Migraine at work?

[sophiebrodie]

Hello!

I work at a fast-food place, and I do customer service/drive thu. One of the rules is that I cannot have water in sight of the customers, and it needs to be in the back of the store to drink it. Only issue is that sometimes it gets so busy that I can't take a minute to make the ice cream. If I don't constantly drink water throughout the day (especially when it's warm like it has been these past few days), I start having migraines. Add that to the squealing of the drive thru speaker, the loud noises around me, and the stress of the job, the migraine I already had on Sunday went way worse. It took me crying from the fact that I partially lost my vision for my boss to let me take a break and get water. All in all, I drank around 2 bottles of water over a 10 hour shift. I haven't told my boss about my migraines, because they are PMS-related, and my medication (cyproheptadine) gets rid of the others 98% of the time, so I only get one or two a month (they last from 1-3 days). It's not bad enough to make a request, but the only other option is to disclose one medication in which I need to be hydrated at ALL TIMES, but the medication has so much stigma around it, especially the disorder that it is treating, that I don't want to mention it.

Any advice is appreciated!

[bamboo89]

Difficult to advise you because you are in the US - in the UK, being forbidden to drink would be against employment laws. Can you not just say you are on medication for migraine which means you have to keep yourself well hydrated? If not, it seems you may need to change your job...

[sophiebrodie in reply to bamboo89]

Thank you for your response!

I haven't looked into my job's policies into that, but I have asked some of my bosses. They've said that I have to go to the back, and I can just put customers on hold. I am a massive people-pleaser though, and putting them on hold just to get lemonade is stressful enough. I have one or two that allow me to have a hidden water bottle, but I'm trying to learn a different position where I could hide a water bottle better.

I do have to have this job, because this has the best pay, and I need to pay for college basically by myself.

[sophiebrodie in reply to sophiebrodie]

I also forgot to mention that the technical time to get water is during your break. Said break on the last shift (11am-9pm) was at 3:30.

[Onthemove1971]

Sounds like you should make long term plans to find another job..Just the stress alone can cause a migraine.

Best of luck.

[sophiebrodie in reply to Onthemove1971]

Thank you for responding!

This job is only for the summer, as I'll be going off to college across the state. I really really need the job and the long hours because I need to save up for a car and college necessities since I won't have anyone to back me up on them.

[Onthemove1971 in reply to sophiebrodie]

What about wearing a camelback of water under your clothes then pull the hose out to drink..Good luck!

[sophiebrodie in reply to Onthemove1971]

I can't even wear a jacket.