Self Imposed Exile

So this is what has been going on with me over the last few months:

Back in April, the store location I’ve worked at since arriving here in Indy back in 1992 finally closed. Another location down the street also closed and the company merged us into one big store not to far from both locations. Two weeks before the new store’s grand opening, my store manager (whom we all hated), put his keys down on the desk and walked out without telling anyone. The good news is that he was finally gone for good. The bad news is that we were left with the manager down the street, a guy I will simple call “Douchebag” from here on out.

Douchebag was a real talker. The man loved to hear himself talk. A few months before the merger happened, he was summoned to our store to walk us through the blueprints of the new place. The man literally took us aisle by aisle through the new store, explaining why the salty snacks led into the cold beverage aisles. Yeah. He was that much of an asshat. And now we were stuck with him.

At that initial meeting, I had inquired as to what my possibilities were at the new store. I had been cross-trained in both the pharmacy and the front store in order to as many hours as possible during the start of the recession. I was told it would be in my best interest to continue to wok both parts of the store. In less than a month, Douchebag changed his tune. “The are two things I don’t share. I don’t share my wife and I don’t share my front store hours! You have to chose one or the other. And you have to come down and work a shift for me so you can see what a high volume store is like!” This kind of pissed me off for a number of reasons. Our store, until the supermarket next to us folded, was a high volume store. Then there was the fact I had come from places like K-Mart before moving here. I was pretty sure I’d pass any “audition” Douchebag threw at me. But he was adamant about the whole thing and I could not get my manager to send me down there for a day. When I told Douchebag this, he said he would take care of dealing with my manager. He never did.

Eventually, it came to my attention that the pharmacy manager (“Jay”) for the new place was going to be creating an overnight pharmacy tech position where one hadn’t existed before. They were expecting things to be crazy busy for a while and they thought an overnight tech would be able to help the nighttime pharmacist do a lot of the clerical and clean up duties. Since I was already a night owl, I put my name in the hat and made a call. Of course an audition was still needed, but Jay agreed to a tech swap for a day and I went and pulled my weight at the other store. While I was there, Douchebag had to put me in the computer system and he ran down the list of names he was going to take for the front of the store. My name came up last because he had heard from an employee (whom we had fired for being drunk and tardy all the time) that I was bitter. Douchebag then continued to give me a ten minute lecture on my attitude, even though he had never worked with me.

Since I had been given the impression my chances in the front were slim to none, I immediately took the overnight position when Jay offered it to me a couple of days later. Two weeks after that, Douchebag approached me and asked me what my plans were. When I told him I had already taken the pharmacy tech job, he said, “Oh, that’s too bad since I had big plans for you in the front of the store.” It was all I could do to contain the rage. I was looking forward to my “self imposed exile” to third shift.

I started working at the new store on the tail end of a nine day stretch. It was an exhausting experience because the volume of the store exceeded what the two stores had been pulling in separately. A normal CVS store maybe does 2,500 prescriptions on a good week. We did over 1,000 on the first day alone. We’re still pulling maybe 5,000 scripts a week. It was an insane start and there were more than a handful of days I thought I was not going to be able to handle the job change. But then a month or so in, I started coming out of my shell around a few specific people and we started to mesh as a crew. There are still some tough days and there’s still a ton of shit I need to learn in order to get nationally certified, but I’m no longer stressed out about the job. When midnight rolls around, it’s just me and the pharmacist doing our thing. I don’t have to worry about the front of the store and the rest of the bullshit that goes along with it. Although, they did transfer Douchebag out a few weeks ago and put Craig in his place. Craig and I have worked together before and get along well, so I’m not surprised that there are subtle little hints being flung my way about returning to the front. But I feel I owe Jay some loyalty, so I’m continuing on in the pharmacy for now. Back in April I was almost out of options, now I’m swimming in them. Funny how that goes.

The only trouble with all of this has been the strain on Lynn and I. For eighteen years, I’ve never been at home when she gets off of work. Now, because of the shift change, I’m just getting up when she’s coming home. She’s cranky from work. I’m cranky for having to face sunlight. Plus there’s been health issues with various family members going on. The last couple of months have been kind of trying. But we both feel it’s just an adjustment period and this too shall pass.

I finally took two weeks vacation at the beginning of August and flew back home to Amesbury, MA for ten days where I went on a whirlwind tour of visiting friends and family. I had left Indy on an emotional low note (Lynn and I were simply not communicating well the week before the trip) and was carrying a case of poison ivy that finally flared up once I landed on the North Shore. Despite all of this, I had a great time although I was exhausted and itching constantly throughout much of the trip. The visit also incorporated my high school graduating class’ 25th reunion, which was a revelation in itself since I had been bitter about that portion of my past for quite some time. I’ll be writing about the changes 25 years will bring to your perspective in the near future, but let’s just say that I actually wound up liking the reunion more than I thought I would. Again, funny how that goes.

So that, folks, pretty much catches you up to date on me. Now I have to catch up on all of you. Time to start reading and noting.

See y’all soon…