I remember when I lived in the States when I was working for Home Depot and I had a massive blister on my foot that had sheared the skin off right down to the fat cushions, I called in and said I couldn’t work that day as I was up at my doc for treatment.
The MoD I got, we shall call him “P Rat”, told me “Oh can’t you come in, you can do some forklift work.”
“Errm. My foot is bandaged like an Egyptian mummy…”
“OK J**** but we really need you to come in, you’re the only one who can unload a mulch truck in 15 or so minutes and we are expecting at least 20 deliveries, you’d be out there all day so no one will need you in the actual store.”
(For context, a “mulch truck” was what we used to call full delivery of palleted mulch bags on the back of a semi tractor trailer. The trailer was a flat bed so we just drove into the untied palletized mulch, lifted it off the bed and put it to one side neatly and in order. Average unloading time depending on weather and skill of driver was about 20 minutes, I could do it in 15 or near enough.)
https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/semi-trucks-on-a-four-lane-highway-near-the-ivanpah-solar-power-picture-id1381897916?b=1&k=20&m=1381897916&s=170667a&w=0&h=BUl6pOLOP12z63PKHAEig8oBh2bk0LjS-s0QJ3oCe9A=
Also for context this was Florida. In summer. In the back parking lot which was where we kept all the pallets of soils… rocks… mulch… and was a boiling sun trap. You basically did what you had to do, get back in the store and wallow in the AC. People who actually live in Florida don’t hang around in the sun, only tourists do that…
Anyways, I replied “No I really can’t I’m at my dr and I already spoke to A****** and he cleared it with me when I showed him my injury and he more or less threw me out the store and said don’t come back until that is healed”
“No we need you in. if you don’t come in it will go down as an absence not a call out and you may get written up”
“OK write me up, I’ll be phoning A******* soon as I hang up with you and tell him what’s going on”
Phoned A*******, told him what was going on and he more or less said “let me handle this.”
He calls me back a bit later and says “you can relax J*****, put the guy straight and the store manager just cleared you to be off sick.”
One thing I hated about working in the US, you literally work till you drop dead or your foot falls off.