George Carlin on Religion

I wanted to make this post for a couple reasons. For one, I've been listening to George Carlin standup comedy for the last few days and laughing my ass off. I haven't listened to a Carlin act in a while, and I almost forgot just how fucking funny he is. This clip is from "You Are All Diseased," which I think is his best one. Other noteable parts of "You Are All Diseased" include airport security, cigar smoking, angels, germs, and the advertising lullaby.

The second reason is that I can't possibly explain my view of religion any better than Carlin did right here. There's really no need for further ellaboration.

VACATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I stepped out the door of the pharmacy today, my vacation began. I don't have to report back there until Tuesday the 23rd.

Of course, today had to be a crazy/busy/frustrating day. I knew there was no way I was going to get off easy. We worked short staff for most of the day. We're really pressing for good help in our pharmacy. Too many of our employees are students or have other jobs that prevent them from working a lot of hours. The ones who are able to work a lot don't know shit about the job.

There's this one women I work with who is as dumb as a brick. She's almost 70 years old and works whatever hours she can get in our store. She used to work as a front end cashier, but someone had the bright idea of putting her back in the pharmacy.

Don't get me wrong... she's a very nice lady. She's just stupid. She never owned a computer, and is entirely incapable of learning how to use one. Therefore, she needs help doing the simplest things. What irritates me the most is that she cannot even do a task as simple as pulling a script out of the bin and ringing a customer out without asking for a pharmacist's help half the time.

Here's how her average customer interaction goes:

customer: I'm here to pick up a prescription for John Smith.

dumb lady: Michael (she always calls me that, and it irritates the shit out of me)... Do you have anything back there for John Smith. There's nothing in the bin.

Me: Did you check the computer???

dumb lady: (runs to computer, looks up profile) It says it was filled yesterday.

Me: What's the medication?

dumb lady: Lipitor.

Me: That's done. It should be there.

dumb lady: I looked. It's not. I'll check again. (looks through bin again and comes up empty)

Me: (I stop doing whatever I was doing, go to the bin and pull it out in 2 seconds).

dumb lady: (exasperated) Michael!!! Where was that???

Me: In the "S" bin, exactly where it should be.

dumb lady: Ohhh... I was looking in the wrong bin the whole time. hahahahaha


This freaking exchange or some variation of it happens all goddamn day long. She can't help it. She's just a moron.... and I know that it sounds like (and is) an insult, but it's the truth. I don't hate her for it. I don't think her a bad person. I don't yell at her or make her feel bad. She's just not very bright. Again... she's extremely nice. She's just stupid.

She's one of those people that made it through her whole life because she was cute. You can tell that when she was young, she was really good looking. She probably had guys lined up that would do anything she asked. She's very personable and pleasant. Her good looks and pleasant personality got her wherever she wanted to go in life despite her being so stupid.

She makes my day frustratingly difficult though. The worst part of it is that I'm her favorite. She asks me before she asks anyone else, so I'm the one that has to deal with this shit all the time. She's so inefficient that it almost feels like her presence subtracts an employee instead of adds one. Therefore, on a day where we were already short staffed, she makes it seem like we're down another person because I have to do her job for her and always pay attention to what she's doing in case she screws up.

Whatever though... I'm on vacation!!!! No pharmacy frustration for nearly 2 weeks.

Someone game me flowers

Well... someone gave the pharmacy staff flowers.

Apparently, there is one person in the entire world that knows it is Pharmacist Appreciation Month. Hell, I didn't even know until a customer showed up with flowers a couple days ago. She was the daughter of one of our most frequent customers. Her mother is generally a nice person, but her advanced diabetes has caused her vision to deteiorate significantly, so she can get confused and irritable sometimes. The daughter told us she was giving us the flowers as a way of saying thanks for taking such good care of her mother. She said she knew her mother could be a handful, but she knows we do our best for her.

Having one customer like that makes me feel my job is worthwhile. Most (not quite all) of our pharmacy staff works very hard do give each customer/patient the best service and care possible. Often, with all the incessant complaining about wait times, prices, what is and isn't covered by insurance, and plenty of other things, it seems like people don't appreciate us. This one customer showed us that we are appreciated.

I've been at this store for a year, and now I really feel like I've gotten to know a lot of our regular customers, and they've gotten to know me. I feel almost like part of a community, and that's how it should be. Afterall, it's called "community pharmacy." Most of us have gotten into the habit of calling it retail. I think that's the wrong attitude to take. We should be taking advantage of our opportunities to interact with the general public.

That's really the key to advancing this profession. Fuck residencies and all the other clinical bullshit that pharmacy schools try to shove down the throats of pharmacy students. We don't need to vie for the respect of other healthcare professionals. We need to be more respected by our customers. We need customers to feel comfortable calling us for advice. We need customers realizing that we are the medication experts, and if they have a question about one of their meds, we are more qualified than anyone else to answer it.

It doesn't take much... A change in attitude can go along way. You have to be always be willing to go that extra mile to help someone. Instead of just pointing a customer to aisle 20 when they ask for benadryl, go out and show them where it is and talk to them about it. Show the customers that their questions are welcomed and not an inconvenience to you. Just show you care.

That's the most important message I can give anyone going into community pharmacy.

Here goes...

This was originally intended to be a pharmacy blog, but it has morphed into a diary of my thoughts and feelings that I don't tell anyone else. Since it's anonymous, it's pretty much the perfect place to just get things out without too much worry. In this post, I'm going to open up a bit more than I ever have before.

I'm hurting... bad. It's been a sudden onset thing. It's something that I didn't really expect. Nothing really brought it on. It just hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm anxious. I'm restless. I'm just not in a good place right now.

Basically, I'm horribly lonely. I have friends, but they're not like me. They don't value the same things. They don't like the same things. Even my best friends that I grew up with really are more acquaintances than close companions. I developed those friendships because I was a good basketball player, and that made me acceptable to the "cool" kids in school. The problem is that I was never a cool kid. I'm one of the nerds (even though I never studied). I like books. I like science. I like to have philosophical discussions. I like debating current issues. Basically, I like using my mind, whereas my friends just aren't at that same level as me. I'm not a partier. I don't go to clubs. I drink, but I don't really enjoy it. I do it because I have nothing better to do, and going to the bar is really the only social activity I do these days.

I don't have the "skill" to pick up girls at a bar, and quite frankly, I have no desire to. While most of my friends (and let's face it, most guys in general) look for a good looking girl and hope her personality is acceptable. I'm the exact opposite. I look first and foremost for personality and intelligence. I just hope that the smart girl with the great personality is a cute one. For me, a girl who I don't really pick out as being particularly cute when I first me her can become really attractive if I like her personality.

That's the way it was with my ex. She doesn't jump out at someone as being hot. She was really small (4'10" 82 lbs). Her teeth weren't really straight, and her face isn't beautiful. I mean, she's not unattractive. No one would say she's ugly. She just doesn't jump out at you. However, after becoming friends with her and really getting to know her, she just became unbelievably sexy to me.

I digress...

I'm just dying to have a connection with someone. I've been single for 2 years now, and for that entire 2 years, I wanted to get back with my ex. I still do. I still love her. No question about it. I also know that it's over for good. There is no going back. She doesn't want what I want. We've been through it dozens of times. She was adamant about it. It hurts. I can mask it for a while, but it always stays right under the surface, and the slightest little event can bring it out.

I went to a wedding last saturday and spent the entire night miserable. I was miserable for so many reasons. First, the last time I went to a wedding, I was still with her. Secondly, I saw the bride and groom and wished I could find someone to love and who'll love me that much. Third, I saw my friends dancing, smiling, and having a good time and wondered what stops me from being that way. A bunch of us got a hotel room to party at after the reception was over, but I left early. I just had to get away from there.

I don't want to be desperate, but I almost am. I have options now. I know a girl who likes me a lot. She's a pharmacist that's about the same age as me. There's a lot of things we have in common, and since she's a pharmacist that works for the same company as me, we have a lot of things to talk about. Overall, she's not my type though. She's very religious, and I'm about as far from that as possible without being disrespectful to others. She can be pretty annoying too. Despite the incompatibility, I'm seriously considering asking her out. I just feel such an overwhelming need for a companion right now that I'm just about ready to take any opportunity that comes my way.

I resubscribed to eHarmony. A lot of people don't like the way eHarmony does it's matching. They think the people on the site are too conservative. Well, you know what? I'm conservative... not in my political views, but in the way I go about doing things. I'm a simple guy who's idea of a fun time is dinner and a movie. I don't want to meet a million people. I'm not looking for someone to hook up with. I'm looking for someone I could potentially have a long term relationship with. That's just who I am. I'm just a nice guy. I'm quiet, reserved, non-confrontational, respectful, fiercely loyal, honest, and all those other nice guy things.

All I know is that I can't just sit around hoping that someday my ex will miraculously come back. It's not going to happen, and the longer I wait and hold on to that last sliver of hope, the more miserable I will be. I haven't made any effort to meet anyone in the last 2 years. I keep thinking that I'm young, and I have plenty of time to find someone and settle down. However, one by one my friends and coworkers of similar age are getting married, and I realize that I don't want to wait until my mid 30's to get married and start a family.

Therefore, starting today I'm at least going to forget whatever embarrassment I feel from online dating and just give it a chance. I really don't have any other way to meet someone, and I don't want to be lonely anymore. I'll think of this as an investment in my own happiness.

One thing is for sure, I can't keep going through life like I have been for much longer.

I think I have some sort of disorder

I don't know exactly what kind of disorder it is, or if it even has a name. All I know is that I realized why I can't have fun in large, noisy groups.

Last night, I was at a friend's wedding. I was having a good time, talking, eating, drinking, all that good stuff. Then, the music started to get louder and the dance floor started filling up. All of a sudden, my happy mood turned into one of unrelenting stress. It ruined my mood for the rest of the night.

It kind of sounds like Social Anxiety Disorder, but the number of people isn't really the problem. What happens is that once the music gets loud, the bass starts thumping, and people are all over the place dancing, my mind goes on high alert. I keep catching movements out of the corners of my eyes, and I have to look to see what it is. Any time I hear a noise, my attention is immediately drawn there. I spend the whole time looking from place to place to see who's doing what and where. My senses get overloaded, and I'm just unable to focus on anything, whether it be dancing, having a conversation, or even eating.

My inability to focus makes it sort of like Attention Deficit Disorder, but the only time it pops up is in a very noisy place with a lot of people moving all around. Secondly, I'm almost 100% sure that even in that situation, if you gave me a test, project, or somthing else I have to focus on, I'd be able to block the rest out. It's just when I have to participate in what everyone else is doing that my mind enters alert mode.

All that being said, even if it was some sort of weird disorder, I would never even consider taking drugs or seeking professional help for it because it really doesn't affect my life all that much. It just pops up at weddings, parties, noisy bars, clubs, etc.

Actually, that's not entirely true. It pops up in the pharmacy too. When the phone is ringing, there's a long line, and lots of other things to do all at the same time, I have a hard time focusing. I end up bouncing from place to place trying to take care of everything. For example, I could be in the middle of typing a script, and I hear the phone ring. The ring sounds like a blaring siren to me. It completely interrupts my focus. I look around to see if anyone is picking it up, and if no one answers by the second ring, I have to answer it myself. I just can't stand to hear it ring anymore.

It also pops up on the basketball court for me, but instead of being a detriment, I think it helps me. Being a point guard, it's very important to know where everyone on the floor is at all times. Since I have this intense need to know who is around me, where they are, and what they're doing, I'm able to keep track of all the players on the court. This helps me pass the ball. It helps me dribble through defenses. It even helps me find openings to get my shot off.

Actually, now that I think about it, it affects most of the things I do. I'm the same way driving, which is why I've never had an accident or gotten a ticket. I'm intensely aware of what other drivers are doing. I even spot things on the side of the road that might have the potential to run out in front of my car.

In any case, it's an interesting observation.... to me at least. It sort of bothers me that I can't have a good time at bars, clubs, parties, or weddings, but that's not really my scene anyway. I much prefer more quiet get-togethers.

Money

Jim Plagakis posted an entry on his website that talked about how young, female pharmacists handle making much more money than the guys they date. It's a very interesting read, and I recommend everyone to check it out. I just figured I'd write about my experience as a young, male pharmacist who makes a lot more money than most of my friends.

I'd be lying if I told you that my primary motivating factors for finishing pharmacy school weren't the big dollar signs at the end. People talk about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I saw money. The company I interned with (and now work for) paid pharmacists roughly $50/hr for the time period I was on my rotations. I remember constantly sitting down and calculating my daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly salary using that hourly figure. It worked out to just over $100,000/yr.

It was a figure I almost couldn't even imagine. For my 6 years in college, I felt like I was rich if I had $700 in my bank account. Making that amount of money in just a little over a day of work blew my mind. My friends, most of whom graduated with 4 year degrees and were just starting to get jobs when I was getting ready to finish my 6 years, were talking about making $40-50 grand per year. I would be making more than double that.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I bragged about it. Not a lot, mind you, but probably just enough where most of my friends knew how much more money I'd be making than them. When I finally got licensed and started getting my pharmacist salary, I was eager to show everyone the brand new $30,000 car I bought. I didn't mean to shove it in their faces. I just wanted people to check out my car because I liked it a lot.

The extra money allowed me to take part in things I didn't normally do because of my previous conservative spending ways. I started sitting in for weekly poker games, in which the buy-in was $40. Most of my friends I played with were making $12-15 per hour. With $40 buy-ins, $40 rebuys, and some pots getting in the hundred of dollars range, this was a lot of money for these guys to be gambling. I'd go to the card game and drop $40 on a hand without even thinking about it. After all, that wasn't even an hour's pay for me.

It wasn't long before a few of my not-so-close friends started referring to me as "Moneybags" because I made so much more money than everyone else. This is when I realized that I needed to stop even giving people any idea of the kind of money I made as a pharmacist.

Now, being a realist, I know that making $100,000 per year doesn't make me filthy rich. It makes me comfortable as a single guy. I can't afford a really really nice house or a BMW 7-series. I can't go out and spend $3,000 on a watch or a suit. However, compared to my friends, I'm rolling in dough. I don't think I have one friend that even makes half of my salary.

Therefore, the money occasionally seems to be a point of contention with my friends, and it hasn't helped make me even the least bit more desirable to women (not that I really think it should). Not that I'm ready to give away my salary, but sometimes I wish I had a job where I made a lot less. At least then, I wouldn't feel so different than the rest of the people my age.

I kind of lost my initial chain of thought midway through this post, so I'm going to stop now...

I have a confession to make

I know this sounds crazy, and it certainly seems to go against the popular opinion of pharmacist bloggers. However, I must admit that I actually like retail pharmacy.

I'll give you a minute to process what I just said.... In fact, I'll even say it again in case you didn't get it the first time. I like retail pharmacy. Honestly, I do.

I didn't like it initially. In fact, I hated working in retail ever since I started as an intern in 2004 up until the end of last year after I got licensed. I used to complain, and rightfully so, that retail pharmacy had nothing to do with what I learned in pharmacy school. In fact, I would have been just as prepared to be a retail pharmacist if I went to pharmacy technician classes instead of pharmacy school. As I stated in a previous post, you don't need to know a whole lot about drugs to be a retail pharmacist. 90% of the questions you get asked can be answered with tylenol, benadryl, or senna + docusate.

It took me a while to come to grips with the fact that I would never use most of the drug information I learned. This was hard for me to accept because I was an exceptional student. Coming out of school, my knowledge base was as good or better than anyone in my class. Plus, I had good problem solving abilities, and I had (and still have) a talent for being able to explain things in simpler terms that patients can understand.

I was going to do a residency. I had gotten my applications together and got a couple letters of recommendation from my preceptors. One of my preceptors pretty much said I was the best student she had ever had on her rotation, and she all but begged me to do my residency at her site. I ended up abandoning the residency idea after going to my school's "interview day" (which is pretty much a day when representatives from all the chain stores and local hospitals come to your school and tell you how much money they want to pay you to work for them). It was just impossible for me, a broke college kid, to turn away from the 6-figure salaries of retail.

While I loved the money, my pride was hurt because I knew that a lot of lesser students in my class were going to do residencies, and they would be looked at as the "smart" pharmacists and drug information experts. Then I heard which students got the residency positions to which I was going to apply, and it really bothered me knowing that I would have been 1,000x better than any of them in that position.

You can tell that it still bothers me a bit, but it doesn't bring me down like it used to. Basically, I had a change of mindset that allowed me to get beyond this. I stopped worrying about being respected by my clinical pharmacy peers. Now, the only thing I worry about is how I'm perceived by our customers and my coworkers. There's this notion that clinical pharmacy is an exclusive area that not every pharmacist has the ability to do successfully. Well, the same is true of retail pharmacy. Not every pharmacist is capable of handling the rigors and tress of retail. I can. Most of my preceptors, who were supposed to be these great leaders for the profession of pharmacy, could not. What actually separates me from them is that I could just as easily have done either clinical or retail. I choose to stay in retail, because in the end, I like it better.

Yes, asshole customers suck. However, there aren't really all that many assholes out there. We just tend to remember them more than the nice ones. Generally though, I like my days in the pharmacy. I like the fact that we're really busy, so 10 or 12 hour shifts just fly right by. I like having 3 days off per week. I like thinking of ways to better organize the workflow, so that my day goes by more smoothly. I like figuring out the glitches in our computer software that no one else can.

So call me crazy, but I actually like my job.