Chapter Two: The Interview
Dr. Cuddy walked in her office, spoke with her assistant for a moment and then came over. "Hello," she said, "I'm Dr. Lisa Cuddy". As she rose to shake Dr. Cuddy's hand, she said, "Nice to meet you, I'm Susan Watkins". Dr. Cuddy led Susan into her office and offered her a seat on the sofa and sat next to her. She started the interview by telling Susan that the position she had applied for had been posted for months with no response and so she was surprised when she received Susan's application and resume.
"Well," Susan said, "there aren't many lab technicians out there with both the years experience in research and clinical laboratory experience that the position required and I've only recently started looking for a new position. If I may ask, why are you looking for a lab technician with both research and clinical experience? Hospital laboratories generally only want Certified MT's and not people with my experience", she continued.
Dr. Cuddy hesitated for a moment before she answered. "The position is new and belongs to a unique department here at Princeton Plainsboro called the Diagnostics Department. This department specializes in diagnosing the most difficult patient cases that have generally have been referred several times. As a result, in order to diagnose these patients, often very specialized laboratory testing has to be performed. We have often had to send out to research labs for these tests and the board decided that it would be more cost efficient to bring a specialized laboratory in-house specifically for this department." Dr. Cuddy hesitated again before continuing, "Also, the doctor in charge of the department can be very cantankerous and most of the lab techs in the main lab do everything they can to avoid running even the most basic of his testing requests."
"I see," Susan replied introspectively, why did that comment not surprise her? After a short pause, Susan said, "I'm sure you've looked over my resume, do you have any questions for me?" Dr. Cuddy looked over Susan's resume again. She asked a few basic questions to assess Susan's knowledge which she answered correctly. Susan was remarkably qualified for this position, she had a Master's degree in clinical chemistry, was ASCP certified in Histotechnology and Phlebotomy and had 20 years of combined research and clinical laboratory experience. She had experience with a wide variety of laboratory techniques that would be valuable for the diagnostics department. She wasn't the typical young hot doctor that Dr. House would normally hire for his team, but this position hadn't been created by him. It was created by the Board and they had required that she do the hiring and not to tell Dr. House about it until the position was filled and the candidate already working for the hospital. She hated keeping things from him, so she was determined to hire the best person for him and Susan seemed like a good fit for the team. Dr. Cuddy's only concern was whether or not she would be able to handle working for Dr. House and how well he would handle being forced to take on an employee he didn't want. As a final question, she asked Susan if she had every worked directly for a physician before, and of course she had. She also had several years experience working in a Pathology lab. Pathologists are known for their terrible personal disposition – which was probably why they were Pathologists. Susan explained that it's hard to be rude to someone when they are deceased or when it's just a piece of stained tissue on microscope glass. Nodding at that, Dr. Cuddy closed the file, looked at Susan and asked "When can you start?"
That evening Cuddy and House were sitting next to each other on her sofa watching television. Rachel was playing quietly on the floor with her toys. House put his arm over Cuddy's shoulders as she settled in close to him. She watched Rachel playing on the floor while House watched a nature documentary on the television.
After a few moments, House spoke, "Something's bothering you."
"It's just a personnel issue at work that I'm dealing with, it'll be fine." Cuddy responded.
House knew that it was something that concerned him or she would be talking about it, but he didn't say anything more. He knew she would talk to him when she felt more comfortable. He gently kissed her on her forehead as she pressed in closer. Another 30 minutes and it was time to put Rachel to bed.
After Rachel was settled, they went to Cuddy's bedroom. House could feel her emotional distance. He decided not to initiate anything tonight and let her rest. Whatever it was, it was really bothering her. He watched her as she fell asleep in his arms. He gently removed his arm from around her and quietly got up and went to his own apartment.