During my 2nd year of college we had to take a class called Foundations of Pharmacy. It was a 1 credit course sandwiched between Healthcare Economics and Organic Chemistry that tried to teach us what life would be like in our chosen profession. All these years later I remember three things about the course. A guest professor who had a frank and honest discussion on how he used morphine to medicate his grandfather in a palliative care situation, and the stickiness of the ethics involved. A homework assignment to attend an AA and a NA meeting, which many people treated like a joke, but hit me in a few ways that have stayed with me for a long time. The third thing was a weird essay that we needed to write, the Dream Job essay. Half a lifetime later some of my friends don’t remember writing it, the others remember it vividly, I’m in the later camp.
To set the scene, I was 19 years old, newly inducted into a fraternity, playing the bass guitar in a band fronted by a freestyle rapper, working during the school year as a building guard and during the summers at a performing arts center, drinking all the Evan Williams and Keystone Light that I could get my hands on, all while drawing anarchy symbols on most of the things that I owned. I also had long stringy blonde hair in a mushroom cut with a generous center part, that is not relevant to the story in any way, but I like to reminisce about having luxurious hair. Up to that point I had never stepped foot behind a pharmacy counter, but there I was sitting behind the keyboard of a Gateway laptop trying to figure out what my dream job was going to be.
I have wanted to be a pharmacist since I was 11 years old. Seeing how my pharmacist grandparents served a role in their community was a big influence. Even though they sold the store before I was born I grew up amid mortar and pestle decorations and antique bottles, hearing stories of my dad working the soda fountain in the idyllic days of the 60s. When I was a freshman in high school I had done enough research to know that I wanted to be the 4th member of my family to attend the Albany College of Pharmacy. I never had any doubts on my future, until of course I got to college and discovered that I fucking hated it. I hated school, and tests, and being on a campus with 900 students, and only being an hour from my parents house, and being around uncultured anxiety ridden nerds all the time. Luckily I found a group of other freshmen who also liked beer, punk rock, and being social outcasts. Out of the 10 or so of us only 3 would go on to graduate on time, 2 of us took the circuitous route, one died, and the rest are lost to the sands of time. As much as I hated my time at ACP if I would have gone to any other college there is a zero percent chance that I am where I am today. Having that structure, and lack of options, pushed me in the right direction and kept me on the path that has made me who I am today. And for some reason that stupid dream job essay was a guiding light for all those years in the darkness.
I should have tried dredging up that actual essay, it could be lurking on the external hard drive that I have lugged around on at least 5 moves. Most likely it is gone, not ported over during a dozen computer changes, disappeared into the ether of mid 2000s technology. I don’t remember the exact words, but I remember the essence. My dream job was to work at the Brooks on Cherry Street in Burlington. I could serve a community that needed my help, embrace the small town vibes, and after my shift I could walk down Church Street and enjoy the music and culture of a city that I have always loved. Little did I know how prescient that thought would be,
Over the years that Brooks became a Rite Aid, and objectively it was the worst pharmacy in the entire state. It was high volume with a very challenging customer base, and a terrible problem with staffing. It was the black hole of good feelings that chewed people up and spit them back out, leaving them worse for the wear. Almost nobody could survive a 13 hour shift there with the energy to go out and enjoy the fun things that Burlington had to offer. I trained there in 2012 and on my first day a technician’s water broke in the pharmacy (and to answer your question they refused to change out or steam clean the carpets). On my first solo day I was carrying the cash drawers when I tripped and spilled change all over, then as I was picking it up the regional VP for Rite Aid stopped in for a surprise visit. Later that month a patient threatened to stab me with a HIV infected needle because I wouldn’t fill his script early. I stopped volunteering to work at that store. It became a Walgreens, and I left retail, and just last week it closed for good.
Ok so technically that dream didn’t work out exactly, but what dream that you have half a lifetime ago does? Part of that dream was working in a retail pharmacy, which I did for many years, despite the struggles and problems I was able to serve communities throughout Vermont. That punk rock girl who took the circuitous route to a PharmD with me, we had coffee and waffles together on Sunday, her son calls me Uncle. A bunch of my friends from when I was 19 are still with me, both scattered around the country and living a few miles away, making me part of this weird little family who love and support each other. My girlfriend ran the Burlington Discover Jazz festival for years, and was one of the people responsible for putting that music on the streets and making Burlington a welcoming, vibrant, and creative place. Much can and has been said about the change of culture that has hit Burlington, but I still love this place, and I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else.
So now as I sit in a coffee shop 3 doors down from the now shuttered Walgreens I can’t help but feel gratitude for the 19 year old who wrote that essay. I want to tell him that there will be trials and tribulations, hard times, good times, and everything in between. He will struggle and fail and eventually overcome. Nothing will go as planned, but often that will wind up being a good thing. I would tell him to just trust the process, go with the flow, and see where the world takes him. He will accomplish more things than he can ever fathom, go places that he could never dream of, and become the person who people will tell stories about. And maybe if the chips fall the right way he can wind up in a funky town in Vermont, living a dream that he wrote up for a bullshit class that he didn’t want to attend anyway.
Owen Foley 