Drama

I pride myself in not getting involved in staff politics and just keeping my head down and working.  But this past week I got dragged into a whole lot of drama.  It's sucking up my time and engery and distracting me from my work.  To whom it may concern, keep your personal life at home and stop taking it out on others at work.  We don't care what a !@# life you have.  It seems to be your own fault.  Some of us actually have work to do and would like to maintain professionalism at work rather than screaming in front of our customers and scarying them away!

Good news for Smokers in Ontario!

Champix and Zyban are finally coverd on the Ontario Drug Benefit Formulary!

It's about time!

Should I be jealous?

So I've been wanting to open my own pharmacy for many years now but something always stops me.  I am either doubting myself or think about the logical end of it all - my family life.

I'm always thinking, can I handle the business end of it?  What if it's not successful?  What would this do to our family life?  I want to do it in the hopes that it makes family life better.  I don't want to be working until 9pm or every other weekend.  But would I be working MORE with my own pharmacy even if the hours are shorter and no weekends (or even just Saturdays?).

What's the climate for independants in Ontario right now?

And then it's the small town thing again...Can another pharmacy survive in a town that never had more than 2 pharmacies in it in it's whole history?  These things make me want to be in the city.  I think that if we were in the city we would be safer in opening up a pharmacy.  But then we wouldn't have the family support that we have here and be able to have more hours to devote to work without the kids being with the baby sitters.

So here is where the jealous sets in.  A family member is just opening up a new independant.  I just found out and I'm happy for them but there is something in the bottom of my stomach making me feel like a loser for not doing it myself as well.  It's what I want in my professional career.  Everyone is telling me to wake up and see what I have.  I'm not going to be in debt for years because of owning a pharmacy, I'm not taking work home with me or doing the accounts after hours and on weekend...

What do you think is better...owning your own pharmacy and possibly making a lot of money in the long run, OR paying off your mortgage on your house in the next 4 years and then all the money you make is saved making you rich over a shorter term?  This is the logic that stops us from deciding to take the leap and open our own.

Who am I?

Ok.  So I've been thinking a lot about this today.  What has really changed since I've started to get agitated at work?  I started out working in a pharmacy and in a hospital pharmacy during University as a Pharmacy Technician.  So when I became a Pharmacist I came into it with a different view.  Unlike the new grads that I've been seeing over the recent years that come into the profession as a licensed Pharmacist expecting 6 figures, a car, a bonus and thier entire tuition paid for by the company hiring them and just stand at the end of the counter waiting to be handed prescriptions to check and playing on the internet, I had a "tech's" background.

I came into work and WORKED.  I have always been the Pharmacist that did whatever it took to keep the pharmacy running smoothly so that our customers always came in and didn't have to wait for a thing.  I'd come in 1 hour early to put away the stock so that when the techs got to work they could just begin working on filling the prescriptions so that there wasn't a backlog and people waiting for thier medications.  I would file the hardcopies for the techs, pull and process the expired medications, heck, I would even vacuum and dust and do the dishes.  This, on top of my 12 hours shift and duties of Pharmacist or Pharmacy Manager or even Relief/Locum Pharmacist.

Now, for some reason I'm resenting it.  So I stopped doing all the things that us Pharmacists don't do.  I just checked prescriptions and focussed on my managerial duties for 1 whole month.  And guess what?  The store fell apart.  So now, I decided to go back to "pitching in" and resent it.  Why can I do my job AND everyone elses?

You may say, just hire better people.  Well, that's easier said than done.  You've got the union to consider as well as the fact that I live in a small town.  Good staff, let alone any kind of educated staff, is hard to come by.  Then there is headoffice giving you a very rigid alotment of hours for staffing the pharmacy.

So, I can't catch my breath.  I'm seeing it today...I just need to get back to seeing pharmacy the way I used to and "pitch in' but it's hard when you have all these other professional services that have been been added by headoffice and the college...services that I want the time to offer but have no time to offer since we have to keep the store running.

How do I get past this?

Is unionization the answer for pharmacists?

Here is an interesting article posted by the Redheaded Pharmacist on Unions.

http://www.theredheadedpharmacist.com/?p=3284

Check it out

Days like this make me want to stick it out

Days like today make me want to stick it out at work.  Today had absolutely NOTHING to do with work though.  It was my day off with the kids and we just play and have so much fun.  My daughter says to me today that she never ever wants to leave here.  She wants to live in this house with us even when she's a big girl like me.  I understand what she's talking about.  We live in such a beautiful part of the country.  Fresh air, no traffic, no violence, no stress in your non-work life (except for how to get out of your driveway during a snow storm!).

It makes me just want to suck it up and keep on working just so we can stay in this part of the country.  Whatever years of life work is taking away from me are added on by my non-work environment :)

Oh Happy Day!

California Pharmacists Association to launch employee pharmacist ombudsman program

An interesting article on a state sponsored association to support employee Pharmacists.  The are creating a neutral body to mediate between Pharmacists and Empolyers:

http://drugtopics.modernmedicine.com/drugtopics/Modern+Medicine+News/CPhA-to-launch-employee-pharmacist-ombudsman-progr/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/702255