My bud, the CFO

I work in a multi-million dollar industry: promotional products. The corporation I work for pretty much has the monopoly on that multi-million dollar industry. Within the one corporation are several companies, each of which caters to different types of businesses (for example, one of them works with Disney, another works with elementary schools). One huge corporation that is comprised of four big companies. We have facilities in Tijuana, Tennessee, India, Michigan, Ireland, and San Diego. I work in the corporate office with about 150 other people, including the CEO, the CFO, and the CIO.

I am accident prone. My body... breaks. All of the time. Joints do not stay in socket for more than a few hours at a time. This is simply a fact of my existence. Yes, it does hurt. Not as much as it would hurt you, so stop squirming. My joints are loose, so dislocations are not as violent to my connective tissue and muscles as they would be to yours.

When you combine the important people, my medical problems, and top it off with my luck, bad things happen. Sigh.

The CFO is a particularly uptight individual. And that's a generous description. He is the CFO of a multi-million dollar corporation. He is paid to be uptight. And every time he walks by the cubicle of a certain minion, she's on the floor. Oh yeah. That minion is me. He walks by every day. Every day I'm having some sort of problem. It varies: some days I'm simply popping a hip back into socket, some days I'm stuck on the floor because I threw out my back. But every day, he is the one to find me.

Now, he might not care if I were a minion in customer service or marketing. But I'm in accounting. I personally handle thousands of dollars every week. And I technically fall under (way, way, way, way down at the very bottom of a pretty long chain of people) his jurisdiction.

Today was no exception. My ankle bone was sticking out of the side of my foot. It hurts to walk on that. So I was crawling back to my desk from the sink (where I had been dutifully washing out my coffee cup). The CFO magically appears out of nowhere and starts flipping out. He frantically asks me if I need him to call someone or carry me somewhere. I keep repeating that it's only another ten feet to my desk and I'm fine. I just need to get back there to pop my ankle bone back into place. He wasn't listening though. He ran off to get the HR lady and to call 911. Yes, I'm serious. 911. I don't do 911. Don't get me wrong, I'd use them if I thought I'd need them. But I don't. This is normal.

Thankfully, my boss came to my rescue. He quietly appeared around the corner with a wheeled office chair. He just pointed at me, pointed at the chair, and raised his eyebrows in a way that brooked no argument. I mouthed thank you (the CFO was within earshot), pulled myself into the chair, and he wheeled me back to my desk. "You'd better go calm the CFO down now, " I said. "Yeah, I'm on it." and off he ran to intercept the panicking man and prevent him from calling the paramedics.

Just another day in my life.