I work at a busy call center and my job is very stressful. I have also recently gone through a messy divorce and so I was feeling particularly stressed when I headed in for another long day of work. One thing that I will say about the company that I work for is that they do a lot to help ease the stress and give us rewards for providing good service. They often have special meals for us and different events and things like that. On this particular day, they had arranged for fifteen minute massages to give us a little break in the middle of our day. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, one of my coworkers came by my desk to let me know that it was my turn for a massage. He told me that they were in the small conference room at the back of the building, so I headed there and was actually looking forward to de-stressing a bit.
When I got to the conference room, there was a guy waiting for me dressed in loose sweatpants and a tee shirt and he greeted me and closed the door behind us as he pointed me towards a message chair set up to the side of the room. I got into the chair, settled in and tried to relax as he adjusted the headrest for me. It was the typical massage chair with the donut shaped headrest that you lean forward onto while you rest your chest against the padded support. I actually felt slightly more relaxed just not being hunched over at my desk.
He moved behind me when he was done adjusting the chair and began by working on my neck and upper back. He remarked about how tight my neck muscles were and we made some small talk about stress and work. He kept working over my neck, digging deep into the muscles and I let out a bit of a groan and a sigh.
"Feeling a little better?" he asked.
"mmm, that feels great."