so far from what I gathered from you is that you have pretty much experienced every types of pharmacy jobs under the sun, knows a lot of people in pharmacy and all their dirty secrets, you also gotten revenge from your nemesis after patiently waiting for 10+ years, and from this thread...you have a super hot, smart and rich wife that can't get enough of you
what are you? the most interesting pharmacist in the world? lol
Laconic summary: Not interesting, interested.
Athenian summary:
No, Albert Wertheimer would be that for me. Founded a great graduate program, taught a generation of extremely influential graduate students such as Lucinda Maine and Linda Strand, and knew them very well. Semiretired to Temple and collects a tidy windfall doing industry advising and being on the Board of Directors for a specific concern. Within the place I work, that would be Louise Van Diepen, the pharmacist who did everything from staff pharmacist to the highest ranking civil servant in the VA as Chief of Staff and was someone that had no enemies (because she was very efficient about her work, including disposal). Interesting people live interesting lives, they don't talk or write about them. However, nothing of what I just wrote is practically useful. There is a story behind each of those statements, a rather rich one. "A man was born, he lived and he died" is not a story. I am interested rather than interesting, and Albert's interesting story makes for good narrative about living a uninhibited life.
No, I never said I had a hot or a smart wife, she's quite normal on both counts. People assume that for being hardworking and successful, because successful people are only beautiful (I'm proof positive that they are not necessarily related, I could use about $50k's worth of cosmetic surgery). And I suppose if you thought that a person who could write clinically about a future Husband 2.0 was a good marriage, well, I suppose you are in the right line of work. What she has is zeal and desire, she wants growth and she wants more, and that is what drives her. The most uncharitable way for me to describe how my marriage works is to say that our relationship is founded on her ever wanting more, she wants me to be more cuddly, more sociable, and more loving. From her perspective, I give just enough to keep her interested, but not enough to make her satisfied. My own perspective is that sooner or later, when she does figure out that Husband 2.0 carries a much higher intrinsic growth potential for giving her what she wants, she will make the rational decision and upgrade her marriage. Until then, we abide, but I have no particular illusions about the eventual fate, because I just am incapable of giving more than my personality permits.
What can be said about my marriage is basically the state of the profession since the beginning for me: the situation is hopeless, but not serious. The original reason I signed up for this board was not about pharmacy, in fact, the pharmacy boards were not available until some time in 2004. I was interested in doing something other than pharmacy after the collapse of the profession, so optometry looked inviting (it still does today for me for a quieter life). I did not get the choice to become a pharmacist, that choice was made for me. What I could do was work my way into power in such a way that I could make my own choices. However, the profession has continued along the trajectory that I predicted years ago (you can read a number of postings throughout my time here that lay out how this situation works out). What I wanted to be was a historian, but what I could be given my environmental choices was this. What interests me is not living a happy life, but a satisfied one. That means for me, that I can make sense of the disjointed events, and unlike interesting people, my interests drive me to bring narrative sense into events. It was how I counseled patients where it was not about the drug or the condition, it was how this drug fit into their lifestyle ("you can keep eating McDonald's until the day you die, but this Lipitor here is going to help you do it for at least 10 more years, because as far as we know, there's no McDonald's where we're going..."), it was how I approached what I needed to know to do good work, and it serves me daily in the bureaucratic moral maze where I work.
Interesting things happen to people, but they do not attempt to understand or make sense of it. I do, which is why I tend to write about these things. It's not that others don't know, it's just either that they can't be bothered to communicate them, or they are in on a situation where it is better for people to not know. Why I take such odd jobs, say what I do at work (which is why I'm in an enforced sinecure job at the moment) is because I am interested in what others are up to as well as having no particular issues with working jobs below or above my qualifications (acting as if you had a terminal case of imposter syndrome helps quite a bit). Uncharitably, I am the NPC who gets to be the chronicler for all of the PC events that others initiate and destroy. And because people mistake me for the furniture in both work and social life, I get to overhear and figure out how those narratives work. The really interesting people who are in our line of work, the management consultants, the industry players, and academia are usually narcissistic enough to insist that someone remembers their exploits, and since my reputation in the business is what it is, they and I are more than happy to listen to each other's stories. I am quite happy that no one considers me an interesting person in real life, because I would never get to know many of the stories otherwise.
If I wanted a happy life, I would have probably gone onto optometry after pharmacy imploded, worked a fairly banal job, and spend my time reading. But I want a satisfactory life now, so I usually care about stories and sometimes, enough power to change the narrative. Even if this profession (and possibly this country) is hopeless but not serious, before we die, can we not live?
