Please Come Back

One of my coworkers is on a stress leave and it's all because another coworker broke up with her boyfriend.

We didn't know about the break-up at first, but had noticed that the boyfriend was calling frequently asking for her. She had changed her working hours, so when we said she was not here, we meant it. He figured we were hiding her.

When our secretary happened to answer the phone and say for the latest time that his girlfriend was not here, he said that he was going to "come down there" and do I'm not sure what. The secretary is now terrified that he is going to show up at work and hunt her down, so she will not come to work.

We now know it was a bad break-up and that he has been stalking and threatening his now former girlfriend and she is hiding from him. That is why she suddenly changed her working hours.

That leaves all of us in some danger. We have no idea if he is just making empty threats or if he is planning to come here and start shooting. I've developed a tiny twitch next to my eye. I'm not sure if the recent fires are responsible for that or if it's this latest development. I'm not really worried about this nut-job, though, I just want our secretary back. I need her. I'm a basket case with our new computer system and not having anyone to help me.

It would be nice if we had some way to screen visitors. Anyone can just walk in off the street and come visit us. The hospital is handling this threat by having a guard walk through our unit every hour or so. A lot can happen in an hour. Somehow, it's not reassuring that a minimum wage, unarmed security guard will walk by occasionally. How about giving us a real guard and having him sit at the front desk? Maybe then our secretary would come back.