A day in the life of a radical pharmacy owner

I am addicted to reading blogs. I am not sure why I am so fascinated with other people's lives. It is not like my life isn't interesting. I left an 8 year marriage for a short, adorable, sexy, funny woman, cementing my place as the "bad" daughter forever. I graduated from school less than 2 years ago and decided almost immediately to open my own business. I have several friends with lives even more interesting than mine. Why do I read about the lives of strangers? I think I like reading about the daily drama that we all experience. I also like reading about other people's interactions in their work places. I am fascinated with the inner workings of the work place.

Most of us choose a profession without thinking about the environment we will be working in. I worked in the restaurant business for ~6 years. Most restaurant have 20-60 employees. There are distinct divisions within the staff. You have front-of-the-house, back-of-the-house, and management/owners. Front-of-the-house is further divided in hostesses, severs and bartenders. The bartenders tend to think of themselves as something other than front-of-the-house employees, but they are just front-of-the-house employees that make more money. There is often intense animosity between front-of-the-house and back-of-the-house employees. The back views the front as soft, lazy, scammers. The front views that back as a bunch of thugs and lowlifes. As with all stereotypes, there is some truth in both views. I think management plays up these rivalries so no one notices the really crappy way they treat all employees. There was always some underlying drama while we working. I have worked in every position in a restaurant. I loved my job. I was the geeky trainer who followed all of the company rules. People hated me because I expected them to do their jobs. I was well on my way to a career in restaurants when I got pregnant with K.

I decided when I was pregnant that a career in restaurants was not the best choice for raising a family. Prior to my pregnancy, my schedule was something like this--

4:00 pm- Arrive at work 30 minutes early to eat a 1/2 price meal
4:30 pm- Shift meeting or the time when mangers blow smoke up the staffs butt
5:00 pm- 11:00 pm- Wait tables
11:00 pm-12:00 am- Try and get servers to clean up after themselves
12:00 am-5:00 am- Drink lots and lots of beer, play cards with other restaurant workers
10:00 am- Wake up and clean up from the previous night while everyone else slept

Repeat. Sometimes, I would go to work at 11:00 am for the lunch shift. I also only made enough money to pay 1/4 of the rent of a 3 bedroom apartment and my car payment. So I went back to school, but I continued to work in restaurants part-time. After my first year of pharmacy school, I moved and got my first job in a pharmacy. The total staff was 5 people plus 3 students and a few delivery driver. It was a hugh transition from such a large staff. I loved that job and will post several bits about that job later.