Neil And Dan at deaths door

So Neil turned up for work on Monday, having had off a month as sick, then today (Wednesday) he phones in sick again. His brain scan is somewhere at the start of August. I don’t think they’ll find much. Although Karen said we’d feel terrible if he has got a tumour or something. Then to top it all, Dan was feeling tired and fed up yesterday and booked the afternoon off. Then this morning he rang in late to say he’d only just woken up, so can he have the day off as holiday as well.
What’s wrong with everyone? I do a full week.

Dan's return

Dan has returned to work. While he’s been off he’s brought himself (well borrowed some money from his mom) an new car and a new television. He reckons he’s spent about £5,000 this month so far. He’s also bought an ipod for his sister’s birthday.
He’s still enthusing about his physio. He’s says he’s going to wait until his last physio appointment before asking her out. He doesn’t want any weird atmosphere while she’s still treating him.

As I said in a previous post, Mondays are always full of surprises. Of course Junior no longer looks like Doctor Evil, with four or five days growth of hair now. So all the Doctor evil stuff we were planning has had to stop.

Dan Update

Last week I sent a text to Dan for an update on his progress. To my surprise he said he may come in this week. Here is his text in full Ali G mode:

“Well, I responding well to physio, I also fancy my physio therapist, She is too cute!
May look to com bak next week if all is good.”

We all had to laugh at him fancying his physiotherapist. Karen didn’t seem surprised he was thinking of coming back, she said that he would have received a letter from HR informing him he was about to go onto half pay.

Missing Neil/ Dan on the mend

Since last Monday, when he turned up pissed and late and got sent home, Neil has not turned up for work or been in contact to phone in sick. He was under disciplinary procedures anyway, I imagine that if he does turn up, he’ll be out on his ear. This is quite sad because he was a good worker when he did turn up. Not like Clive who gets away with murder, then when he does submit any work it all needs re-doing. He’s got to be the next on discipline.

I also texted Dan yesterday to ask how he was getting on. He’s had plenty of visitors and his mates have kept him happy with more DVDs and stuff. His arm is painful, but he’s started physio and they reckon he’s doing okay. He was surprised about Neil going AWOL again. He asked is I hadn’t tried phoning him. I thought that it wasn’t really my place to ring. There’s obviously some weird stuff going on in Neil’s life, which I don’t really want to get drawn into. Surely the boss has got contact details for him and they should be talking to him to find out what the problem is, if they’re bothered.

Dan's arm

Someone had asked why Dan needed an operation on his arm. Some while back he was in a fight (it does so8und like a violent office, with Dan getting into fights and Neil coming into work once a month with black eyes, but it’s not. I will tell you about Jen getting dropped on her head during a night out in another post though). This was back in the days when his mate Lee worked with us, he recommended Dan for his job here, but he did tend to get Dan into a few difficulties. Consequently Dan took a bit of a beating and dislocated his shoulder. He had treatment for this at the time, but often complained about it aching for some time after.
Then one day, about six months later, he was putting on his coat to go home and dislocated it again. He tried to be brave about it, but he apparently stood by the lift with his coat on in tears with the pain. A passing woman came in and asked if we knew the guy in the corridor. Lee went out and brought him back into the office and called him an ambulance. He followed the ambulance in his car and stayed with Dan for some time at the hospital until he was released, bandaged up and with painkillers. This got my boss and his boss involved trying to do reports for the company’s safety department. They had to decide if it was a work related injury, and a lost time injury. This was difficult because he had dislocated it in the office, but he had switched off his machine and was technically going home. For a couple of months after this Dan showed up in the monthly team brief, and people were warned to be careful putting on their coats.
This is embarrassing because the whole of the company get this team brief every month, and of course people would ask questions during team brief (in other departments) about how someone could dislocate their arm putting on their coat.
In recent time this has only just been overtaken by a woman who fell while walking down the stairs, culminating in everyone in the company having lessons on how to walk up and down stairs safely. This is true.
Dan has had regular visits with a consultant at the hospital, who even tried some keyhole surgery on his shoulder ligaments. This did not work, so Dan has ended up needing proper surgery with bolts being put through his shoulder bone.
Even though he is a popular member of the team, there is a bit of resentment from some of them because of the company paying him for 4 to 6 weeks to convalesce at home. Although, most people were happy to lend him armfuls of DVDs to watch while he was off work.

Dan's progress

Everyone has been asking about Dan and his operation. So I sent a text to Dan yesterday to find out how his operation went and how he felt. This is the reply I got back:

“Op went well thanks dude, had many nice nurses round me:)
I get aches n pain mostly at night but I can handle it.
My ass is still intact, no signs of forced entry :) “

It sounds like he had a positive experience.

You may feel equally happy that Neil survived his brither's stag weekend unscathed as well.

Dan’s sore arse 2 - (Or his distrust of the medical profession)

Dan is worried about going into hospital for his operation on his shoulder, on Friday. The lucky bastard is having 4 to 6 weeks off work to convalesce. He’s worried that the surgeons are going to sexually abuse him while he is unconscious. I set him right, telling him that the surgeons will not be alone with him in the operating theatre, so it would be very unlikely that the surgeons would do anything untoward.
No. His real worry should be the hospital porters, who never get police checks done on them, and are all probably ex cons. They are the ones who will be alone with him while he is unconscious. He is now increasingly worried that he will wake up with a sore bottom.
“Oh! And the male nurses.”
“Yeah, they’ll all be batty boys.”
“I’m not going to be operated on if I get a male nurse.”
“Well, they change throughout the day don’t they? They all work shifts. So you might get tucked up by a gorgeous blonde nurse on the night time. You’ll probably dream about her all night. Then six o’clock in the morning (because they all start early) you’ll get woken up by some big hairy geezer threatening you with a bed-bath, before you’ve even had your cup of tea.
That’s even if he is a nurse. You know how bad hospital security is, he could be some mental patient who just happens to find a uniform and goes round touching-up patients.”

Dan looks increasingly worried. I think he’s going to put up with his bad shoulder.
“I imagine there are some nurses, or porters or anaesthetists who have their own website, where they post pictures of themselves doing depraved things with the unconscious patients. Then the first you’ll know about it, Other than your sore arse, is you become video stream of the week on U-tube.”

Dan’s sore arse 1

Dan was with us standing outside the lift on Tuesday morning waiting to go down to the canteen for breakfast. The first thing that came from his lips was
“Damn, my arse is sore.”
If you didn’t know what he’d been up to at the weekend, you would wonder what he’d been up to at the weekend.
Of course we had to ask if he’d been up to any abnormal sexual practices even though we knew that he’d been go-carting on the Sunday (and they don’t have much suspension), and on the Monday he’d been snowboarding at the snow-dome, and falling down on his arse a lot.

Dan's dream

Dan comes in to the office late. He’s so late that he’s bought his breakfast up with him from the canteen. As he sits down he tells us that he would have thought we’d gone down to get breakfast earlier. We tell him that we always wait for him… unless we’re really starving.
He says that he’s had the weirdest dream this morning, which made him late.
He was doing ninja flips down the office.
At one stage I did five spins in the air, from here (he points) to there (points again), without touching the floor.
Neil: “You dreamt you were in the office?”
Dan: “Yeah man doing ninja flips. It felt really good though. Exhilerating.
He tells someone else it was brilliant.
He later tells us that he had a sword as well, but won’t tell us, or can’t remember, who’s head he chopped off.

Carl comes down to Dave’s place and shows his strength by picking up the rack containing his files by pushing together either end.
Dave is impressed, when Carl puts them back down in one piece without dropping any. He pinches a file on Rob’s desk and says try it now.
“No” says Carl” You’ll only tickle my balls under the table and make me drop them, then I’ll hurt my bad arm.”