The Pharmacy Years: Corporate Retail
Yet another series to add to the Lamplight Drivel archives: my 20 years (off and on) in the pharmacy world. It was an often very stressful period that I believe removed years from my life. I worked in retail, institutional, and palliative care environments. Of those, the latter (my final Rx job during my later days of graduate school) was easily the most enjoyable and certainly the least hypertensive. We'll devote 4 entries to overviews of each distinctive environment between the years of 1987-2007. There are several interesting tales to tell, some that have no chance of being printed here, invisible audience. I will not incriminate myself!
These entries are mainly for documentation purposes, written in simple prose that may be reminiscent of Reader's Digest articles. Not trying for any Pulitzer Prizes here. Hopefully, they will be entertaining. Devotees of LD will also note that some of the tidbits I share have already been mentioned in earlier postings.
Summer, 1987: I had graduated high school and was hitting the pavement to find a job before I started at Palm Beach Atlantic College in the fall. I did not have regular access to a car so my geography was limited to Eastern West Palm Beach. I applied at the Eckerd Drug very near to my house. Not hiring. I went a mile south down Dixie Highway to another Eckerd. Same deal. I eventually took a job at an Arby's, a real nightmare. I was only there for 2 weeks, but it seemed like the staff completely turned over. I learned from that experience what fun manning a drive thru can be. Also, one of my co-worker's nicknames was "pickles". When I got the call from Eckerd (the one a mile away), I violated my usual 2 week notice clause and bolted.
The store was in a shopping center where the Skydrome Drive-In had been for many decades. It closed in, I think, 1978. Entreprenuers learned that strip malls were far more profitable (yet far less romantic) than Burt Reynolds double features. To think what had transpired on the very same ground years earlier! Right where I stood and counted pills, some long ago dude may have been, dropping a few of his own in his Pinto or VW bug while he watched ORCA or DEATH RACE 2000.
By the time I started, school was a month away. I would go on to work at the same store all through college and a month or so beyond. It was generally a good experience. I learned much from a lovely pharmacist named *Beverly, who I would learn was the mother of a guy I grew up with at church. I even did yard work for her occasionally. She was Southern to the core. Very polite and very conservative, as was I at the time. She often spoke of how PBA was becoming "too liberal".
Working with her was a pleasure, but with some of the other pharmacists? Let's just say I acquired new skills. Like how to function and get the job done even if the others were antagonists, working toward seemingly an opposite end. Not bad people, just, challenging. Early on, I worked with one pharmacist in his mid-80s who could barely see (he held pill bottles right up to his face) and got easily flustered. When we got a little too busy, he would have me tell patients we were out of something just to lighten his load. Even if that item was in a 1000 ct. drum in plain view of the customer/patient.
Then there was *Doris, who essentially was nice but could condescend like none I had ever met. To other employees and patients. It caused some ugly scenes. I played referee more than once. I had no such confrontations, mainly because I ignored some of her more agitative remarks - another valuable life skill, and damned hard at times. I attributed some of her behavior to a difficult home life; she had a cognitively deficient son who drained every last ounce from her. She was very loving towards him, in that necessary tough way.
The biggest challenge was the store manager, *Margaret. Iron-fisted mini-despot, she. It drove her a bit mad that her dominion stopped with some of the pharmacy routines (narc inventory, not being able to enter the pharmacy area when the Rph. not present, etc.). Margaret also had wild mood swings that you could never predict. You never knew what you were walking into. She was the first of several such supervisors I would work with over the years.
Interestingly, nearly a decade after I left Eckerd I ran into Margaret at a local community college library. It had always been her dream to be a librarian, and she was much happier. I remember standing in disbelief as she animatedly described her life at that time. It was a nice coda.
I had already experienced the soul sucking customer service rites, the having to remain polite in the face of reptitilian brained behavior. I gagged on the "customer is always right" and Eckerd's own "America Can't Wait" slogans. A vivid memory: a woman had attempted to get a refund on items clearly not purchased at our store at the front register. When they refused, she thought she'd meander to the back of the store and try me. I had gotten a call from a manager seconds later to rebuff her. When I did, she heaved a box of Miracle Grow that hit me squarely in the sternum as she stormed off in a huff. I just froze, in denial of what just happened, and began to laugh.
Towards the end of my time at Eckerd, I worked with a really cool guy named *Jack, who really knew how to handle the SOBs. One jackass gave him the finger when he refused to fill his suspicious prescription for some narcotic. Jack just quietly smiled and returned the guy's obscene gesture not in kind, but with a friendly wave, "We'll see you now." Impressive.
Around that time as well I began an ill-advised relationship with a girl who worked up front. It started with flirtations in the aisles and the frequent rendevous in the storeroom. Then turned to sarcasm and anger, audible to customers. We broke up, and she quit soon after. I was an insecure kid who was jealous of her, ahem, liberal affections with other guys. I also learned the "don't fish off the company pier" or "don't shit where you eat" rules, which, not truly learning my lesson, I would violate again in future pharmacy jobs. For more on this girl and further adventures with her, consult the "PBA" series from last year in this blog. You'll also read about another Eckerd co-worker there, the Mississippi goth!
During the three and a half years at that Eckerd, which had been converted from a Shopper's Drug Mart, I saw many employees come and go. There were tragedies: co-worker's family members passing on, co-workers busted for stealing from the cash register or selling cigarettes to minors. One cashier ran off with her boyfriend and was never again heard from. Some went to lunch on their first day and never returned. When I finally got a car I gave rides to some of them, of all ages. I played counselor to a girl a few years younger and sounding board to an elderly woman who sometimes dreaded going home to her empty house.
The mother of a childhood friend with whom I became estranged in the 8th grade came in one day and apologized for that whole mess (a gross misunderstanding), which had ocurred 8 years earlier. She had been dear friends with my mother and that relationship had soured as well. But there my friend's mother was, making ammends.
But, my father made hostile visits to the store, after I had moved out. My mother had left his verbal abuse a few years prior, but I stuck it out with him until I no longer could. He would come in and try to start fights with me. Very unfortunate and sad. One of the angriest times of my life.
There are so many other memories, many of which that evaporated. Ghosts, all of them, all of my co-workers. Some I was very close to, hung out with. I recall going to see GODFATHER III on Christmas night 1990 with one guy. Others were like anonymous passersby. It would be the first time I would start thinking about things like this, how people drift in and out of your life. Of them, I know that Beverly passed away quite a few years ago, and my ex-girlfriend is married (a few times) with several children and a collection of live chickens in her yard. She's a Facebook friend, my first, matter a fact. What of the others? Do they remember me?
I learned a great deal about medication during my time at Eckerd. I was mostly a clerk and stock guy but began doing some tech work. We were a relatively slow store (usually between 85-100 scripts a day), which allowed me to some time to study and learn about drug mechanisms of action and such. I also learned of how corporate pharmacy hierarchies work, how bigwigs make barely announced ahead of time visits and how "cold fish" handshakes from them feel. I experienced random visits from the Board of Pharmacy as well, though my later jobs have more interesting tales regarding that.
Then, in May 1991, I resigned as I had graduated and was moving to central Florida to be with my fiancee, a story in itself. I went back to visit the store once that year, already feeling so alien to the place. A young girl had taken my job, and I was envious. It didn't make sense.
About 10 years ago, I drove back to the shopping center to find a dollar store where Eckerd once was. It had closed sometime in the 90s. I went in one afternoon, very amused to find the same red and blue stripe and morter and pestle logos for Shopper's Drug Mart on the walls that Eckerd had never bothered to paint over. It was now a dingily lit, dusty mess of a place. It was odd to look at the back area, where the pharmacy had been, the scene of so many warm recollections, now just filled with etageres of cheap crap. Like nothing of my time there had ever happened. Life moved on. Those ghosts I spoke of were almost audible as I walked around. It would not be the last time......
TO BE CONTINUED
*not the real name
These entries are mainly for documentation purposes, written in simple prose that may be reminiscent of Reader's Digest articles. Not trying for any Pulitzer Prizes here. Hopefully, they will be entertaining. Devotees of LD will also note that some of the tidbits I share have already been mentioned in earlier postings.
Summer, 1987: I had graduated high school and was hitting the pavement to find a job before I started at Palm Beach Atlantic College in the fall. I did not have regular access to a car so my geography was limited to Eastern West Palm Beach. I applied at the Eckerd Drug very near to my house. Not hiring. I went a mile south down Dixie Highway to another Eckerd. Same deal. I eventually took a job at an Arby's, a real nightmare. I was only there for 2 weeks, but it seemed like the staff completely turned over. I learned from that experience what fun manning a drive thru can be. Also, one of my co-worker's nicknames was "pickles". When I got the call from Eckerd (the one a mile away), I violated my usual 2 week notice clause and bolted.
The store was in a shopping center where the Skydrome Drive-In had been for many decades. It closed in, I think, 1978. Entreprenuers learned that strip malls were far more profitable (yet far less romantic) than Burt Reynolds double features. To think what had transpired on the very same ground years earlier! Right where I stood and counted pills, some long ago dude may have been, dropping a few of his own in his Pinto or VW bug while he watched ORCA or DEATH RACE 2000.
By the time I started, school was a month away. I would go on to work at the same store all through college and a month or so beyond. It was generally a good experience. I learned much from a lovely pharmacist named *Beverly, who I would learn was the mother of a guy I grew up with at church. I even did yard work for her occasionally. She was Southern to the core. Very polite and very conservative, as was I at the time. She often spoke of how PBA was becoming "too liberal".
Working with her was a pleasure, but with some of the other pharmacists? Let's just say I acquired new skills. Like how to function and get the job done even if the others were antagonists, working toward seemingly an opposite end. Not bad people, just, challenging. Early on, I worked with one pharmacist in his mid-80s who could barely see (he held pill bottles right up to his face) and got easily flustered. When we got a little too busy, he would have me tell patients we were out of something just to lighten his load. Even if that item was in a 1000 ct. drum in plain view of the customer/patient.
Then there was *Doris, who essentially was nice but could condescend like none I had ever met. To other employees and patients. It caused some ugly scenes. I played referee more than once. I had no such confrontations, mainly because I ignored some of her more agitative remarks - another valuable life skill, and damned hard at times. I attributed some of her behavior to a difficult home life; she had a cognitively deficient son who drained every last ounce from her. She was very loving towards him, in that necessary tough way.
The biggest challenge was the store manager, *Margaret. Iron-fisted mini-despot, she. It drove her a bit mad that her dominion stopped with some of the pharmacy routines (narc inventory, not being able to enter the pharmacy area when the Rph. not present, etc.). Margaret also had wild mood swings that you could never predict. You never knew what you were walking into. She was the first of several such supervisors I would work with over the years.
Interestingly, nearly a decade after I left Eckerd I ran into Margaret at a local community college library. It had always been her dream to be a librarian, and she was much happier. I remember standing in disbelief as she animatedly described her life at that time. It was a nice coda.
I had already experienced the soul sucking customer service rites, the having to remain polite in the face of reptitilian brained behavior. I gagged on the "customer is always right" and Eckerd's own "America Can't Wait" slogans. A vivid memory: a woman had attempted to get a refund on items clearly not purchased at our store at the front register. When they refused, she thought she'd meander to the back of the store and try me. I had gotten a call from a manager seconds later to rebuff her. When I did, she heaved a box of Miracle Grow that hit me squarely in the sternum as she stormed off in a huff. I just froze, in denial of what just happened, and began to laugh.
Towards the end of my time at Eckerd, I worked with a really cool guy named *Jack, who really knew how to handle the SOBs. One jackass gave him the finger when he refused to fill his suspicious prescription for some narcotic. Jack just quietly smiled and returned the guy's obscene gesture not in kind, but with a friendly wave, "We'll see you now." Impressive.
Around that time as well I began an ill-advised relationship with a girl who worked up front. It started with flirtations in the aisles and the frequent rendevous in the storeroom. Then turned to sarcasm and anger, audible to customers. We broke up, and she quit soon after. I was an insecure kid who was jealous of her, ahem, liberal affections with other guys. I also learned the "don't fish off the company pier" or "don't shit where you eat" rules, which, not truly learning my lesson, I would violate again in future pharmacy jobs. For more on this girl and further adventures with her, consult the "PBA" series from last year in this blog. You'll also read about another Eckerd co-worker there, the Mississippi goth!
During the three and a half years at that Eckerd, which had been converted from a Shopper's Drug Mart, I saw many employees come and go. There were tragedies: co-worker's family members passing on, co-workers busted for stealing from the cash register or selling cigarettes to minors. One cashier ran off with her boyfriend and was never again heard from. Some went to lunch on their first day and never returned. When I finally got a car I gave rides to some of them, of all ages. I played counselor to a girl a few years younger and sounding board to an elderly woman who sometimes dreaded going home to her empty house.
The mother of a childhood friend with whom I became estranged in the 8th grade came in one day and apologized for that whole mess (a gross misunderstanding), which had ocurred 8 years earlier. She had been dear friends with my mother and that relationship had soured as well. But there my friend's mother was, making ammends.
But, my father made hostile visits to the store, after I had moved out. My mother had left his verbal abuse a few years prior, but I stuck it out with him until I no longer could. He would come in and try to start fights with me. Very unfortunate and sad. One of the angriest times of my life.
There are so many other memories, many of which that evaporated. Ghosts, all of them, all of my co-workers. Some I was very close to, hung out with. I recall going to see GODFATHER III on Christmas night 1990 with one guy. Others were like anonymous passersby. It would be the first time I would start thinking about things like this, how people drift in and out of your life. Of them, I know that Beverly passed away quite a few years ago, and my ex-girlfriend is married (a few times) with several children and a collection of live chickens in her yard. She's a Facebook friend, my first, matter a fact. What of the others? Do they remember me?
I learned a great deal about medication during my time at Eckerd. I was mostly a clerk and stock guy but began doing some tech work. We were a relatively slow store (usually between 85-100 scripts a day), which allowed me to some time to study and learn about drug mechanisms of action and such. I also learned of how corporate pharmacy hierarchies work, how bigwigs make barely announced ahead of time visits and how "cold fish" handshakes from them feel. I experienced random visits from the Board of Pharmacy as well, though my later jobs have more interesting tales regarding that.
Then, in May 1991, I resigned as I had graduated and was moving to central Florida to be with my fiancee, a story in itself. I went back to visit the store once that year, already feeling so alien to the place. A young girl had taken my job, and I was envious. It didn't make sense.
About 10 years ago, I drove back to the shopping center to find a dollar store where Eckerd once was. It had closed sometime in the 90s. I went in one afternoon, very amused to find the same red and blue stripe and morter and pestle logos for Shopper's Drug Mart on the walls that Eckerd had never bothered to paint over. It was now a dingily lit, dusty mess of a place. It was odd to look at the back area, where the pharmacy had been, the scene of so many warm recollections, now just filled with etageres of cheap crap. Like nothing of my time there had ever happened. Life moved on. Those ghosts I spoke of were almost audible as I walked around. It would not be the last time......
TO BE CONTINUED
*not the real name
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