A Lighter Look at the Top 10 Potential Home-Based Injuries

Due to COVID-19, various state and local stay at home orders and social distancing guidelines have prompted many employers to allow some of their employees to work from home. Given this shift, we thought we’d take a look at some of the injuries (most are admittedly tongue-in-cheek) to look out for while people are working from home:

10. Claw marks on hands from cat walking over keyboard while typing.

9. Strained ankle from tripping over dog while running to get a call from your supervisor.

8. Bruised eye from poking it with the microphone on your headset rushing to get it on after answering a call on your computer.

7. Aching back from sitting hunched over at your new makeshift desk next to the washer and dryer that used to serve as the clothes folding table.

6. Migraines from having to listen to your spouse do their job from home in the same “collaboration-style office space.”

5. Slight shock from your computer’s power cord when you go to plug it in and realize your kid’s guinea pig has chewed through the insulative coating.

4. Carpal tunnel from using a mouse all day from your kitchen table, which is just a bit too high to be at an ergonomically good desk height.

3. Laryngitis from repeatedly having to loudly remind your kids you are trying to work.

2. Broken hand from lunging out of view from your webcam when you realize it started up automatically during a web call and you weren’t wearing pants.

1. Concussion after collapsing from exhaustion due to managing several of the following items simultaneously:

• maintain a full-time job;
• teach, parent and entertain your kids/grandkids all day;
• get along with your spouse all day;
• prepare three meals a day, seven days a week; and/or,
• run necessary errands while trying to minimize exposure to other human beings.