This one is long-ish.

So I have been unemployed for 6 months now. I had been working at a retail job in a second hand store for 2 1/2 years for a total douche and put up with so much crap. It was a great job. The pay was awesome and the coworkers and customers were the shit. The boss was crap, though. Total perv - hilarious - but perv.

I worked 6 days a week. 10 hour shifts. We didn't get a half hour break like we were supposed to. Apparently we had signed a contract stating that the half hour before we opened was our unpaid break for the day. Yet if we showed up for work late to that unpaid half hour, we didn't get our 50 cent/hr bonus on our paycheque.

So how did I end up losing the job? I still don't know. Neither did WSIB (worker's safety board) or EI (employment insurance) - which plays in my favour as I got benefits from both.

Back up to the last week of August in 2009. I was covering shifts left right and centre for people. I was on my ninth day in a row when I was polishing a ring on a polishing wheel. The prong got caught and it dislocated my thumb. Most painful experience in my life!

I waited 15 minutes before reporting it to my boss because he was dealing with a police reclaim. (someone sold stolen shit...nothing new there) The pain got pretty bad so I had to interrupt. I was sent to a walk-in clinic and then had to go to the emergency room. They took some xrays and shoved a needle in my hand to freeze it. Then they tried to pop my thumb back into place. After that it was another xray. The thumb was still fucked - I had to see a plastic surgeon. (who specialized in limbs and amputations)

I call my boss the next day to let him know that I needed to see a surgeon about my thumb and he was fine with getting someone to cover the next shift (it would have been day 10 in a row). I've also filled out all the worker's comp pages too.

I see the hand surgeon - get surgery - and some pretty funky painkillers. I am told that I cannot go to work without a themral plastic cast for my hand - I had a plaster cast that wouldn't provide enough support. Not that I could go to work anyways. I couldn't even undo my pants to take a piss - most awkward bus ride home ever.

I tell my boss that I have a doctor's note and can't work. He says 'it's not like you do any work anyways' and we hang up. I have to wait a week depending on others to dress me and bathe me as I am totally useless with one hand.

I get my thermal cast and head to work on September 9th. I show up and the boss comes out. He tells me that I am no longer working there and that he is giving me severance pay.

Asshat