Typical Day
Farah Macy wakes up from her nap at 6:30PM. Half awake, she stumbles into the kitchen and retrieves her leftovers from lunch from the refrigerator. While waiting for it to reheat, Farah goes to put on her uniform. When the microwave dings, she crouches over the kitchen counter while eating her dinner—careful not to stain her starched-white uniform.
At 7:30PM—after a long commute—Farah walks into the pharmacy located in the rear of a drug store. Her friends, Cee and Duane, have just clocked out and pass Farah on their way out. Farah can't help but notice how tired Cee and Duane look. She wonders if she looks that tired, too.
At the counter, Farah speaks with the first customer in line, a grouchy woman clearly annoyed with having to wait so long.
"I waited half an hour. Did you know that? A half an hour."
Farah is used to grumpy customers, but she wasn't prepared to get a hard time right from the get-go. Farah resists the urge to roll her eyes, however, and instead smiles at the customer.
"I'm so sorry, ma'am. What can I get for you?"
The woman thrusts a prescription at her. Farah fills it, promptly and efficiently. Without a word of thanks, but evidently satisfied, the woman leaves the pharmacy. Farah, busy working through the dozen other people still in line, watches from the corner of her eye as the woman leaves through the sliding doors. She continues to fill prescriptions for the next three hours. Thankfully, by 11:00PM, the after-work pharmacy rush dies down, and she can finally take her allotted fifteen-minute break.
In the back of the pharmacy, Farah devours the granola bar she has stored in her purse. She spends most of her eight-hour shift on her feet, which tends to leave her feeling incredibly hungry. Not to mention sore. "It's amazing how hard just standing can be on your ankles," Farah thinks. Pulling out her phone, Farah takes a few minutes to check the news, drink a glass of water, and head to the restroom. When she's able to take a longer break, Farah will sometimes pull out the textbook for the kinesiology class she's taking in hopes of landing a job more to her liking—but not this time.
Riiiinggggg. Riiiinggggg.
The other pharmacy technician on duty, Doug Store, hollers, "The phone's ringing!" As if she couldn't hear the shrill, angry sounds of the pharmacy phone already....
"Farah? Hello? You alive back there?" Doug shouts again.
"Yes! Got it!"
Farah answers the phone, hoping beyond hope that there's not an upset customer on the other end. Thankfully it's just someone asking for the pharmacy's hours.
"Yes, we're still open," Farah explains. "Yes—we're open twenty-four hours a day."
Farah's back behind the counter at exactly 11:25PM. She doesn't move from the counter—other than to pace a couple of the shelves, tracking down prescriptions she's never heard of—for the next four hours.
Time moves so slowly on the night shift. Farah logs some health insurance claims for an hour, and checks her phone whenever the supervising pharmacist isn't around. "Though, of course," Farah thinks, "he's probably checking his phone, too."
A noisy group of teenagers come in around 2:30AM. They're talking loudly and jostling each other. Farah watches them head to the candy aisle—wishing she were out having fun, too.
Just one more hour until her shift is over....
At 2:45AM a patient comes in with a question about her prescription that Farah is unable to answer. First of all, she's legally not allowed to answer and must refer the patient directly to the trained pharmacist on duty. Second, she had no idea what buspirone was. She doesn't know the answer. Pharmacy technicians don't really need to understand the prescriptions. They just need to be able to read the prescription, read the label on the bottle, and match them up accordingly.
Farah finally clocks out at 3:32AM. She always waits the extra two minutes so that she doesn't seem too eager to get out of there—but she makes a break for it at 3:32AM and falls asleep immediately after she gets home.