

Posted 1 year ago #
steveh - Member

I broke my collarbone 2 weeks ago as well, had 2 days off before I was back at work (which is 30-40miles away depending where I go).

Posted 1 year ago #
TheLittlestHobo - Member

Snapped my patella tendon mid jan. Was officially signed of for 2 months while i had my brace on. Zero weight bearing for 2 months means diddly squat on my leg.

I had the op on the monday and was back at my desk the following monday. I had a collegue pick me up in the morning and the wife collect me at night. I had to be lifted into the car and sit sideways with straight leg. Got around on crutches.

After 2 months i had built the knee up enough to put weight on it and had the brace removed so i could drive.

There are ways around everything if you are willing to put the work in

Posted 1 year ago #
tonyg2003 - Member

I'd guess that you must be able to drive an auto? My next door neighbour had a massive stroke in her mid thirties and has no use of one arm but drives fine. Auto wipers, auto lights and all you are left to do is steer and indicate (or not for some car makes :D) Should be fine if most of your journey is motorway. PS. You may even like auto's - very relaxing...

Posted 1 year ago #
TurnerGuy - Member

How far from work are and how close could you get by bus - then run the rest ?

Or once you are in a cast and can then be weight bearing on that arm, cycle in?

Posted 1 year ago #
b r - Member

Get/borrow an auto?

tbh I broke my left wrist (and also damaged my leg) a few years ago. I was in hospital a few days and then let out. Off sick for 3 weeks, but as I managed a few teams I could still email/phone although I'd good number 2's For the 4th week the company paid for a taxi, and after then I drove auto anyway.

I also had a long commute.

If you're with a decent company, then you'll loose no money going sick - and if they'd like you to work, then - its home.

As said you're not insured.

And ignore TJ, he thinks we all live (and work) next door to railway stations and shouldn't commute anyway.

Posted 1 year ago #
5thElefant - Member

Plenty of one-armed people drive cars.

Buy an auto.

Posted 1 year ago #
coffeeking - Member

I think someone is going to be dealing with cack public transport! Congrats!

Trains are an hour and a bit each way by the way

Ahhh the epic misguided belief that trains are on time, have space and go to exactly where you need them to I don't think I've ever found a train service that wasn't clogged with people (usually drunks or ill people too IME!), late at least once a week yet infrequent enough to require you to catch one an hour earlier to sit in a cafe pre-work just on the off-chance of a late one, as expensive as driving and requiring a car or a long walk at either end.

Posted 1 year ago #
Flaperon - Member

Don't dare to suggest to Comrade TJ that a public service doesn't work perfectly 100% of the time...

IT'S THE TORY CUTS, I'M TELLING YOU!

Posted 1 year ago #
coffeeking - Member

I have to agree, in this case, that privatisation of public transport is a bad idea.

Posted 1 year ago #
Stoner - Member

hmmm. My 2hr20min train journey twice a week for the last 4 years has been more than 5minutes late maybe three times.

I love my train service. Its really reliable and good value (£66 return for 200miles+) on peak, £45 off peak.

Anyway, for the OP, id look at hiring an auto, or maybe get in touch with a motor mobility company to temporarily hire an adapted car - maybe getting details of insurance cover at the same time.

Posted 1 year ago #
coffeeking - Member

hmmm. My 2hr20min train journey twice a week for the last 4 years has been more than 5minutes late maybe three times.

Yeah the long-distance (particularly virgin) services usually do seem to work fairly well, my other half used to do 200 miles and it be on time and comfy every time. But try a local service and you'll see what an abortion it is.

Posted 1 year ago #
Stoner - Member

But try a local service and you'll see what an abortion it is.

rammed full of dole scroungers, skoolkids and wasters who dont have a proper job in Capital City to go to. That's why!

Posted 1 year ago #
traildog - Member

What a load of nonsense. My local train service is brilliant. It's not always on time but it normally is and it's far more reliable than the roads which get clogged due to accidents or road works far more regularly.
Maybe I'm a red as well, but I find trains the most civilized way of travelling other than the bike. Just make sure you bring a good book.

Posted 1 year ago #
Nick - Member

Talk to your boss, tell him what you are investigating and ask what the company can do to help you either by helping you with the costs, home working arrangements etc, show willing and hopefully (depending on the relationship you have with them) they will be accomodating in return.

Only experience I had was a collegue broke his hand and because we work for a company that takes these things seriously he couldn't come to work as it would invalidate their own insurance, only when signed fit again by the Dr was he allowed back on site, this is an IT company btw not some manual work environment.

On the otherhand, I've broken my collarbone twice since working here and both times I've not missed a day, just didn't tell anyone in HR....

Posted 1 year ago #
john_drummer - Member

Trains are an hour and a bit each way by the way

if they run on time and if you make all connections, as the OP says, he doesn't live or work anywhere near a railway station.

10 years ago during the "petrol crisis" I was doing a very similar commute, Baildon to Hillsborough. This normally involved a car journey, but then it got to the point where I didn't have enough petrol left to do a one way journey, let alone the round trip. So the train option was train Baildon - Shipley - Leeds - Sheffield, then tram or bus out to Hillsborough. What should have taken less than 2 hours, due to trains being early / full or simply not turning up at Shipley the first morning, this journey took over 4 hours.
I took the rest of the week off as holiday and by the start of the next week, the petrol stations were operating again.

Anyway. Tell em like it is - work from home or 6 weeks on sick note as commuting by public transport is not a viable option.
If it was your ankle that was broken rather than your wrist, I'm sure they'd be a lot more, er, accommodating...

Posted 1 year ago #
coffeeking - Member

What a load of nonsense. My local train service is brilliant. It's not always on time but it normally is and it's far more reliable than the roads which get clogged due to accidents or road works far more regularly.
Maybe I'm a red as well, but I find trains the most civilized way of travelling other than the bike. Just make sure you bring a good book.

I'm happy for you that your local service is good. Mine used to be (when I had one, one doesn't really exist here) horrific, lost count of the number of times
I was invited to a fight, or invited to stop a fight.
Lost count of the number of colds and illnesses I got a year - I did have one most weeks while training it, yet strangely got sod all the next year while driving (despite working in a multi-national company with people coming and going across the world all the time).
Lost count of the number of times I had to stand for 40 minutes to travel 17 miles, after standing for 20 minutes on a station.
Lost count of the number of times I was sat next to some muppet with his headphones on stupidly loud.
The number of times I paid for a monthly pass, didn't get my ticket checked once and some tax dodging scum walked through without paying the whole way.

Know exactly the number of times someone literally shat themselves and vomited on the seat next to/immediately infront of me - that would be twice (nothing to do with me I dont think!).

Had to travel in rush hour times as the timetable didn't coincide with my working day.

Not to mention the fact that I simply couldn't fit into the seats on the trains most of the time, not due to being fat but because they seem to assume peoples thigh bones are 6" shorter than mine (see pic).

Civilised, not in my experience. Far from it.

At least in my car I paid about the same in fuel and parking, yet could sit in comfort, listening to my music. If I had to travel in rush hour I could make it there in the same time it took me to walk to the train, use the train, and then walk to my destination. If I went out of rush hour times I could make it in 30 mins, about half the time the train took.

Posted 1 year ago #

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