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Old Dog, New Tricks

Well, here I am, out on a new limb. Everything is gathered and sorted. My images and information are put into place, each piece tucked in with care and lots of thought. The self-doubt and hesitation sirens are beaten down and put to rest, even though they made their best calls. It's been a four month journey from idea to ready to jump off the proverbial cliff. This old dog has been on a learning curve that has been a doozy!

I had been thinking I might do this for a long time. It's been on my mind. For one thing, I have so much physical stuff! Antique documents, tools, equipment, references, art, furniture, signs, stuff, stuff, and more stuff. Not to mention the experience stuff, way back and all the way through as life in a dispensing pharmacy has evolved to where we are now. I kept thinking about when I might have the time to do it.........

My last twenty five years of relief work, both regular and random, along with a lot of consulting as an independent contractor, has taken me on a path of constantly changing schedules, but pretty much constant employment with many years of way more than full schedules. I have literally lived with a calendar in my hand. When I needed to pick up a regular day, I could usually call somebody I knew that owned a store and ask if they knew of anybody looking for somebody. Somebody would turn up in a day or two.

I have worked through at least six pharmacies either closing or transitioning to new ownership. Lots of new starts. Lots of new people to work with. Lots of new people to serve. Lots of new software programs. Lots of new rules. Lots of new habits to get used to. Lots of new tricks. Regularly.

During the last year, I have enjoyed a really good five day per week schedule. I work on Tuesdays in the compounding lab of an independent pharmacy in a small town about an hour from my home. ( I have done a lot of compounding in lots of places throughout my career, and really like to do it.) On Thursdays, I work the dispensing counter in the store about a quarter mile up the street from the first one. From last fall until this summer, I worked with a tech and a clerk in a tiny store in another tiny town on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, up from the few days a month there for the couple years prior. This store was sort of shoved out of business by external forces beyond control, so in a fell swoop, I lost sixty percent of my income.

Rude awakening. In just a very short time, the work market has changed. There are fewer and fewer pharmacist owned stores. There is more and more squeeze from third parties. Our state has several new pharmacy schools within the last four to five years, so suddenly, there is a plethora of brand new pharmacists with an abundance of both clinical training, and school debt. Even though, from my perspective, I am 4-6 years away from time to back way down, or stop, ( not to mention my experience and adaptability) I fall into being what is now called a "Legacy Pharmacist" at a time of fewer jobs with more competition for them. Oh, me.

I started with an idea for a facebook page, and once I gave in to that, it just took off and took me head first on a trip through the internet rabbit hole to bring me to a place of being able to share far and wide. Everything I read said sure you could easily put up a page online. No big deal. Just a click here and a click there.

As I stumbled through, everything I needed to do had to have something else done first. It became apparent that there were different components that would have to be tied together to do what I wanted to do. To get past the stumbling blocks, there were pages after pages of help notes that sometimes made sense, and sometimes not so much. There are videos, and instructional sites, testimonials, and chat boxes. Every window would open more windows until the string across the top of the screen was easy to get lost in while trying to find the way back to the original thing I was trying to do. Sometimes there would be hurdles that lasted a day or two, and sometimes it might be a week or two. I began to think it was a sort of technological gauntlet that went on and on. Thank goodness for support people from all over the world that make a genuine effort to help.

I don't care what they say, it has been a slow process for me. It has been four months. Many days of my new time at home has been in front of a screen doggedly trying to figure out how to do, and then days and days of doing. It really has seemed like a long dark tunnel.

Then, all of a sudden there is light. The pieces are all in place and linked together. Time to do a trial run before throwing up the main switch. Then here we are. Show time. It's real. This old dog has new tricks, and she likes it.