Transcendence - A New Beginning

Chapter Seven

MY STORY

I dreaded going to work each and every livelong day. That was the first change I noticed in myself. I loved the work itself more than anything. It was that which kept me going back. But there was something very, very wrong and I hated the conclusions I came up with. I thought I knew them both and, honestly cared for them as people. I started working for them a year after they bought their first pharmacy. In the years since, I watched as they struggled to keep everything afloat and truly admired how they never let the anxieties that they must have had spill into the work environment. Quite honestly, never once. They maintained a façade of composure I myself was not capable of.

They were going bankrupt. They should have had to declare bankruptcy years ago, but they always just stayed afloat. There was a continuous, and steady flow of money from some sale somewhere or investment that just barely paid the bills. Every month it was the same. Money flowed between the companies several times a day so that the transactions blended into each other. Like that magic trick where you had to guess, after many lightning fast swaps, under which cup the bean was in. The transactions were also in rather small amounts, a few hundred here and there at max a couple thousand so they never triggered any warning bells.

But mine had been triggered years ago, and the sound was now deafening.

When I was first hired to work at the pharmacy things were slow but gaining momentum. There were other well-established pharmacies in town so we all had our work cut out for us and the owners invested capital to guarantee our success. They gave each of us corporate jackets and shirts and logo embossed freebees such as fabric shopping bags and hats to anyone who walked passed the store, whether they came in or not. If it was hot outside, the techs took turns standing outside the pharmacy giving away little personal fans, hats and water bottles all bearing the logo. If it was cold, they did the same with hand warmers and ponchos made of aluminum sheet for warmth, all bearing the pharmacy stamp. The same went for deliveries.

We pharmacists worked three ten-hour days in the pharmacy itself and one 'canvassing' which entailed visiting doctor's offices, clinics, schools, nursing homes and youth centers, even street fairs in town to provide a bevy of seminars including drug therapy, alcohol/tobacco/drug cessation, blood pressure, diabetes, weight loss seminars, and of course, advertise the pharmacy's services.

I love every part of it.

The profession satisfied almost every intellectual need I had in that it required knowledge on so many levels. I would tell the students when I was called to attend career days that pharmacy included chemistry, physics, research, drug/drug & drug/disease & drug/disease/patient evaluations, mathematics, laboratory studies, physiology, pathology, manufacturing, compounding, ethics, federal, state and local laws, health regulations, insurance regulations, social work, customer service, entrepreneurship, billing and accounting, psychology and more and that was just on a Monday! I often got a smile or two with that one, but it was very true. I would often follow this by listing some of the employment opportunities available in the pharmacy profession because that also opened an eye or two. Yes, I love the profession.

Anyway, I was slightly disappointed when I was promoted to the corporate office as the supervising pharmacy manager. It was silly really because it was a huge job promotion reflected in my paycheck. I would be supervising all the pharmacies under the corporate banner, reviewing wholesalers and distributors, purchasing, inventory, regulations and all the rest. But I would miss the customer interaction component which was a significant factor for me. I thrived on the feeling of having helped someone, somewhere, somehow no matter how menial. It gave meaning to my existence.

It was at the corporate office that I got to know the owners, Kim and Arnold, albeit indirectly. Even though I was the corporate supervising pharmacist they seldom, if ever, interacted with me. My most frequent communications with them were through emails or a cordial but brief phone call. However, in those years my impression of them was that they were compassionate bosses and highly capable pharmacists. Neither I nor any employee ever had a holiday, birthday or other personal event without some form of acknowledgment from them.