OPED:Mental Health Is Not a Valid Reason for Being Sh*tty at Your Job

By a Phillip Anderson II, Site Foreman

"Quit your whining, Rodrigo. I got no arms, no legs, and still outperform your whole generation."

Listen up. I've been in demolition since before most of your dads learned to disappoint your moms. I've breathed so much asbestos that my lungs now have their own zip code. And I am absolutely, certifiably, peg-legged sick of watching this generation of weepy, over-accommodated, burrito-scented marshmallows fall apart because someone used the wrong pronoun on their water bottle.

You want to talk about mental health? Fine. Let's dance with the devil in the pale moonlight of your own feelings.

I got both my arms and both my legs blown off in a demolition gone wrong. That's not a metaphor. That is a factual recounting of the day I became a human lawn ornament with a grudge against the Geneva Convention. One second I'm standing there like a man. Next second I'm a torso with opinions scattered across three zip codes.

But did I flop around on the ground like a distressed seal asking for a "mental health day"?

No.

Did I lie down on the rubble and demand a wellness webinar about "holding space" for my own exploded limbs?

Absolutely not.

I dragged my stumps across fifteen feet of broken concrete. I found two pieces of scrap lumber and strapped them to what was left of my body like a wounded pirate with a death wish. Now I have peg legs with steel-toed boots. Peg arms with hydraulic grapples I stole from a scrapyard. I learned to pick myself up off the ground like a flipped-over turtle that has accepted Jesus and also vengeance.

I have no arms. I have no legs. And I can still run a goddamn excavator better than you can find the bathroom without an app.

So forgive me, Rodrigo, for not giving a single splinter of my peg leg about your "anxiety."

Rodrigo showed up late again. Forgot to lock out the breaker again. Spent forty-five minutes in the Porta Potty watching a man explain "manifestation" on a cracked phone screen. And then had the audacity to look me in my one remaining eye and say, "I'm really struggling with my mental health right now."

Struggling with what, Rodrigo? Geometry? Because you just backed a loader into the only generator on site.

I drag myself across this jobsite every morning using nothing but my chin, my teeth, and a level of hatred for poor work ethic that would make a drill sergeant say "bro, chill." And you're telling me you can't operate a simple joystick because you're "in a dark place"?

What dark place, Rodrigo? The inside of your own incompetence? Because that's not a mental health crisis. That's a performance review.

Man up, buttercup. Then man up again. Then keep manning up until you pass out from all the manning.

Now. Something that might surprise you.

I'm not actually an idiot.

I know mental health is real. I know people struggle. I know that sometimes the weight gets so heavy that even picking up a hard hat feels like lifting a Buick.

And here's where you expect me to soften. To say something like "we watch each other's backs."

No.

Here's what I say instead.

If you are truly struggling—if the darkness is real and not just an excuse to hide in the shitter for an hour—then get help. Real help. Not a TED Talk. Not a crystal. Not a "boundaries" conversation with Rodrigo.

Call 988. Text TALK to 741741. Go to the AFSP website. Do something that isn't standing there with two working arms and two working legs, looking at me—a man with no limbs—and telling me you can't work because you feel sad about the news.

Because I will lose my mind. And I don't have much mind left to lose, Rodrigo. Most of it is scar tissue and OSHA violations.

I am not your enemy. I am not your dad. I am not your therapist. I am a man with peg legs and a grapple arm who once ate a live pigeon because someone bet him five dollars. And I am telling you: get help if you need it.

But do not confuse a bad week with a disability. Do not confuse a hard morning with a crisis. And do not, for the love of God, blame your inability to do your job on your feelings while I am literally operating heavy machinery with a wooden stick where my elbow used to be.

The real message, since you need one:

Mental health is real. Suicide is real. People die because they don't ask for help. That is not satire.

But Rodrigo isn't dying. Rodrigo is eating a second burrito while watching a man explain "hustle culture." Rodrigo just put diesel in the water truck.

So if you are Rodrigo: fix your life. Call the number. Show up on time. Eat the burrito on your own time.

If you are not Rodrigo—if you are someone actually struggling—know that this angry, limbless, peg-legged wrecking ball of a foreman is a cartoon character. He is not real. He is what happens when you let a demolition man watch too many action movies and develop a philosophy.

Call 988. Text TALK to 741741. Visit afsp.org.

And for the love of everything holy, do not take career advice from a man who straps scrap wood to his body and calls it a prosthetic.

Editor's note: This article is satire. The foreman is fictional. Mental health is serious. Rodrigo is beyond help. Rodrigo is the problem. Rodrigo is why we can't have nice things.