Ok—finally!! After all these years, confirmation!! Every time I had to put together a piece of Ikea furniture I would stall for days—weeks sometimes. After all, I’d survived for a year without that particular piece of furniture—what’s a few more days, right? In fact, the products could lay for months in their boxes, untouched, while I gathered the nerve, the tools and the beer necessary to put a table, desk or wardrobe piece together. Now there’s a guy in New York who’s suing his employer for forcing him to single-handedly put together a 225-pound piece of Ikea furniture by himself. Thank you! (doing a happy dance)—It’s not just me.
Fifty-two year old Carlos Figueroa, a chauffeur to Sweden’s UN Ambassador, alleges in his lawsuit that he endured Scandinavian-style torture when his boss forced him to single-handedly build a massive IKEA wardrobe. He claims that “handyman” was not part of his job description—likely nor was masochist. So, are you sitting down? He’s suing the Swedish Mission in Manhattan for $1.7 million (that’s a lot of wardrobes). He claims he was injured on the job and cites discrimination from his superiors.
The story goes that Figueroa was sent to Ikea in Elizabeth, NJ, to buy “one or two” “Pax” wardrobes (see Ikea video, above) with “Hasvik” sliding doors by his boss, the late Ambassador Marten Grunditz. What’s your first clue this furniture is going to be too heavy, and it turns out, too big for Figueroa to haul back to Manhattan on his own? And anyone who’s tried to get even a Trofast storage bin unit out of the Elizabeth, NJ Ikea store knows the concept of ‘grab ‘n go’ is royally put to the test. So…Grunditz told him to order the units. Yeah, thanks a lot.
When the furniture arrived at the Mission, complete with instructions that clearly show the furniture should be assembled by two people (why are they smiling?), Figueroa was told to assemble the 8-foot-by-7-foot piece by himself.
No additional manpower was provided, despite Grunditz being aware that Figueroa wasn’t a “workman or carpenter,” his suit states.
It took Figueroa three days apparently, to negotiate the instructions, parts (no doubt including endless packages of screws and the ubiquitous Alan key) but he did it. Except for hanging the sliding doors. He was in the process of hanging them when he fell off the five foot ladder and injured his back. He had to have back surgery to relieve pressure in his spine and fix pinched nerves. Wait—there’s more—he also suffered leg injuries. All this has forced Figueroa, who first started working as a driver and office clerk at the Mission in 2006, to take two medical leaves of absence, from September 2013 through February 2014 and from May 2014 onward.
“I’ll be in pain for the rest of my life. I’m disabled,” Figueroa told The New York Post, when they called him. “It’s been very emotional. I’m still in a lot of pain.” Yes, I should think so.
Despite his injuries, Figueroa continued working as a chauffeur after the accident, which, predictably, exacerbated his injuries, according to the lawsuit. Figueroa alleges he was told to lie to doctors about his continued duties “to avoid an uninsured Workers Compensation claim.” Boy, this just gets better and better. Not.
According to the lawsuit, “The important thing is for you to say that you don’t know how you got it and you don’t mention work,” a senior administrative officer under Grunditz texted Figueroa in December 2012. “So you want me to lie,” Figueroa texted back.
The worker responded: “Lying and withholding all info are two different things. You are an office clerk aren’t you? As it happens you don’t need to lie. As much as we don’t know the entire story behind your injury either,” the lawsuit states. So, how “gray” is grey, exactly?
Figueroa is also suing the Mission for discrimination: he claims his colleagues made disparaging comments about Latinos and questioned him about various missing items at the Mission. Seriously? And, there’s also an allegation of denied overtime despite working up to 18-hour driving shifts, with Figueroa claiming his boss said he was “paid too much.” FYI—Grunditz died January 2014.
According to Figueroa’s lawyer, Stanley Chinitz, who spoke with the Post, “Mr. Figueroa is not going to try his case in the press. He has accurately described the facts and this will be for a jury to resolve. Discussions occurred between the parties before the lawsuit was filed and the claims were unable to be resolved.”
You know, there ought to be a therapy group for survivors of Ikea furniture assembly—I’d join—though admittedly in most situations, the quest to assemble is purely self-inflicted.