Page 13 of Doctor Bossy

The woman standing in front of me cowered in fear, and I tried hard not to feel like the villain.

She’d been scared of me ever since she started working here.

I didn’t know why. As far as I knew, I hadn’t done anything to warrant that level of fear, but she always seemed ready to jump out of her skin at every question.

Her timidity, combined with the fact that she tended to forget basic chemical formulas under pressure, made for an unpleasant working experience.

Which led us to today.

“So…” I started, wanting to clarify. “You lost what is essentially three weeks of data in one night?”

She nodded hesitantly. “Erm…you see, well, my laptop crashed—”

“And you didn’t think to back up the information on a hard drive or something?”

“I…” She swallowed, and her gaze flickered around before she continued, “I lost my hard drive some time ago, and I’ve been meaning to get a new one, but…I haven’t had the time with all the work I have to do—”

“What kind of excuse is that?” I demanded, losing my patience with the girl. “You were careless, simple as that.”

I saw her tremble even though I barely raised my voice. Her face crumpled, and big fat tears rolled down her face, but I didn’t give a damn.

I was furious. I controlled my temper well, so I didn’t yell, even though her mistake would cost us weeks of work, and we would now need to play catch up to send the full report to the FDA and the hospital board in time. Not to mention that one of the other lab techs would have to work overtime to make up for it. Still, I couldn’t help thinking how unfathomable it was that I had hired someone this incompetent in the first place.

I sighed, rubbing my hand over my face in frustration. “Linda—”

“It’s Lisa, actually,” she responded automatically and then seemed to regret it when I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Lisa,” I amended. “Go see Raymond to discuss your severance. After that, you can leave.”

Her face completely crumpled in front of me, and she clutched her hands together. “Oh no. Please don’t fire me, sir. I really need this job.”

And I need an employee who I don’t have to babysit, I thought.

“Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the fit we both hoped it would be,” I said. “Even apart from this instance, there have been several times we’ve found your work to be subpar. So I think you can understand why I can’t let you work here anymore.”

“I know I messed up, sir, but…this is my dream job. Oh, please don’t fire me. Everyone was very excited when I got this job, and I swear I’m trying really hard.”

“Yes.” That’s what makes it so bad. “But that isn’t good enough.”

“But—”

“You may leave now,” I said, and this time she must have heard the unmistakable order in my voice because she jumped a little bit as if I had hit her. Damn. I hated feeling like I was some kind of predator, but I refused to compromise. I also could no longer work with someone who was this scared of me.

Thankfully, she got the message. She turned around and walked away.

I rubbed my eyes, tired from reading the results of last week’s samples. They confirmed what we already knew about the drug’s efficacy but also showed that it required more time in the development process. That complicated production made it more expensive, and it meant we needed to fast-track the approval process to get the medicine out in the fastest time. Unfortunately, the university hospital had its own unique rules on that, and they had to be adhered to as well.

When I initially proposed this research, they let me know that even with FDA approval, the drug sample would need to go through the hospital’s lengthy and arduous internal review board as well before its patients could begin trials. It wasn’t a condition I would usually consider, but I needed access to the hospital because, as a leading teaching hospital, it had the largest selection of patients who would take part in the trial.

While, for the most part, I hardly practiced anymore, preferring to focus on research, I still saw a few high-risk patients who the Terradol would mean the world for. Lisa’s mistake set us back by a few weeks at least, which meant that it would be more time before I could get the drugs to some of the patients who needed them most.

Over something so damned incompetent, it made me mad just thinking about it.

I didn’t know how someone like Lisa slipped through our vetting process. We usually only hired the best graduates and had our pick of thousands of candidates for one spot…all from the top universities.

And Lisa initially appeared to be one of them—she has the grades and glowing letters of recommendation, but ultimately, her book smarts didn’t translate very well to real-world experience. We needed to somehow find a way to factor that into our vetting process.

I took a mental note of that, contacted Raymond to give him a heads up, and then continued with the rest of the work on my desk. Frequently, my mind drifted, but I would force it back with willpower, refusing to think of anything else but the work in front of me. It was the laser-focused determination that got me where I was today, and I would exercise it now more than ever.

---