Motion of emotion

This morning at work I received a phone call from an employee trying to verify coverage for his daughter. This particular employee was not happy. No, that doesn't even fit. He was livid. This guy's daughter is very sick and he can't afford to pay anything else out of pocket to see some kind of specialist. He was yelling at me, telling me that the previous person he spoke to needed to be fired and that he was going to sue the benefit company. I offered the options that I had for him, but of course it is such an urgent situation for him that the options weren't good enough. He continued to badger me and yell and bruise my ego. Side note: Now, it wouldn't have been that big of deal on any other day, but last night I got about two hours of sleep because of Mia. This entire week I've probably had a total of six to eight hours of sleep. Mia isn't adjusting to our new sleeping arrangements yet and has affected my shut eye. So when this guy threw at me, "You have no idea what I'm going through, being a father watching your child go through such terrible pain", it hit me. Hard. I informed this gentleman that I am a single mom and I completely understand. After this phone call ended, 45 minutes later and after my supervisor was pulled in without resolving anything, I burst into tears. Now it's been a very long time since I've cried. This wasn't crying, this was bawling, sobbing even. He hit a very sensitive nerve with the parent thing. I, of all people, understand the difficulties of being a parent and not being able to help your child who is sick or in pain. I had to step away from my desk for a good 20 minutes to compose myself before I could answer another call. Every time someone would walk up to me, the waterworks would start up again. My supervisor is the best lady in the entire world. She kept offering to give me a hug, but I knew if she even touched me I would lose it again. I'm sure this looks great being a temp. "Sure she can handle difficult calls, just give her an hour to cry it off". Damn it. Damn the hormones and damn the lack of sleep. I know that working in a job that I do requires some tough skin. I am the type of person that can resolve a problem and keep the person on the other end calm enough to get the problem fixed. I'm chalking this one up to exhaustion and hormones. I'm a woman for Pete's sake!