Sometimes people push so hard for “fairness” that they accidentally make things worse for themselves and everyone else.

So, what would you do if you were already struggling with back injuries at work, doing your best on good days and pushing through on bad ones, when a colleague decided it was “unfair” that others adjusted to help you?

Would you risk more pain to keep them quiet? Or would you turn the whole situation around on them?

In the following story, one woman deals with this exact scenario and gets help from her doctor to teach her colleague a lesson.

Here’s how it all played out.

Going forward, fit notes required!

The background here is that during work, I had an accident that damaged my back; slipped discs that didn’t resolve, and subsequent additional damage due to unnatural wear and tear from compensating for poor posture and gait.

I had a fit note that cleared me for light duties.

Now, most of my store team (and these guys are my family, even years later) were incredibly supportive of my various limitations.

Depending on whether I was having a good day or a bad one, they’d shuffle things around.

We did that for everyone, we worked to accommodate whoever needed a helping hand, just to clarify that I wasn’t given special treatment.

My main difficulty is standing still; sitting, walking, and moving are fine.

Everyone was fine with it, except one person.

On a good day, I can stand at the self-checkouts for a couple of hours (with some pacing). On a bad day, not at all.

On good days, I can work delivery or backstock; on bad days, I did decarding, facing up, putbacks, writeoffs, and sitting on tills.

However, one colleague was not supportive.

She considered it drastically unfair that everyone worked around my damage, so much so that she went above everyone to file a complaint with the store manager that I should be forced to do self-checkouts, too.

Sunday evening, one of the lower managers sent a charming message to the work WhatsApp group stating that going forward, ‘having pain here so you can’t do self checkouts, having pain there so you can’t do delivery, will no longer be accepted. Unless you have a fit note, you can’t refuse to do your tasks.’

When she explained the situation to her GP, she was furious.

I was scheduled to work on Monday, thankfully a closing shift, so I had a narrow window to work with.

On Monday at 8 a.m., the stars aligned; I was blessed to snag a telephone call back from a GP. If you’re in the UK, you’ll know how hard it has been to talk to a doctor, let alone see one, since the plague. It’s a nightmare.

Anyway, I explained the situation to her. And she was furious. She emailed me an amended fit note to hand in to work.

Of course, her colleague was beyond mad.

That afternoon, I cheerfully went in and handed it to the shift duty manager, who read it and then promptly started ******* herself laughing before letting me get started.

I received a 3-month fit note that prohibited me from lifting, pulling, standing, or doing anything remotely strenuous, and stated that I should take frequent, regular breaks.

Thus, it effectively barred me from all the tasks I did on good days.

Apparently, that colleague blew a gasket. She filed a complaint with the area manager, who dismissed it.

Then, she told him she’d go to HR about this and his inaction. She was promptly told that if she insisted, this would constitute harassment and disability discrimination.

Well, you did want a fit note.

Wow! Some people just can’t mind their own business.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit feel about her situation.

This person totally gets it.

It’s not the main point, but still interesting.

This person can’t believe the coworker acted like that.

For this person, most people understand even if they don’t announce it.

The coworker better hope she doesn’t end up in the same situation because karma can be pretty rough.

For real.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.