sinisterporpoise

I chatted with an old supervisor at Sam’s Club today.  Such a conversation would have been quickly forgotten under most circumstances, had she not brought up a new employee who called off due to foot and leg pain. The former supervisor quickly speculated that the new employee was too young to have such pains.  She probably didn’t catch the look in my eye until I reminded her that she might want to be careful before continuing this conversation.  The former lead tried to brush it off by saying I had a medical reason for the pain.

I have never met the employee in question. I also understand that supervisory staff tends to be suspicious of new employees calling off for any reason.  However, the core assumption was that someone has to be older than their late 30s or early 40s to experience that kind of pain.  If I’ve only learned one lesson from my own experiences, it’s that people who are my age certainly can experience chronic pain conditions.  People who are much younger than I am have fibromyalgia, and more severe conditions like Lupus, and Rheumatoid Arthritis. Not a single one of these conditions cares about someone’s age, although middle-aged women are more likely to suffer from them than people of other demographic groups.

It seems that I am at the awkward stage of life where I am both too young to have the problems I am having, and I’m having the same problems because I’m getting older.  Some of these pronouncements have come within a few days of each other.  Either I have a great idea for a new Chronic Illness cat meme, or people really need to make up their minds.