The pharmacy technicians I remember the most fondly are the ones back in the days when there were no certification requirements or specific standards, other than being a decent human being and showing up with the best they had to give every day. There were always people who brought drama to the work place, but it tended to be minor.
Hospital techs are different from retail techs. The ones that worked in the IV room were smart, fast, and impatient, especially when they had to work with me right out of pharmacy school. They taught me everything I know about IV's, at least the hands on part of it. The filling techs and the delivery techs were more rambunctious, prone to playing practical jokes and harassing each other and the pharmacists. Some of them formed little cliques, which would sometimes battle it out with the other little cliques, but most of these tiffs were minor. I do recall one incident where one of the guys stuffed another guy into a trash can, and both of them got fired, even though they swore it was all in fun and no harm done.
Back in the 80's, the AIDS epidemic was just starting to emerge. Some sources pinpoint the official start of the epidemic as June 5, 1981, when the CDC reported an unusual strain of pneumonia (PCP) in 5 gay men in Los Angeles. In 1984, when I started my first job in a hospital, there were 3 gay men working with us in the pharmacy. I later learned that 2 of these guys died of AIDS. Two other men died at the second hospital I worked at, one with AIDS, and one who had a seizure disorder which was later determined to have been caused by a malignant tumor growing by his pituitary gland, where the optic nerve crosses. He was a sweet little guy, looked like Michael Jackson back in the day, skinny with an afro. He sang the song ''Memories" (from the movie'' The Way We Were'') to me and gave me a rose for my goodbye gift, which embarassed the hell out of me, but was still pretty sweet.
I had another technician, a stock boy actually, who ended up having the same type of tumor in the same location, but thankfully his was non-malignant and he survived and continues to do well. This guy was into restoring old cars and bought a Chevy Impala to restore. He and his Dad went to car auctions all the time. He told me that sometimes, they would find the original paperwork under one of the seats, and that they would collect boxes and boxes of parts from different shows. I could see the appeal of the hunt, and the fun of finding out the history of the car. He later told me he ended up selling the car and never getting it restored.
Another stock boy at that store went on to become a pharmacist, and he had me write a recommendation letter for him to get into pharmacy school, which I considered an honor, since this kid had a huge heart and a lot of integrity. When his grandmother was bedridden with breast cancer, she had some lymph nodes removed, and she had severe swelling in her feet and legs. One way to relieve the swelling is to massage the feet and legs and get the fluid to move out of the extremities and back into the blood stream. This kid would sit with her in the evening and massage her feet and legs, sometimes falling asleep at the foot of her bed.
There were two more pharmacists produced by that store, both girls, one who went on to be a doctor, and one we lost in a horrific car/train accident. She would have been a good one. It made me proud to know that somebody looked up to me that much.
Some of the best techs I have had were middle aged women that I could rely on to show up every day, who took care of the customers in a professional manner, and who kind of took care of the pharmacists as well.One lady was a dispatcher for the police department at night, slept a few hours in the morning when she got off shift, and came in to work with us at noon, never complaining, always nice and patient. I probably took them for granted then, before I had been introduced to the type of technicians I have now, who always have drama going on in their lives, who disrespect the pharmacists, and who may or may not show up or do their job on a regular basis. And who, I suspect, are employed by management as moles to report back any infractions or perceived shortcoming on our part.
When I worked in the little clinic pharmacy, there was one tech who stood out because she had an ornery streak and was a little hyper. When she sat at the computer to type, she actually faced away from the patients, and would be nice to their face, then turn around and mouth obscenities in our direction, so we had to control ourselves and not laugh, which made it all the more fun for her. Her parents had made her take care of the chickens on their farm as a kid, so she hated chickens. She would start by imitating the low, threatening '''baaaaawwwwwkkkkkkk'''they would start with whenever she entered the barn (there were hundreds of chickens, not just a little coop). They would escalate into a full blown cacophony of clucks and ''bawks'' , which she said was very disturbing. She used to be sitting there and suddenly say, ''did somebody say ''chicken?!'' and bust out into a loud ''ba cock!'' . This was a great tension breaker and made us laugh, until the pharmacy director told her to knock it off. Apparently she also used to get in the dumbwaiter that traveled between the pharmacy and the floors above and ride up and down before somebody put a stop to that, too.
I had one technician who actually remembered me from my first job in the hospital, and said I had trained her on IV's. I didn't remember, so I asked her if I was mean to her. She said, no, I was actually very nice and patient. Whew! Anyway, we met up later in retail, and she had the best stories of anybody I ever worked with. She, her husband, and their 3 sons, essentially could have survived quite nicely off the grid. They were self-sufficient in the way that people used to be when they had small farms and raised animals.
There was the time her husband stood up on the horse's water tank, lost his balance, and grabbed hold of the electric fence as he went into the water. There was the time her son went out in his pajama pants and slippers, smoking a cigarette, to round up a bull that had gotten loose.He ended up flicking the cigarette, kicking off the slippers, and running for dear life, clearing tthe fence before the bull could catch him. They had a nasty old rooster that would chase her every time she went out into the yard. Even when she would try to sneak out of the house, he would come charging out of nowhere and attack her legs. She finally had enough of it one day, took a broom, and beat the hell out of that rooster. I asked her if she killed, it, and she said no, but he walked kind of crooked after that! But by far, the best story she told was about how they used to do historic reenactments. Her husband portrayed a French Trader, and she was his wife. She made all their costumes, beaded buckskins and all, but she had no interest in learning the historical facts surrounding their portrayal, so she left that to her husband. She said ''I decided that Marie DuPree, the French Trader's Wife, was deaf and dumb." She not only lived off the grid, she thought outside the box, too!!
I still have a couple of the old breed left, but the pickings are becoming mighty slim. No one can survive on the wages they pay technicians, so we have a lot of women who tough it out in less than ideal circumstances with men who treat them badly because economically, they don't really have a choice. Another scenario we see is the here today, gone tomorrow, lost my job, got a DWI, spent time in jail, boyfriend or ''fiance'' who contributes nothing to the cause except an occasional black eye or domestic dispute. These women are understandably not fully engaged in their jobs, because their life is a train wreck.
Most of the male techs I have had are college students who move on after a few years, guys who need a second job, or guys who are semi-retired. Women have a reputation for causing drama in the workplace, but, believe me, men stir the pot, too, just in different ways. Gossip is not just for women anymore!
Next time, Part III , the Patients...
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