I feel like a useless tit.

2

# 23

New member
Yup, you read that right. Right now I am sitting at home when I should be working. But I can't.

I work in a shop where we throw wood around all day. Once you get the hang of the job, it's not really that labor intensive, but it is monotonous. (Damn, the word "monotonous" is monotonous with all those O's.) I've been at this place for just about two years, and I really enjoy the job and most of the guys I work with, including the manager.

I'm a pretty small guy. Only about 5'4", 5'5", and 120 pounds. I'm built pretty small at about 41, 34, and 31 inches. But there isn't that much that I either can't do by brute force, or find a way to do by levers and such.

But apparently I'm just not suited to doing this type of work for very long. The first year and a half at the job, I was fine besides having both tennis elbow and golfer's elbow in the same fucking elbow. I got that taken care of, and was fine for a while again. Over the last three or four months, though, I've had to take occasional long weekends because of sore muscles. About three weeks ago, my shoulders started bothering me, and the back of my neck was getting sore from extremely tight muscles. I went to the chiropractor, and he cracked my back and neck a couple times each. After feeling my shoulders a bit he said that they were probably sore from working with my hands above the shoulders or head, which does match part of my job description.

Yesterday, I called in to work and said I was too sore to work. My back was sore, my neck was sore, and my right shoulder was a little sore. I got some beer and had a few lastnight, and although slightly hung over this morning, I wasn't feeling too bad. So I went to work. A half hour in, I got switched off of the easy job to one where I actually had to lift things. Not heavy, but repetitious. Almost right away, both my forearms started to get sore, as well as both my shoulders. I thought maybe if I warmed the muscles up they'd quit bothering me, so I worked for another half hour or so. Nope, just got worse.

So I went and talked to the manager, and told him that apparently I'm just not suited to this kind of work. I told him that I'd be looking for another job in the near future, and he was quite understanding and just said to do whatever I have to do. He gave me my check (it's payday today), and I came home.

So right now I'm sitting here on my ass, with no goddamn thing to fucking do besides look online for job opennings, watch movies, or surf the net. I'd probably get drunk again, but I have so many fucking bills to pay that I can't really afford beer right now. I won't go into that, as this is already quite long.

Just sitting here, my shoulders hurt, my neck is stiff, my forearms are starting to feel a little better, and now my butt is sore. I got a chiropractor appointment scheduled for tomorrow, and then the weekend is here. Maybe I'll be able to go back to work on Monday until I get another job.
 
Have you changed your diet lately? That tye of labor is fine as long as you consume alot of proteen to heal. You have two types of mussles, lets call them red and wight. Now the red mussles are what everyone is familure with. You can do alot of work with them, but they require oxygen and proteen. Then you have the wight ones. These are the ones that alow you to pick up way too much or run realy fast but only for short bursts. They don't use oxygen, I can't remember what they use, but when your using them, they burn.

Any thoughts?

I would recomend eating bannas and see if that helps.
 
There is no such thing as a useless tit.

Eat more natural, healthy foods. Less soda. More water. More roughage. Also more gelatin, its good for your joints. No, really. Magnesium rich foods like nuts, beans, greens--so thats why you eat you spinach. are good for muscles. Bananas contain potassium so that is why they are good for you too and reduce muscle strain cramping. Try stretching in the morning before you go to work too.
 
Also make sure you are using safe lifting methods (i.e. bend with the knees not at the waist) and be careful, instead of just throwing things about.
 
If none of the above suggestions work then you should go to a doctor b/c maybe you have a condition that would cause the type of pain you are in. If it is just that you are not cut out for the work then the problems would have happened right away.
 
As much as I agree with everything that's been said thus far, I must throw my experience into the ring as well. I was in the same boat a few years ago (around 2001-2003), and discovered that after the weekend, I felt progressively worse, and wasn't recovering as completely. As it turns out, there is a condition called degenerative joint disease. Though I'm no longer in the same profession, I still go to the gym almost every day. I work at my own pace and to my own tolerance. This seems to work well.

Also, be aware of a condition that causes muscles to break down from overuse. It's characterized by dark urine, apparently. Contrary to popular belief, not all people are created equal. Some have more of a physical tolerance than others. It's not something impossible to reach, but you have to build up to it. It's not something you can jump right into from the beginning.
 
My family has hereditary thyroid problems, a lot of my joint and muscle pain is from low thryoid according to my doctor because my body doesn't metabolize food normally. Same thing with my dad, a lot of his kidney and edema and diabetes problems are linked to the thyroid problem, according to his doctor. Last night I popped my hip out of place trying to kick over a ten year old's head. To which they all laughed at me. Fucking kids anyways. So its a good idea to see a doctor and get to the bottom of the issue too.
 
Yeah your boss shoudl have filled out an incident report when you advised him of your aches and pains. Are you a union shop? If so talk to your union rep and maybe they can get you some special treatment. Assigned to the easy stuff and what not.
 
When I went from my sedentary college lackey life, to construction, I noted that I could eat about 3 times as much food and not worry about anything. I could eat ANYTHING and not get fat.

Not only could I eat more, if I didn't I would get insanely tired at work, even if I skipped break I would notice the slump. I also had to drink plenty of water.

I never noticed about salt intake, because the first half gallon of fluids I drank a day was Gatorade from powder that mom got from her work.

And contrary to popular belief, lots of food contain more Potassium than bananas. Like potatoes, raisins, lima beans, prunes, prune juice, spinach, canned tomato products...

The only reason you hear about Bananas is because they're portable, sweet, and readily available.
 
If it's your muscles, I don't understand why you're seeing a Chiropractor. Wouldn't you see a Masseuse? Working your muscles in a nice, long, gooood massage can do wonders for you. Really.

In any case, hope you feel better soon. And happy job hunting! ;)
 
Thanks for all the replies everyone. I'm fucking half drunk right now so I won't reply to everyone, but I will say a few things.

Yes, I realize that my diet could use a little adjusting. I eat ... well, like a bachelor who doesn't like to cook. My diet is actually pretty shitty. As to how much I eat, it depends on how hungry I am at the time. Sometimes I can eat a whole meal before I'm full, and other times I can only eat a burrito or one or two pizza pops.

I most likely don't drink enough water, mostly because when I'm at work I usually just get into what I'm doing and don't take the time to drink. I know I've dehydrated myself once or twice. Thing is, I do need to make a point of drinking more water.

Meeper, the reason I'm seeing a chiropractor is because ... when muscles get sore, it's quite often because they're overstressed because they're trying to pull joints back into place. So I'll go get the joints popped back, and the muscles will be able to relax. Been there before, done that. However, I am thinking about getting a good massage as soon as possible after I see the chiropractor.

For those of you who said to try workman's compensation, well, I've half thought about it. The problem with that is that compensation won't pay me enough to pay my bills and still live half decent. Right now I'm barely making it on about $1500 a month. I know compensation won't pay that much, so I'd be shit out of luck if I went that way. Plus, I'd be fucking bored sitting at home doing absolutely nothing for a while. In which case I'd most likely be liable to spend more money on beer and let the bills get behind. Which wouldn't be good.

DG, my system seems to be quite good. My metabolism is very fast (or however you say that), and I cannot seem to gain weight for anything. For a while I was eating as much food as I could, especially in the evenings, which I've heard will make a person gain weight pretty decent. Nope. Not me. Also, I can eat anything that tastes decent, and I will not get sick from it even when multiple other people who ate the same thing get sick from it. Oh, and I don't drink much soda, if any. I can't even remember the last one I had. Pretty much all I drink is coffee, water, and beer, although not in that order. Probably more like beer, coffee, and water.

Lee, you have a good point. My diet is lacking in protein. I blame this partially on my shortage of money for proper food, which I can blame partially on my poor money management.

To sum up, it all comes down to my money situation. It's not that great, which means that I need a job to pay all my bills and live half decently. Neither EI (Employment Insurance) or Compensation would be enough to keep me going. I can work, and I would prefer to work instead of sitting at home, but at least for the next while I can't do anything physical. At my current job, I've gotten damn good at operating lift trucks (aka forklifts), and can probably come very close to being at least as efficient as the person in the shop who has run forklifts the longest, which would be multiple times as long as I have run them. So that will be the main type of job I'll be looking for.

Meh, this all might sound pretty shitty, but I'm in way more of a relaxed state of mind tonight than I was lastnight. At least this is my own problem, and whatever happens only affects me.

EDIT: disturbed, pretty much all the lifting required at work is done while standing straight. It's all in the arms and abdomen (gut, back, and shoulders).
 
There's only so much a body can do at 120 pounds. How much weight do you lift at a time? How much do you throw during the day? I like the protein advice but you need more calories in general to make up for that kind of work. You might also try to work it out with alternating heavy days and light days. Mon-Wed-Fridays would be heavy days and your body would rest and repair muscles on Tuesday and Thursday.



lol, why?
 
MentorX, we don't really get to pick what we do each day. It's varied from day to day, but there have been a number of guys half complaining that the easy work should be cycled the same way. It usually isn't; most of the time the guy who's been the longest full time employee gets that job.

As for how much weight I have to lift at once, I really don't know. It's not that much. Most of the jobs we pick up two "2X4" boards at a time, up to about nine feet long. But it is very repetitious, and it is a production job so there's a base amount of work that has to be done in one day.

We do also use coil-type nailguns. The big guns are about twelve pounds with a full coil of 3.5 inch nails. On the one job we hold the gun sideways, and on the other job it is held vertical (aiming down).

Ok and as far as the "no useless tit" comments...from what I can recall, "useless tit" refers to a cow that for some reason has no milk in a tit. Doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. Now it's been a while since I worked with cattle, so if anyone knows better, mention it.
 
Back
Top