The Vet's Dilemma

Dr. Clark ran an animal medical center in a small town in central Pennsylvania. He was fairly successful mainly due to his vet skills, an easy demeanor, and his four attractive vet techs. His clients loved Dr. Clark and the women vet techs. Barb, his wife helped take care of billing and payroll, but she did that mostly from their home office. Her official title was office manager, but she only visited the office to cover for the receptionist on vacation days. The four techs rotated and each took a day on the front desk as the receptionist/billing clerk. Business was good and Dr. Clark often entertained the idea of bringing on another Vet to expand his business, but truth be told, he just wasn't that ambitious. This had always been a sore point with Barb, as she would have liked to grow their business.

Dr. Clark's vet techs were Sue, Heather, Jodie, and Gabby. Sue and Heather were his Sr. Techs, and Jodie and Gabby were regular Techs. Sue was a petite blonde around thirty-five years old, while Heather and Jodie were both tall brunettes and a few years over forty. Gabby had only been hired about a year ago after she graduated from Vet Tech school. She was a chubby twenty-two, year-old with reddish blonde hair. The three older techs were very competent and Gabby was still learning on the job, although she often tried correcting the older techs from time to time.

While Sue had been with Dr. Clark the longest, Heather, being very competitive, had quickly taken over as the unofficial "Queen" of the techs. To her credit, she worked very hard and didn't mind reprimanding the other techs, should they do something that she didn't approve of. Sue had talked to Dr. Clark about Heather's bossiness, but it fell on deaf ears. He acknowledged that Heather was a hard worker, and the clients loved her bubbly personality. His office manager and wife, Barb, told her husband that she'd deal with Heather's attitude if he wanted. But Dr. Clark, always said no, that things would work out eventually.

The three older techs took turns opening the office early before Dr. Clark arrived. One day Sue had come in and logged onto their computer office system. Beside Barb, only the Sr. Techs, Heather and Sue had access to all the systems including payroll/time keeping. She noticed on several occasions that Heather had been logging onto the time keeping system from home and crediting herself with a several hours of overtime over the last few weeks. Sue copied the information on a pad and the extra hours at home amounted to 20 hours of OT in the last month. Sue was quite upset over Heather's bogus time keeping and decided to confront Dr. Clark with the information.

Shortly after Sue had found this information, the other techs finally arrived in the office. Sue was noticeably quiet with them, and barely looked at Heather.

"What's up with her?" Heather asked Jodie.

"Don't know," answered Jodie. "Maybe she's having some problems at home."

Their animal med center was located in a small shopping center on the outskirts of town, and at lunch time, Heather left to run a few errands.

Sue pulled Jodie aside and told her about what she'd found.

"Are you going to show that to Dr. Clark?" Jodie asked.

"Maybe...when Heather leaves tonight, since it's her gym night."

"You know Dr. Clark probably won't do anything about it? Are you prepared for the fallout after he tells her? She can be a real handful. Just ask her ex-husband or even Mike, her current husband," Jodie offered.

"Well it's just not fair to the rest of us, we work just as hard as Queen Heather, and she's stealing from Dr. Clark on top of that."

"Okay, just don't say I didn't warn you. If he doesn't do anything, are you quitting?" Jodie asked.

"I haven't thought that far ahead, so I don't know yet." Sue responded.

Their lunch time was about over, so Jodie and Sue drifted back to their duties. Heather breezed back in and immediately got to work. As usual, Gabby was playing computer games at the front desk, as no customers were currently there. Heather made a face at their young tech's inactivity, but said nothing.

The rest of the afternoon, went by without incident, and Heather packed up and left for the gym at 5:30 on the dot. At 42 years old, she was in great shape and looked like she was in her late 20's or early 30's. Sue gave Jodie a look as she was waiting to see Dr. Clark alone. A few minutes later, Gabby and Jodie left for the day, and Dr. Clark was cleaning some equipment he had used earlier.

Sue gathered her courage and memo pad and walked into the area where Dr. Clark was working.

"Doc, can we talk a few minutes?" she asked.

"Sure Sue, what's up?" he responded.

She walked over to the counter where he was working and laid the pad on top. She told him about coming in early and logging onto the system. And how it looked like Heather was charging him with bogus overtime.

Dr. Clark was staring at her memo pad and didn't say anything at first.

"Well it doesn't look good, but she does order some of supplies from home," he offered.

"Doc, I used to do that before Heather, and it didn't take me that many hours. It's just not fair." Said Sue.

"Okay, I'll have Barb take a look at it, and see if it's out of line."

Sue hastily took her pad without saying any more, and got her things together and headed home. Jodie warned her that Doc was kind of a pushover where Heather was concerned. She wondered what hold she had over him, and well.... just most men in general.

Dr. Clark watched Sue walk outside to her car and waved as she drove off the lot. She didn't wave back. Barb had mentioned to him a few times recently that Heather's time seemed a little high. But he just dismissed it, and didn't want to confront Heather.

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Heather finished about 20 minutes cycling on the stationary bike and headed over to the squat rack. She smiled back at some of the guys as they admired her shapely butt as she walked by. In the squat rack she did several sets of light barbell squats for high reps. The tight yoga style pants seemed ready to burst at the seams. She finished her workout with some dumbbell work for her upper body and headed for the showers. Heather knew her legs and ass were her best assets, so that was where she focused her workout. With her medium length brown hair, tan skin, and tight figure; men were always easy for her to control. Women, not so much.

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Dr. Clark, pulled into the drive of their small farm and parked in front of their modern pole-building barn. Walking into the house, he gave Barb a kiss without saying much.

Barb picked up on his mood instantly. "What's wrong? Something at the office?"

"It's that overtime thing again with Heather, that you showed me a while back. Now Sue is asking about it too. Since she has access to our time system, she saw it this morning."

Barb sighed, "Well, you and I both know she's been taking advantage of you, well us, for quite a while. I'd say it's time for it to stop, or else." Barb was definitely the assertive one in the family.

"I know, but it's hard to know what to say or do." he moaned.

"Baby, this Is why you made me office manager, I'm going to help you this time." Barb said rather emphatically. She knew her husband was a terrific veterinarian and a decent man, but assertiveness was not usually in his nature.

Dr. Clark was highly irritated by Heather's out and out stealing from the money his business generated in the form of lying on her time cards. He'd suspected it many times, and Barb said as much, over and over. It was time to stop it, even if it meant losing a great tech. In all honesty, the Vet was more irritated by his own inaction and having an employee take advantage of him. And now the other techs would expect him to act.

He looked at Barb, who was a strong woman, both physically and emotionally. She had grown up on her family's farm and could do the same work as her brothers. They used to kid her about being a tom-boy, or worse a farm girl. Standing about five foot-ten, she was a stout woman, but was quite pretty with striking red hair down to her shoulders. In today's lexicon, she'd be described by some as a Big Beautiful Woman (BBW).

"Why don't we have a meeting together with Heather this week and get this resolved?" Barb said. "And since I am the office manager, and responsible for payroll, this pisses me off even more. She thinks she can shake that cute little ass at you and all the men clients and get whatever the hell she wants! It's Gonna stop!" Barb's face was now matching the color of her hair.

"Okay, I guess." was the only thing Dr. Clark could manage. He'd seen Barb get this irritated a few times, and it was pretty unnerving. He was also a little disturbed that Barb was implying that he admired Heather for more than her tech skills. She had caught him more than once admiring her ass at the office. He would probably have to answer for that little indiscretion sometime in the near future.

"Okay, here's what you're going to say. Tell her we want a private meeting at 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, after the rest of the staff are gone. Inform everyone you're closing a little early that day. Just tell her we want to discuss salary and benefits for our Sr. Tech position one-on-one." Barb was in full attack mode now.

"Okay, I'll do that," was all he could muster.

"Don't worry about the details, we'll go over it the night before, okay?" Barb explained.

"Okay Hon." To be honest Dr. Clark felt relieved whenever Barb took over decision making and getting things organized. He knew she had something planned. It felt like a weight had been lifted off his chest.

"Now why don't you go out and feed the horses, while I get dinner started?" Barb commanded.

Dr. Clark loved spending time with their horses. It was one of the reasons they'd bought this little farm. To be able to board and ride horses. The horses were stabled in the newer pole building, but the old barn still stood on the property. It was used mostly for storing old farm equipment and some of the old riding supplies, like old saddles and miscellaneous horse tack.

Dr. Clark was busy with his horses, when Barb rang his cell phone to tell him dinner was almost ready. He had spent the time wondering about how Barb was going to address their "Heather" problem. He had an inkling from past experiences.

In the next week, Dr. Clark had procrastinated and put off telling Heather about the meeting. After all it was the week before New Year's Day so he felt it could wait until the New Year started. He didn't want the added stress during the Holiday season. This time Barb agreed with him, but said the meeting had to happen the following week.

The Holidays came and went and things at the animal medical center were back to normal, more or less in January. Barb was reviewing the online time cards for the week between Christmas and New Year and suddenly swore to herself. It looked as if Heather had brazenly put herself down for 2 hours of overtime on New Year's Eve! She quickly snapped up her phone and called Dr. Clark at work and told him what had happened and was emphatic that he should tell Heather about the meeting they had planned. To make it seem less suspicious, she said to tell her, that they wanted to discuss her annual bonus. The annual bonus was usually very generous and paid out at the end of January for the previous year.

Dr. Clark informed the whole staff later that afternoon about their individual face to face to meetings on their bonus. They all had looked forward to this added benefit in working at the animal med center. Heather's meeting was set for 4:00 p.m. Wednesday.

On Tuesday afternoon, Sue had her bonus discussion meeting with Dr. Clark and Barb. She was pleased with the generous bonus, but still seemed to be irritated.

"Dr. Clark, are you going to talk to Heather about her cheating on her time cards?" Sue was very direct. "We all work as hard as she does, and don't steal from you like she does."

"Sue, we are addressing the problem with Heather directly, so you'll just have to give us the time to do it," Barb answered for both of them.

"Well I'd like to know how you plan to do that," Sue demanded. "If she just gets a slap on the wrist, then I may have to leave the med center. And I love my job, but it just isn't fair to all of us."

"Sue, after we talk to her, we'll give you more information, okay?" Barb again answered.

Sue seemed to be somewhat accepting of that explanation, and got up to leave, since her meeting was officially over.

"We may have to tell her some specifics or you might lose her, or Heather, or both," Barb informed her husband.

"Let's wait to see how our meeting goes tomorrow with Heather, then decide what we can share," Dr. Clark responded.

The next day was busy, but everyone worked well, since they knew the office was closing early at 4:00 o'clock. Sue's car pulled into the parking lot around 3:30 and she was carrying a folder with some of the time card information. They had a small luncheon room that doubled as a meeting room when needed. She had gone over her approach with Dr. Clark the night before, and he "tentatively" approved it.

Wednesday passed without incident, and by 4:00 o'clock the rest of the staff were getting into their cars. Dr. Clark locked the front door and turned the lights low in the reception area. He also hung a closed sign on the door. Walking back to the luncheon room, Heather was already seated and making small talk with Barb who sat across the table from her. Just to make the meeting less of a confrontation, Dr. Clark sat at the end of rectangular table between them.

"Heather I'm including Barb in all of our meetings from now on, so she's more involved in the day to day business. And we wanted to discuss your annual bonus, and another matter." Dr. Clark said a bit stiffly.

"Oh, okay," Heather's antenna seemed to pick up on his tone immediately. "Is everything okay, you know with our bonuses, or is there something else?"

"No, the bonus amounts are good, but we wanted to discuss something else with you, as you are a Senior Tech," Barb chimed in. "And, Dr. Clark puts a lot of responsibility and trust in your actions." Barb wasn't going to beat around bush. "Heather it's come to our attention that you are clocking in extra hours into the time card system, that may not be ......real."

"Well I do some work from home, you know that, Doc? You know, ... ordering some supplies and uh, well some other stuff too." Heather offered without a lot of commitment.

"Let me guess, Sue was complaining about my time? I know she has access to the system too."

"Heather, we've noticed this a while back and didn't question you, but recently, you've clocked what looks like an extra 15 hours in the past several weeks. That is excessive, for ordering supplies, which you also do while here at work." Dr. Clark said.

Heather's face was red, and she looked a bit defeated but kept up the charade. "Well, then you should do the ordering then." Looking at Dr. Clark.

Barb responded, "Please tell us what you were on ordering for two hours on New Year's Eve. We thought your husband and you were going to some big party at your in-laws."

Heather slumped down in her chair. She knew that was a stupid thing to do, but impulsively, did it anyway. She finally found her voice, "I'm so sorry, I don't know why I did that," was all she could offer.

"Are you going to fire me? I really need this job, as we've kind of over-spent for Christmas and well that last vacation to Las Vegas put us into a hole. "

"Heather you're my most skilled vet tech, but these actions are WAY over the line." Dr. Clark seemed to be getting stronger.

Now Barb added, "Heather, if you don't make restitution for at least fifteen hours at your overtime rate, plus the two hours on New Year's eve, we'll have to withhold your bonus and let you go."

"Please, I really need that bonus, and my job. Can't I pay it back some other way? You know, so much a week, or work some of my hours for free? "

Barb again answered, "Well, Pa. Wage and hour laws forbids us from letting you work for nothing. Perhaps we can withhold the amount you 'stole' from your bonus and you can keep your job; in addition to receiving some extra discipline."

Heather looked a little relieved. "Extra discipline? Like cleaning up the dog stalls or something like that? We already take turns doing that."

"Heather, I'm talking about corporal discipline. Taking a little money from you, won't do much to correct your attitude, or make it a good learning experience for you. And we really don't want you to lose your job, that hurts us too." Barb said, while Dr. Clark just looked on.

Heather picked up that Barb had taken charge of the meeting. "Well what exactly does this corporal discipline mean?"

"If you agree to it, you will sign a disciplinary agreement, then you have one half of your bonus withheld for two months. After that time, without further incidents, you will receive your full bonus, which is almost $1200 this year after taxes. The corporal discipline means you will receive ten strokes with a leather strap on your butt. Let's just round it up to an even twelve, since the New Year's Eve thing."

Heather's eyes grew wide and she stared at both Dr. Clark and Barb.

"You don't have to decide tonight, discuss with it with your hubby, and let us know tomorrow. If you want, he's welcome to witness your discipline when it happens." Dr. Clark added, so she knew he was on board with it.

Heather finally found her voice, she was relieved at not losing her job, but also worried about Mike's reaction. "If it's okay with you, I don't want him to know, if I go through with it. But I really need my job. And my bonus."

"Well, then you'll have to have a third-party witness, if you want to go ahead with it. That protects us should you change your mind afterwards and say that we coerced or forced you into corporal punishment." Barb added.

Barb and Dr. Clark rose to signal the end of the meeting. Heather also got up and quickly left the office. Driving home, she was worried about Mike finding out that she'd cheated on her hours, or that she could lose her job. She was a bit surprised that her panties felt a little wet and touching between her legs while driving felt the moisture seeping through her work pants.

While Heather did feel relief, that she wouldn't lose her job, she was a little scared and excited about getting corporal discipline. When she was married previously to Scott, he'd sometimes smack her ass during love making, and it excited her, but nothing else came after that. Her current husband, Mike was a good man, but their lovemaking had been pretty routine, and not quite as exciting as the Ex. She'd already decided by the time she pulled into their driveway that she'd go ahead with the discipline. But she couldn't think who she might use as a witness.

Thursday morning was Sue's day to open the office early, and she was surprised when Heather pulled into the parking lot right next to her.

"Morning Heather, did I get my days mixed up? Thought I was opening this morning, "Sue asked.

"No, it's your day, I just wanted to ask you something before everyone arrived," responded Heather.

They walked in together, and Sue flicked on all the light switches. "What's up?"

"Sue, I have a favor to ask you, and won't blame you if you turn me down. I know you have access to the time system, and you may have noticed my overtime hours lately. And I'm not accusing you, if you reported it to Barb or Doc." Heather said in her typical forthright tone.