Endgame
One of the interesting things about the timing of the conclusion of rotations is that it left us three weeks until graduation. There's one obvious reason for that, so there is some time to get things in order to leave Omaha and to allow those of us who had not, thus far, secured gainful employment some time before graduation. I made a decision upon being asked by Rachel that, in retrospect, might not have been the best one I ever made. I said I would work full time during two out of the three of those weeks. I had several reasons, one being to start to rebuild my finances after the cash draining experience at Creighton so that I could have some money on hand, especially with the need to pay hundreds of dollars towards the last stop before before being licensed, the NAPLEX and law exam. I also thought it would be wise to warm up to the inevitable experience of working full time in a pharmacy.
For most people, the transition from school to working full time would have been a difficult. I freely admit in all probability I would have been one of those people. Many aspects of being a student are ones I don't like. I like to learn, but the cookie cutter, throw everyone in a class and listen to lectures approach did not do well for me. I'm a tactile learner, one point of evidence is my grades in chemical engineering. I have a lot of Bs for lecture components and, almost without exception, As in the corresponding lab sections. One aspect I definitely liked was college is as flexible as your schedule gets, provided you're not working too much on the side to support it, then it becomes the opposite. But I, like most of my contemporaries, was enjoying the life of a loose schedule. Of course that last year of rotations was one that was substantially different. In essence, I was a full time employee, paying for the privilege of my apprenticeship (and quite heavily I must say). If anything this was considerably lighter. Since I had maintained my employment with Walmart throughout my time of rotations, a move many questioned including myself but given the way circumstances turned out I'm glad I did, I had gotten a flavor of the experience of working two jobs at once. I often commented that I had gained a new found respect for people forced into that to make ends meet. Also, there was no more homework, no more projects, nothing. Once I departed from work, I could leave everything behind and simply enjoy myself. Of course, while I made such a statement already, the thought occurred to me that technically that's not the case. Pharmacists are required to do continuing education as part of the license renewal process. But its definitely a superior situation to they way things were before. You won't hear me complaining.
My role as it was at Walmart became a fill in for one of the steady techs. His area of expertise was dropoff/input, something he did quite the excellent job at. I have often found myself there on the weekends, but the typical weekend and the typical weekday at a pharmacy are an almost night and day contrast.The heaviest Saturday I worked in Omaha we did 225 scripts and typical is more along the lines of 150-175, On a typical weekday we're doing 275 to 325. Also the weekend is proportionately far less in new scripts and more heavy in refills. Refills of course require significantly less effort than does a brand new script.
Getting back to the subject at hand (I'm prone to ramble as anyone whose bothered to read this with any depth and any of my other entries, my condolences by the way), the usual input tech was out on medical leave. He had completely dislocated his shoulder. The odd thing was he couldn't remember how it happened. Thankfully I've never had that pleasure myself, but my understanding is that even a partial one is VERY painful, so how that happened being a mystery somewhat defies my belief. In any case, I chose to embrace my ignorance and not probe too much deeper on the subject.
In any case, most days I was parked at the drop off window for most of the day. There's almost always a steady stream of prescriptions that are either faxed or phoned in, and then you get the people dropping off actual physical prescriptions. And invariably these people would come in groups, a person barely has time to get the one script processed and another person jumps right in behind them, if even that, heaven forbid what happens if a person drops off several, which is often the case. Sometimes, thankfully, there were two of us there which eased the burden somewhat, but I must confess at times it was a struggle. And I think I missed out on some of the opportunities to counsel which has always been one of my favorite things to do (and when there's only one other pharmacist, I'm generally the only other person capable of doing it). In any case, I soldiered on as best I could. I did voice my frustrations with being stuck at the one place at one point, but as always nothing really came of it and things settled back into the same routine.
One of the days I had to arrange to come in later because I had an interview in the morning. This was the first time my suit had seen any action in quite awhile. It was a part time position with Hy Vee in a small town about 75 miles northwest of Omaha. I thought of it as a potential good starting place. Part time would have some advantages, not the least of which allowing me to explore the possibilities of a part time position in hospital or potentially filling in at Pharmacy Specialty since I wouldn't be far enough away from Lincoln to preclude that possibility. Compounding is still a great area of interest for me that I would like to do some work besides the occasional Magic Mouthwash script that we get, but we'll see on that one.
In any event, it was not the most stellar interview I've ever done. It wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, but there were things I realized on the drive back to Omaha that I wish I would have said that would have done a better job of conveying myself as a prospective candidate. In light of what has happened since then, just as well it didn't go better as I now have a full time position. I must say that I'm considerably disappointed with their conduct. I went so far as to go the usual respectable route of sending a thank you card for the interview and I never received the courtesy of being informed that I had not been accepted for the position. That's another reason I consider it just as well it didn't work out.
I don't envy Rachel the situation she was facing at the beginning of May. She was loosing two experienced technicians, one was out on medical leave, one had taken an extended period of personal leave. And then she was also losing me, the senior of all the interns. But that is regrettably the way things go. I had remarked at the time it was a pity none of the grad intern positions they were offering were in the Omaha area and asked if they were sure they couldn't open up one for the area. At the time I was only considering the familiar environment and proximity to home. But now, five months later, I'm glad circumstances worked out as they did. Its easy to favor the familiar and fear the unknown, but I ended up in a very positive place because of it. I guess it pays to take chances sometimes, it certainly did in this case. But that is another story for another entry.