Sunday, January 16, 2011

Bye-Bye, Retail!

I will start this post with a warning...it will probably be incredibly boring to those non-pharmacist types.  Maybe it will even be boring for the pharmacist types - oh, well!  Anyway, I'm actually doing it...I'm making the change from retail to hospital.  My whole entire pharmacy life has been retail aside from the few short months I spent at St. E in Lafayette during my year of rotations.  As a student I worked at the same CVS for almost five years and I LOVED it.  I knew the patients and a lot of them knew me.  I loved my bosses (most of them), I loved my coworkers, I even loved my pharmacy supervisors.  If someone had told me back then that I would eventually hate working in retail, I would've told them that they were crazy.  Oh, wait.  Someone did tell me that.  I had a certain preceptor who liked to share his opinion...I won't name names, some of you may know him! ;)  (On a side note, he was probably the best preceptor I had and a friend, so no negativity intended here!)  Anyway, he told me story upon story of his experiences in retail and how he hated coming home feeling like he wanted to hit somebody in the head with a baseball bat.  I told him that would never happen to me...well, fast forward to the present and guess what.  He was right.  I have grown to hate retail.  Now, wait.  Hate is a pretty strong word...whatever would be a few notches under hate would be more appropriate.  You pick the word...I'm not an English major.  Either way, the time has come for retail and I to part ways.  Gone are my big ambitions to change the way people take their medication, have a physician take me seriously as a health care professional in a community setting, or to form those deep, lasting bonds with my patients that I so hoped for coming out of school.  I have tried, but I got put into the wrong store for that, and I am burned out.  So after a much needed week off I will begin my career as a hospital pharmacist.  The learning curve will be steep, but it will definitely be worth it.  It's possible that I may return to retail one day.  Never say never, right?  Right now, though, it's just time for a change. 

4 comments:

  1. Sometimes there is also a reason to change that we don't see until after. In my military career I was forced to change my work environment for the first time in 21 years from "base support" to unit level, a radical change for an old guy. But that change afforded me an opportunity to gain my last stripe (never bad for retirement) and see the admin world from a different perspective. When I went back for my last 3 years, I had a better appreciation of how the other side lived and I think I did a better job because of it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, I finally figured out how to leave a blog comment!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ah, I think I know that preceptor well (he's a hottie). :) The best change he ever made in his pharmacy career... it was either that, or work construction. :) Thanking God for how pharmacy has provided so well for our family, and for a good fit for Tyler at the hospital. You are one brilliant woman, and will pick it up so quickly!! Praying for a smooth transition. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it that you have a blog! It's like you're gone... but not. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ha, ha!! Glad he didn't choose construction, 'cuz I woulda missed out on a great preceptor! Thanks for the words of encouragement. So far it's going well!

    ReplyDelete