“The parking lot?”
He nods. “Yeah. Admin got rid of the doctors’ lot last year, so now we have to park in the main garage with everyone else. Some doctors still aren’t over it.”
“Really?”
“Yep. If they get stuck behind a really slow driver, it can add five minutes to their day.”
“Right. That sounds really . . .” I trail off and search for a diplomatic way to say what I’m thinking.
“Whiny and entitled?” Dr. Malone supplies. “Yep. But it’ll be your problem now, Alexandra. I’m giving you the authority to deal with all slow driving complaints.”
“I could suggest people walk to work,” I suggest. “Or take transit. It would be good for their health and the climate.”
“Brilliant,” he says. “I knew you’d be good at this.”
He’s being sarcastic, but the praise still sends a dart of warmth down to my toes.
“For most of the other minor complaints, like unnecessary ER consults, you can ask them to fill out an incident report form,” he says.
“Sure. Uh, what’s an incident report form?”
“One of management’s best ideas. It’s an online form that’s such a pain to fill out that no one bothers, unless they think something’s particularly outrageous. So I do review those, eventually.”
“Okay.” There’s a sort of logic there, I guess. “But what if a message actually seems urgent? I’ll keep the important ones in a folder, of course, but is there a way I should let you know?”
There’s a beat of silence while he thinks about this. “You can text my cell,” he finally says. He rattles off his number, and I scramble to plug it into my phone.
“Thanks. Uh, I’ll send you a text, so you’ll have my number.”
“Sure,” he replies without enthusiasm. He probably can’t imagine a situation in which he’d want to contact me.
I send him a message anyway:Alexandra Parker (assistant).
His phone pings as my text lands, but he doesn’t pull it out to read it.
“Okay,” I say, standing to go back to my desk. “I’ll get started on that right away.” I pause when I think of another question.“For the replies, do I sign them from you? Or write something like Alexandra Parker, Assistant to Dr. Malone?”
“Probably the second one,” he replies. “That way, if people don’t like your answers, they’ll know who to blame.”
“Right.”
I must look anxious, because his expression softens a little. “Relax, Alexandra. Anything you’re not sure about, just keep for me to review.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Yep.” He turns back to his computer, and I escape to the outer office to tackle his inbox.
SIX
DREW
On Thursday, I’m in a pretty good mood when I walk into the surgeon’s lounge for lunch. This morning’s case was a complex spine procedure that I thought would be tough, but it went a hell of a lot better than I expected.
And that’s despite the fact that I barely got four hours of sleep last night. The insomnia still hasn’t improved. Since today’s an OR day, I forced myself to go to bed at ten last night, even though I hadn’t made nearly enough progress on my research abstract.
But I couldn’t find sleep, or maybe sleep couldn’t find me. I finally got up and made a cup of chamomile tea, which was supposed to reduce stress and promote sleep. It looked like piss and tasted worse, but I’d be willing to put up with that if it worked as advertised.
But it didn’t work, and I still couldn’t sleep. If this keeps up, I may be forced to take Dr. Barrett’s advice and try a yoga class with my sister.
