A Pharmacist Love Story
John leans against the kitchen counter. His arms are crossed in front of his chest. He frowns. “We have a good life… right?” He empties the flying pan of the cold omelet he had prepared for Beverly. He pushes it into the disposal and starts the grind. He knows that Beverly is hungry. She worked twelve hours and it was almost ten.
Beverly says nothing. She is seated at the kitchen table. She is still wearing her white jacket from work. She is staring at her fingernails, then slowly looks up. She spits out, “You burned the toast.” She gives John an accusatory stare. “The smell of burnt toast makes me want to puke.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose.” He doesn’t add that the argument over the grocery list had stolen his attention. He puts the toast in the disposal and runs water over it. He keeps his back to Beverly.
“I did not say that you did it on purpose, John,” she says slowly. There is a pause. Loudly she adds, “Are you deaf, John? I said that it… makes…me…want…to…puke.”
John loses his patience for an instant. “And I asked you if we have a good life. I want an answer.”
“We have a damned good life.” Beverly is almost defiant when she says this. She is tapping the butter knife on the table.
Contact download “Then why are you so miserable so much of the time?” John’s eyes water. “We have two great kids. They go to the best school. We have a beautiful house. Two nice cars. Paid for. We took a couple good vacations. We don’t have any bills.” He paused and fails to smile. “Beverly, I love you. I hate seeing you so unhappy.”
Beverly stares at the plate on the table. John had carefully set a place for her. She glances at the clock. Then attacks, “John, you got home from work at five. You have had all evening to relax. I left the house at seven thirty this morning and just got home at nine thirty. Can’t you let me relax?”
“What did I do?” John throws his arms into the air. He does not tell Beverly that he spent three hours doing paperwork that he brought home.
“What did you do? You don’t even know?” Beverly is on her feet now. She takes a step forward.
“Yes, what did I do?” John’s voice rises. “All I did was make you a good omelet and some toast. You always come home ravished after a twelve hour day.” John throws the frying pan into the sink . It makes a loud clanging noise.
“Yes, that is what you did. You made me a goddam omelet with peppers, onions and some cheese. You know that I don’t like peppers.”
“Since when? You loved them when you had fajitas at El Charro last Saturday?”
“That’s different.” Beverly flings the butter knife into the sink. It hits, leaps up and ends up on the floor.
“Why are you so miserable, Beverly? We have a good life.”
“And I pay for it,” she accuses.
John is silent. This is not a subject he will discuss. His law practice is slow starting, but showing hope. In college, he had promised Beverly that she could cut back after five years. It has been ten.
Beverly draws a deep breath and releases it with a pitiable sigh. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “John, I’m so so sorry.”
“I know, baby, but why does this have to happen so often?” He steps forward and takes her hands in his. He wants to hold her, but knows that it has to be when she is ready.
Beverly starts to cry. “I worked twelve hours straight. No frikkin’ breaks. It was so busy that all I had to eat in twelve hours was one Snickers bar, gobbled while I worked and a Big Grab of Cheetos and a Diet Coke around five o’clock.” Her eyes beg John to understand. “Then some bitch patient dares to tell me that I have “a orange Cheetos mouth” when I go out to counsel her.
“Just a customer, Beverly. You can’t let that get to you.”
Beverly starts to laugh. “I told her to ‘Kiss my ass’ and she stormed to the manager on duty, that pimple-faced Tony who thinks he his Donald frikkin’ Trump. He comes back to the pharmacy and demands that I come to the office.” Beverly is laughing hard.
“That guy is a wimp,” John is laughing with her.
“I told him, ‘Kiss my ass, Tony. I have prescriptions to check’.”
He screams to me, “I am going to write you up.” Beverly is laughing so hard that there is spittle running down her cheek. John grabs a paper towel and wipes her face. He lets his hand linger. He looks into her eyes. “I love you, Beverly. I just wish we did not have to go through this once a week.”
“I know. I just get running so fast that I can’t stop and there is so much stored up resentment in me that it comes pouring out.” She relaxes into John’s arms. “I always take it out on you.”
“Get another job,” he suggests.
“They are all the same. The managers all think that they are prison guards and that the pharmacists are just over-paid convicts.”
“Won’t it ever change? Why don’t you guys do something about it?” John holds her tight. He whispers, “You are highly trained medical professionals. This is not right.” Throughout their ten years of marriage, John had heard stories that made his attorney hair stand on end.
“There is a chance,” Beverly says. She melts into John’s strong arms. She leans her head on his shoulder. “All we need is for a group of pharmacists to show some guts,” she says. “I’d join them, John. I really would. Somebody has to start it.”
Beverly leans back and looks into John’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I love you, John. That will never happen again. I’ll find a better way to vent.”
“Never say never,” John laughs. He places his hands on each side of her face. He looks into her eyes and then dips forward to kiss her. He holds her for a long time while Beverly softly weeps.
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I can’t tell you how many times this has happened at my house. I think it helped to end my first marriage (the resentment build up that was taken out on him) I decided life is too short and now work 30 hours a week at a job where I am respected and with human hours. It has made a world of difference. ( But there are still those days….)
Who will be the first to show they have the guts to do something about our working conditions. Will it be you? Me? the APhA?
Certainly not the APhA as I have followed their agenda for 14 years now and in no way have they tried to organize a movement to better the profession.
I guess it is up to us. For my 2 cents, the way it should be done is as a union. I know we are professionals but the time has come and gone when we were treated as so.
Changing jobs and putting in our time with a smile on our faces has gotten us nothing but more work and less respect. It endangers our patients health and our health and it should stop.
Now if someone wants to band together and start this show me where to sign up!
Good luck out there in the trenches.
My wife doesnt really understand either. I get platitudes on how I should handle this or that, or how I can make myself feel better about the conditions you have described (said description being quite accurate.) I get tips on how to handle my frustrations. She is a nurse and has dealt with sick people, and injured people, but never worked with the public in a retail environment. And she just doesnt understand what its like. And never will. And she’s been married to me for almost 24 years. But 2 people today thanked me for all the help that I’ve been to them. There is some satisfaction there.
But, as far as the union thing, its been tried before. I have been at this for 35 years, all retail, and remember the failed efforts at unions, and guilds, and whatever else they were called. I am sanguine about the chances for any success on this front. But hope springs eternal. I am waiting for the chance to meet the new board of pharmacy inspector, and to ask her why the board of pharmacy is not protecting the public interest by making sure the working conditions for pharmacists are conducive to good professional practice. After all, your doctor eats lunch, as does your lawyer and your accountant, and the mechanic who fixes your brakes on your car.
I am now going to put my feet up after my 12 hour, no break day, and have another beer, and be glad I dont have to do this again tomorrow.
Mike
Jim, this story MUST go onto the TPA Web site!!
With some planning, we could turn it into a video, i.e., a kind of docudrama, then transpose it to a promotional CD for TPA.
I meant DVD, not CD.
I want to know where John has been all of my life!!…It would have been more realistic if John had gotten home at 4:30, and was laying on the sofa when Beverly got home..Dishes in the sink, and dinner still to be cooked (by Beverly)…Nobody…not the ex, and not the current guy has EVER made me dinner after my 10, 12, or 13 hour shifts!…again, I will say, where has John been all of my life!!
Sounds really familar! ALthough, my husband is a stay at home dad. I really resent that I am not the stay at home parent, sometimes, but he is good at it. I am a better provider. Things have been really hard.. my family and firends (what little friends I have any time for) have trouble understanding when I cannot be somewhere on weekends, or holidays, or in the evenings.
I really thought I was the only working mom that is a pharmacist and was this miserable. This is just a snapshot of what my life is like.
My marriage has been on the line at times; I have to seek counseling to cope with the stress and I take medicine for depression. It is all job related. I am very resentful and burned out. 13 years now at 40+ hours a week. I can’t go like I used to. I’m wearing down.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully in 6 months I will be able to work part time and be more of a mother than I have been able to be. Wish me luck.
Cindy-
NO SHIT girl! “John” would be a man of my dreams!
I really don’t think the public gives a hoot about the pharmacist. All I seem to hear is “how much is this gonna cost and how long will it take?” I have been at this for 38 years chain and independent and it is the same story. When I have had enough whining I put the phones on hold and sit down for 10 or 15 min. to wolf down my lunch like a ravenous dog. I have been doing this for a long, long time. Ever call an MD’s office over a short period of time and get a busy signal? Don’t get me wrong I love pharmacy and helping people but today it seems people want to make their problem yours. They don’t want to take any responsibility for their actions. Unless you work in the trenches you really don’t understand just how “wonderful” it is working with the public. I will keep trying and mumbling under my breath.
Because this story is written with the pharmacist’s plight in mind, it’s eay to forget that John also has a high stress, demanding job.
I think it’s very hard for a couple to make it if both people are in different demanding careers. John is a lawyer. Lawyers routinely spend long hours at the office and often have to do paperwork away from the office (as evidenced by John doing paperwork for 3 hours after he got home). He has his own issues to vent about, but it seems that he always plays second fiddle to Beverly’s long days in the pharmacy.
We sacrifice a lot for the salaries we make (in any profession that is paid well). My exgirlfriend was in law school while I was finishing pharmacy school. We were together 6 years before the cumulative stress of both our career fields finally became too much. Had she been in pharmacy with me or had I been in law with her, we would have been able to commiserate together. Being in two completely seperate fields, no matter how loving and understanding we might have been, we never truly comprehended the other’s situation.
Back to the story… I think this is as much of a personal issue as a professional issue in pharmacy. It’s why many pharmacists marry other pharmacists, lawyers marry other lawyers, and doctors marry other doctors. It’s just really difficult for 2 people to understand each other when they work entirely different but equally stressful jobs.
Yep, this sounds almost exactly like the conversation I had w/my best friend the other day. She was so miserable from work and so guilty about venting her frustrations out on her husband. And this just makes me even more certain that I made the right decision in turning down pharmacy school.
This is the funniest (and sadly – truest) depiction of my feeling(s) about our profession. And my personal experience with now, 2 spouses who just don’t seem to get the stress, yet like the paychecks.
I am still laughing.
An older pharmacist told me something that I’ll never forget. “Pharmacy is something that is good to fund the things that you look forward to do on your day off, and be SURE to have fun things, hobbies on your days off as you’ll need them for balance”.
I think the true magic number is less than 25 hours a week that this job is doable without losing your mind. When you think about it, in other 40 hour a week professional jobs, they’d be happy to get a good 25 hours of true “work” from the people. We give 120% at all times.
Great story! I get understand her…I’ve worked in retail for years and we receive little thank yous for the job that we do to save them money on drug discount promotions, work with their doctors for problem prescriptions, and counseling their OTC selections when they are sick. But the minute we make one minor mistake and forget to do something for them, many go all out on us.