I was a total mess, all day. After starting it with Melissa firing Carol and Charlotte, and then get
I was a total mess, all day. After starting it with Melissa firing Carol and Charlotte, and then getting the resignation letters from four others, including my Accounting Supervisor, Hilda - Ugh! The prospect of finding, hiring and then training six new people - some for highly skilled jobs - had me a wreck, totally frazzled. And all six employees left immediately, with no notice…just walked right out. So of course we were understaffed for the day - a busy one - leaving me no time to even begin to address the problem.Instead, I just got more and more upset as the day went on. I was short with patients, I was impatient with staff. I was jittery, not myself. I didn’t have time for lunch, but was thankfully not hungry…my appetite hadn’t been what it was for a while now, truth be told. Melissa did bring me a coffee in the early afternoon and, fiddling with the lid, I spilled it almost immediately onto my pants. Ugh! She tutted and helped me clean up, trying to get me to relax. It did help, a little…she had an unusual, calming air about her today and I found myself strangely eased a bit in the moments I was near her. But in general I felt like my walls were beginning to crumble, every which way. I needed to calm down, focus, get away from these encroaching feelings of panic. But then my pen would run out of ink…I couldn’t even jot correctly today…and I was once again on the verge of breaking down.“You’re weak, Dr. J…” I heard Aubrey say from our front desk, as I passed by in a tizzy between patients.“I’m…wh-whut??” I stammered, stopping in my tracks, clumsily almost dropping a chart onto the floor. What did she say??“Your week…?” she asked again, big brown eyes watching me innocently as I struggled to recover, “Do you want us to adjust your week? With, uh, everyone leaving?”Aubrey was a cute, petite girl from the desk with a pixie cut that Melissa had asked to help with my schedule. I had obviously misheard her. “Uh…sure…talk to Melissa…” I replied, hurrying onwards to the glass door to the back hallway which…which…wouldn’t push open…“It says ‘Pull’, Dr. J?” Aubrey offered. I glanced her way in chagrin; she really did look like Audrey Hepburn, sometimes. I wonder what she’d look like with a set of doub-Wait what? Where’s my mind at…?“Th-thanks…”I heard her giggle as I left. Jesus I was a mess. I need some support, I thought to myself…but knew I really had only myself to blame for my predicament. And why am I so hard??? I had this erection that basically refused to fade, distracting me from moment to moment, if anything getting worse as the day went on as I fussed and fretted more and more. So weird! Why was my body responding this way? To my humiliation, to my own incompetence?Patients were done, finally, at 6:15. Late. I finished charts in my office, dropped some coding paperwork off at the desk a little after 7…Aubrey had just left. What a long day. I have to get out of h-“Oh no you don’t,” I heard Melissa call, from behind me, “Just where do you think you’re going?” I turned, to see her smiling, standing across the waiting room from me in that tight, black, short-sleeve dress. I hadn’t seen her much this afternoon and despite my exhaustion I was immediately struck by her appearance. Maybe it was her posture, the new sense of authority she was carrying with her today, or those high heels, but she looked taller than ever. And in my current state of mind, I’d felt smaller, like I’d somehow shrunk. But, for some reason just the sight of her sort of…settled me, refocused my attention. I watched as her hand played up into her hair. “I can’t let you leave like this,” she said with concern, “You’re obviously upset…come, talk to me…”All I could do was