Take me back to where the music hit me

2003-09-11 - 9:37 p.m.

Yesterday at around ten o'clock I got a phone call. It was the wife of a friend of a friend of my dad. She and her husband run a pharmacy relief agency. She wanted to know when I would be available for a meeting. I told her my schedule is basically open and she said, "Ok, can you do lunch?" I said sure, why not, and at noon I was sitting in a Mexican restaurant downtown discussing employment with a man who looked like Bruce Willis.

It turns out that technically speaking, I don't work for this company. I'm an independent contractor. Needy (desperate) pharmacies call them up asking for a relief pharmacist and then they call me up and say, "Yo, Euc, would you like to work on such and such a date at such and such a place at such and such a time?" I can say yay or nay as I see fit. If I decide to work, I'm technically working for that particular pharmacy. The pharmacy pays a fee to the relief agency and then I send an invoice to the relief agency billing them for the number of hours I worked. Since my money comes from somebody who I'm not working for, taxes are not deducted from my paycheck.

Seems cool to me. I'm not sure exactly how this is going to work come tax time, but I've been assured it's not a big deal. Anyway, in one day I've made only $200 shy of a loan payment. I could earn as much as I was making as a resident by working just four days a month. I'm a little hung up on the money thing at the moment because I've never actually made any serious money. I think I'll get over it.

Today I worked in an independent pharmacy about fifty miles from my home. No worries, I get paid for travel, too. It was fairly big, as far as independents go. Now that I think about it, the tech to pharmacist ratio might've been a little high. But anyway, it was a really slow day. They have a compounding service and a closed-door part for nursing home meds so the other pharmacist spent his time back there while I ran the whole front part. I never felt overwhelmed. We only did 192 scrips today. I really liked how they had their system set up, though. It was much more efficient than any other community pharmacy I've ever worked in. Yes, all three of them.

So my first stint as a relief pharmacist went just fine. The people I worked with were nice and helpful. Although I got a little tired of hearing how young I look/am. My next scheduled shift is for Monday and I'll be working in a chain pharmacy which is likely to be quite a bit busier than this one. We'll see how that goes!

The day after tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the race I ran in last year. Well, it may not be the exact anniversary, but they're having the same race again. My aunt, her boyfriend, my cousin, and my grandfather are all coming to my house tomorrow so they can run in the race again. My parents also signed up. I decided to pass on the race this year. I remember it was more fun last year than I expected it to be, but it just seems awfully expensive, especially since I'm in such bad shape again.