The Rural Red-Headed Stepchild

Things have sucked massive dick around work lately. I've been too tired, angry, or had so much shit go down in one day that I couldn't even think up a specific topic to bitch about. Then I had some awesome days off on my wacky schedule rotation. They were awesome, but meant that I was destined to walk into an exponentially bigger pile of shit this Monday morning.

They were awesome because I had time to do some really important stuff. Me and the other half had the pleasure of spending $1500 at Lenscrafters in one day (the one portion of insurance I would consistently use year to year, I DON'T FUCKING HAVE). I still feel like I'm in a fishbowl due to my new prescription, and other half hasn't stopped bitching about the crappy job they did on centering his new progressive lenses (poor bastard can't see up close anymore). I guess I should have humored the bad accented-care salesman like floor manager who was chasing us around trying to shove new frames I might like in my face and then she would have spent more time centering our lenses. How the fuck could I have known? Not to mention, I couldn't get the grease slick she rubbed on my glasses off for two days. Now come on people, if your job is to touch peoples glasses all day, should your hands be lubed up like you need to shove it into some tight bodily crevice? I got some other errands done. It was nice.

So what has happened recently? Well, I was already ridiculously short staffed. Then, my best tech gave to 2 weeks notice to go work at a hospital. Can't say I blame her really... I might do the same if the situation arose at the moment. So the scramble begins- find help, fucking seriously find help.

Did I bitch about my help yet? They MEAN well, (well, most of them do, I think), but intentions don't get you that fucking far in the pharmacy now do they? They can't intend their way into understanding insurance processing when the only person there trained well enough to teach them is running around pretending to be my assistant manager, and now leaving. I never worked as a tech. I'm glad I didn't waste time and got in and through with pharmacy school lickety-split, but it fucking sucks some days that I don't know a damn thing when it comes to insurance. I'd like to learn, but when we're as short staffed as we are, and I'm running around doing every tech function BUT insurance on top of my manager and pharmacist duties, there hasn't really been time. Then again, it's not my damn job, it's theirs... so I have a dilemma. Should I enable my company to continue to not look for adequate help and continue to pick up the slack and do things that the other pharmacists DO NOT EVER DO OR EVEN TRY TO DO and are not really in my job description (with this company)?

So back to my techs. There is the brand new trainee- the couple month licensed tech, and the been there a long time, knows how to do most of the stuff if given A LOT OF TIME to work on it, but turns into a lunatic when the stress starts tech. Then there's "the onion guy" pharmacist and my love her to death but should have retired 80 years ago old pharmacist who works when onion guy is off.

Being that I'm in a rural store, I don't even have slim pickings for techs to replace or add to my staff. I have NO pickings! And the fucking place DOESN'T ADVERTISE! Seriously?! How the fuck are you supposed to find help when YOU DON'T FUCKING ADVERTISE?!!!??? I'm not looking for someone to face soup cans, I can't just grab any douche bag off the street.

I've been looking for techs knowing that the situation was getting dire for about 3 months. No luck. Too many new people to bring in another trainee- it's already the blind leading the fucking blind around there.

So, when I use the all important (and currently mentioned in all my emails to her) term "safety" to spur them to get me some damn help, I finally get a flood of offers. What days of the week? Friday and Saturday, every single on of them. They get OT to come help at my store. Do I get one offer for a Monday or Tuesday? I'll let you guess.

Various other shit continues to go down as business continues to be crazy and we continue to hellishly understaffed. Lots of customer complaints about wait times, etc. Like I really give a shit if you had to wait 2 hours? Ha! Maybe you should call first before you drive 2 hours into town from you farm to make sure that medicine is ready? Ever think of that?

So I finally get an offer of someone who is willing to help out for a while, assuming she is "released" by her store manager to do so. It's coming out of my budget (which is through the fucking stratosphere lately, due to all the help I'm bringing in.... more explanation of that later, GOODBYE BONUS!)

Actually- no, not "more on this later" because this is something that is pissing me off too. It should piss of the company too- it's a good damned waste of resources. When techs come to help me they get paid drive time and they get paid for gas (and they get OT, if they are over for the week, all out of my budget). This means they are getting paid 5-6 hours per trip to sit on their ass in a car?! Alright, I can live with that if someone is driving up for the week to help (in which case we pay their hotel room too).

BUT they are offering to have different people drive up EVERY DAY?! Sometimes they offer people from the same store: tech1 can come Wednesday, tech2 can come Thursday, then tech1 can come again Friday? Why not just move their fucking schedules around and send me one tech for 3 days? Why is this such a hard concept? Why won't my DM grow some balls and tell the other managers that this is not ok? Why am I the only one who isn't ok with the obvious waste of resources? It's not that I'm worried about my bonus (I kissed that fucker goodbye a long time ago- thanks old manager for running the place into the ground and leaving it to me to pick up the pieces 6 months later... I'm sure your bonus was great). I thought large corporations were about efficiency, I thought I could learn a few things in case I ever opened my own store. Well, they aren't. Not at all. The amount of waste and inefficiencies in every manner of operation you could think of never ceases to amaze me.

That cleared up, so I have someone to work for a few weeks. I leave last Tuesday, content that at least we have people to work for a couple weeks. Don't know about long term, but were ok for a few weeks. I breathe.

Come in today. Place looks like a mess. Apparently all the scripts went out, but just about every other duty was neglected in my absence (thanks onion guy! your a great leader in my absence). Fuck it. It's the price I pay to have a few days off? We'll get it figured out when our help from the big city arrives....

I was pretty sure I told our visitor to be there by opening. Half hour after being open, decide I should inquire as to her whereabouts since shit is starting to get hairy. "What? I'm supposed to be there this week? I thought that was next week because my manager scheduled me here?!" OH DID HE? Why does that not surprise me.

I immediately ring up my DM. I've been calling her so often it seems I've memorized the phone number! I don't even know my own cell number half the time, but the DM's, I've got that ingrained. Two non-answered emails and 4 phone calls later I manage to get through.

"What?, she's not out there" "I'll call (the other store manager) and get back to you." Think someone got back to me? Think we had any help all day?

Tech who should be at my store calls later. Wonders if we found anyone else. Says, she thinks she can come the next day AFTER she works opening shift at her store, because her manager still won't release her.

Why is it ok to neglect rural stores in this manner? I have ALL of my staff working. I have NO ONE I can call into help. ALL of my staff consists of THREE TOTAL TECHS at the moment. I'm sure that other store manager could have called in one of his various people who had the day off and had them work that day (but that would mean overtime for one of his techs on HIS stores budget, and this fucker is all about minimizing labor costs). So, to protect the budget of the big city store, we have to run less than bare bones? He's the one who told my DM (or was told by my DM) that we could use this tech and than conveniently forgot about it? Doesn't that make it his fucking problem to find someone to cover her shift? She was already booked at my store! Fuck that shit. Selfish bastards.

So who waits to have their shifts covered? Not the big city store... nope. It's easy to neglect someone who you don't have to see very often. People disgust me.

I'm only working Tuesday again this week. That means NEXT Monday I'll be walking into hell on fucking earth since I won't have time to even fix the problems that occurred in my absence last week. God damned accident waiting to happen up there. And no one can say I never told them so...

You'll never get it back.

Call me crazy, as much as I bitch, I'm dedicated to my job. I'm dedicated to everything I apply myself to.

So, on my day off, I am sitting in Starbucks waiting for my DM to discuss the issues regarding my staff pharmacist. Isn't that great? How the fuck am I ever going to get this time back?

That's how (stupidly) dedicated I am. Granted, my store is in the middle of nowhere and we're lucky if we get a visit every 2 months from the DM, and she's impossible to track down on the phone, and when I can track her down via phone, well, if you've worked in a pharmacy you know just how easy it is to have a private conversation in there (Ha!).

I'm hoping something comes of this. I'm hoping they get rid of the loser we have and trade him in for the guy I wanted to hire, and she (said) she wanted to hire, but the suits turned down for whatever reason.

I think dedication will be the death of me. It's what makes me good at what I do, but it's what is going to turn all my hair white before age 30 too. It is what is going to make me literally bite a piece of someone's head off in the next 2 weeks if he makes another lame as excuse about anything.

Is it wrong to hold people to the same standards as I hold myself? I know it may be stupid to think they will actually live up to them, but, is it wrong? I don't know how to expect anything else. I don't know how to not-give a shit.

I'm constantly reminded of how unimpressed I am with the human race, how hive minded, consistently selfish and remarkably childish they are. Not that I'm not selfish- I totally am, and believe that everyone is (though many refuse to admit it to themselves), but I am surprised at which ways people are incredibly selfish. Little things that people just don't bother about or consider:

One of my techs got into a major car accident, but managed to escape unscathed. This happened when leaving work. They couldn't manage to call anyone (and even then, didn't bother to call the pharmacy directly, they called the store) until 17 minutes before their shift was to start the next day. It would have been nice had he thought of his co-workers and informed us so that we might have made other arrangements.

Just simple shit like that. That's reasonable, that shows you have some degree of character and the ability to be considerate of others when it won't directly effect you. I'm tired of all the gooey good shit that people do only being the things that they can take credit for and look good in the eyes of others. I don't give a shit if you sponsor some orphan in Africa if you can't keep your dog from shitting in my yard (or won't pick it up when they do).

Doctor Pharmacist, M-P-you got a certificate for that?harm.D.

It's easy to get into the habit of calling all professors "Dr." even the ones who are not. Luckily I didn't fall into that because I simply called them by there last name. "Smith, Harper, Dumb Cunt, BumpIt" etc.

Point here is, I got super used to calling pharmacists Dr. in everyday settings. I never really liked it, even though that's the degree I was getting. It seemed weird. My "elder" pharmacists don't get called Dr. so why should we? It confuses people. Then you have to go into all the bullshit about how you did or did not do a doctoral thesis, how long you spent in school, or in my case "there's no way you're old enough to be a doctor" to which I normally stare ahead, then continue what I was saying.

I met a (newly graduated/residency completed) pharmacist at the VA who said all her patients just call her Dr. Pharmacist. Now, I'm not really sure how to take that, either you don't spend the time to make sure they know your name... or something? I would not respond to "pharmacist" so why they hell would I respond to "dr. pharmacist?" I think she liked it, but, ehh... I have a name.

So, in academia everyone seems totally down with inflating their egos and allowing (or telling) anyone and everyone they meet to call the Dr. Well, in retail, it's just weird.

Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of my title. I'm the first in my family to be able to put "Dr." on my checks in front of my name. If Bill Cosby can be called Dr, then sure as fuck I can. And chiropractors receive roughly the same amount of education as pharmacist, and they have NO qualms being called Dr., so why should I?

I figured I would reserve the title for use in professional situations, if I ever (HA!) had anything published, or decided to go into politics. That or when for some reason I felt like being a total bitch and using it to belittle someone with a big head who pissed me off. "Yeah, well from now on you can call me Dr. ____, ok?" I haven't had the pleasure of doing this yet, though my other half does seem to have stopped arguing with me so much when I give him medical advice since the title became official.

If you've read further back, you've seen that I didn't end up exactly where I figured I would for work. Holy shit has this been an eye opener.

I've spent so much time putting out fires the first few months that I didn't have time to consider that I am the only professional in the building. I started to get lonely. OK, I recently acquired a second pharmacist, but, lets not get started on my feelings about him except the fact that I'm trying to figure out when we get those new Febreeze wood block air fresheners so I can stick one next to his onion smelling ass. No- I am not going to continue to make the company pay for your motel because you refuse to pay normal rent prices and lie and say there is nowhere available to you. That's my bonus fucker- and I see what you're up to. When you want to start putting in an extra hour a day and not taking lunch like me, we'll talk.

Back to "store relations"...

It gets even worse when I consider that most of the "management" at the store started from the bottom up. The bottom doesn't look so hot- there's a rare flower with some true common sense who actually listens or looks you in the eye when you speak, but I said rare. And even these have absolutely no idea who or what goes on in the pharmacy, except the fact that I get to have (extremely tasteful) facial jewelry and they don't, and my payroll is huge.

Having started to get some major attitude when going about dealing with management and trying to keep pharmacy operations running. For the hell of it, I thought I would experiment with using my title. Three months earlier I would have felt like a pretentious asshole doing this, but since I can't stand these people and they don't respect me anyways, what the fuck do I have to lose? At the very least its a chance to occasionally educate a patient that their pharmacist DID go to school. I don't just wear a fancy white coat. And yes, I might be the youngest and shortest person in the pharmacy, but that doesn't mean you should look around me and motion to the 50yo cashier to give you medical advice. She can barely figure out the alphabet (seriously, no kidding), I doubt she can explain how your PPI works.

Not to mention on my search for a new cashier, our personnel department informed me and the store manager of a candidate "who was going to pharmacist school." Sorry dumb ass (and by the way, try to clean the food stains off your faded shirt before you come to work please), we are in a 1 horse town 3 hours from the big city. That big city is 6-10 hours from any city with an actual "pharmacist school." I have some concerns (see angry pharmacist's thread on pharmacy TECH schools) with people who don't learn on the job. All the ones I have dealt with so far have been useless. But that's beside the point- the point here was that even the person who sees what pharmacy payroll looks like thinks that you can just work as a cashier and work on "pharmacist school" in the evenings in a town with no dry cleaner. Time to whip out the Dr. Badge.

So I did. I cut out the first name. It just says "Dr._______, Pharmacy Manager." Since I feel like being a bitch, I've decided that no one at this store, save the store manager, my technicians, or my boss should be on a first name basis with me. My employer considers me "an independently licensed professional." So though, unfortunately, I am an employee, I don't plan to be with the company forever- no lifer here. I'm Dr. now. NO I am not on the same level as you. I don't go to the break room and joke with you. I don't have a uniform for work, I'm allowed to eat and drink in the pharmacy. I cannot be replaced at the drop of a hat (at least not in the town I'm working in!). Sorry to be the bitch that pointed this out.

Now don't get me wrong here- I'd generally rather be with working class assholes (and I say assholes with love) than "my peers." I have yet to attend a party full of Dr.'s (of whichever variety) or pharmacist's where I enjoyed myself that much. But put me in a room with some regular Joe's FULL of common sense, who won't be offended by what I say or how I dress and can take a joke, and I'll be alright.

But as a point, I'm attempting to put a few people "in their place."

My first day with the badge had some notable occurrences. My favorite was when one the the more useless assistant managers saw me and said "why does your badge say Dr. on it?" me: "because I am one" AM: "so you got like a certificate or something?" me: "I'm a doctor of pharmacy" AM: blank, confused stare me: "Yeah, it's good to help educate people that pharmacists actually go to school."

How I got to where I am now.

Up to the point of getting into pharmacy school, everything I had done had worked to plan, and on time.  I knew this couldn't go on forever.

I had plans for after pharmacy school.  They didn't work out as planned.  I'd explain more, but, then some people might be able to figure out who I am, and, at least for now, until I see if I can effectively complain about working without saying something that might get me canned, I'm trying to avoid that.  There are some vindictive mother fuckers out there, as I am constantly reminded.  Lets not test my luck?

So, things didn't work out right to plan.  What I assumed I would be doing is not what I am doing.  I had to scramble to find a job.  I did, but it meant working a few hours from home.  That's ok, the pay is better.

Not to mention it's probably a good thing that something didn't work out my way.  I was getting far to effective at planning things out 5-10 years in advance.  Right now I'm planning out 6 months in advance. It's honing my skills of "adaptability," and I have to say, I think I'm pretty good at it.

As the world turns, my staff pharmacist position quickly became pharmacy manager.  When the old manager quit after finding out they had finally hired someone else, I became the pharmacist in charge.  I was dealing with all the bullshit and my name was on the door, legally speaking, so why not get the minor pay upgrade that goes with it?  We'll see if the bonus is worth it, but in the time I have been dealing with the bullshit of grown adults from a manager perspective, I'd say, probably not.

I'm getting by.  The place is still open, were not losing money.  It's slowly getting better.  I got handed the keys and a whiney bitchy staff who was used to doing whatever they want.  I spent 30 minutes with the old manager and then I was on my own.  I have no management training (or really, any training at all in regards to the company).  I've been having a grand time flying by the seat of my pants.  I've been informed by a friend that I might learn the skill of empathy or develop an ulcer.  I think I'll take the ulcer- there are treatments for that.  Too much empathy is a psychological disease as a retail pharmacist, you'll go broke too, from paying for medicines for people on medicaid who ask you if there child should just not get the $10.00 antibiotics because they aren't covered (despite the handful of gold jewelry and cell phones).  More on this subject later.  I will revise my statement to better reflect the nature of the disease.

The backstory

I'm not just bitter about pharmacy, I'm bitter about lots of things.

I'm that special kind of person that many people don't like to be around.  I notice the bad things in life.  I never (take time to talk about) how I stop to smell the roses.

I do take time to talk about those assholes blasting their base from their cheap ass cars with sound systems that cost more than the purchase of the trailer they live in ruining my walk in the park.  I don't really let them ruin my walk, but let me tell you, if it was legal, my contemplations of my ability to effectively perform a sniping maneuverer with a rifle would go much further.

Get the picture?  So, it takes a special kind of person to share in this life.  A special kind of person who can appreciate my thoughts and feelings without feeling like they want to go kill themselves after dealing with me.  A special kind of person to commiserate.  Lets leave it at I don't have lot of close friends, but I do have a wonderful significant other.  One who feels the same way I do and never tires of hearing me bitch.  We're two peas in a bitter rotten pod, and we love it.

I was bitter all through pharmacy school.  I was your favorite person who pointed out what you didn't want to hear.  I made enemies of teachers and students alike, yet still managed to be the youngest Dr. of Pharmacy graduate I have encountered, and in the top of the class (Rho Chi, yeah, I'm bitter and smart).

I regularly found ways to "call your baby ugly" when I questioned the necessity, validity and importance of tasks that instructors ("Dr.'s" of pharmacy who 2 years after graduation insisted that everyone within the college, including students who would be their peers in 6 months, call them such) had spent their hard time thinking up.  It almost got me into trouble a few times.  But how can you reprimand somebody for asking "why are you making me put a test in my CV/Resume and grading me on this?  I would never  do that in real life?  If this is an exercise in preparation to teach me how to prepare an effective resume, why don't you just tell me if what I prepared was effective or not?" (Yes, I got called in for a sit down based on that interaction). You can't base life or success around a checklist.  Sorry.

The instructors I took issue with were generally women, and generally spent no or minimal time working in the real world.  "Those who can't, teach" (or should I say, only teach) when it comes to people who were educated to work with real people and perform real life tasks, but instead go straight back into a classroom a reteach what the "learned" but never practiced and certainly never mastered.  Then they come up with "new" ways you should do things, things that they have and will never be able to apply in practice, but are positive that you should do in the same way.  On the flip-side, I did fine with nerd PH.D's who were not pharmacists, and were doing exactly what their education taught them to do: work in a lab.

Students that appreciated the cushy-feely attitude these half rate instructors provided didn't appreciate me.  Idiots that got into school based on quotas (you know what kind I'm talking about), or the "hardship" of being stupid enough to get knocked up at 18 and then think that someone else should pay for school for them didn't appreciate me either.  Not many people appreciated with me, but they couldn't argue with me either.  Or if they did, I'd just walk away.  "I'm here for school fuckers, come graduation day, sayonara!" And that is what happened, I finished and never looked back. I said goodbye to about 5 people at graduation and got the hell out of there.  I'm keeping in contact with one instructor.  They are bitter too.  They hold people accountable, hate fluff, and are more than adequate in their job.  They also chose to leave the school (go figure).  People hated this person for liking me, we made sure to sit together at my graduation banquet.

Despite being in the top of my class and holding positions in a national pharmacy organization (that has very few student positions) that actually gets things done, and has the money to do so (because that's how it works in this world), as opposed to *cough, clear throat AP, cough cough HA* who puts out a magazine full of fluff and gives out a enough titles and awards to sound like the Special Olympics, I was never recognized or appreciated (i.e. given a scholarship) for my accomplishments.  If only I had created a situation for myself where I was too poor to pay for school, but could drive a new car (unlike my '89 american made machine that never dies), or had spread my legs without thought for the future and then relied on others to reward me for my mistakes.  C'est la vi.  I can't go back and make fucked up decisions now.

I didn't attend high school graduation or prom (or the pharmacy school prom either- yes, they had a prom), but if I had, I may have even said fuck it and not attended this one.  However, I felt I should afford the few family members that appreciate me and my hard work the opportunity to see me graduate at least once.  The only reason I attended my class banquet is because I did the right thing and paid my class dues- dues that were supposed to make sure we got a nice gift for ourselves at graduation (which we didn't) but was instead were used to by food for events that the class "leadership" (i.e. the only idiots stupid enough to think anyone gave a shit what they thought) thought up and only they went to.  Yeah, money well spent. Fuck.  So I had free tickets- and I'd be damned if I wasn't going to use them (and make a point of showing up, under-dressed with my whole family in jeans, when others wore tuxs and fancy dresses) just to prove the point, going to something I had paid for, and potentially upset others with my appearance, both the act of being there (poor them, they thought they could forget about me) and my physical dress.  I drank.  I bitched a lot.  I got to point out to my second half all of the assholes that I had bitched about for 4 years.  I didn't drag him down to the shithole I went to school in, so he never had the pleasure of meeting these characters.  He had a good job, at home, we had no intention of moving.  Four years isn't that long when you're united in bitterness and love for each other.

So, there's no love lost between my, my institution of higher learning, or the assholes I spent 4 years being stuck there with.  It was just another opportunity to bring the bitterness to the next level, another event in a long line of similar situations.  I've been a loner for a long time, and some how life keeps reinforcing my outlook.

Welcome to my bitter world.

Let me introduce myself, or at least to the point that I can maintain an appropriate level of anonymity.  I'm a newly graduated pharmacist.  My previous attempts at blogging have met with failure, usually when the angry impetuous to get me started waned and I no longer felt the fire to bitch.

Having graduated and joining the work force, I now feel confident that I will have steady stream of complaints, bitch sessions, suggestions and anecdotes to keep me going.

I have a bad mouth, not that you'd know it at work.  You have fair warning.  Don't like it? Don't read this fucking thing then.

With that out of the way:

Welcome to my new (likely piss poor attempt) at blogging.