A donut hole emergency

2004-06-06 - 11:52 p.m.

Last night I was at my grandfather's house and didn't have any internet access, but here's the entry I wrote then:

"Last night I stayed up until after 3 in the morning researching pharmacy jobs in Washington. I had been pondering post-test failure options when I decided that was silly, I should be exploring my options for when I pass. So went online and found a list of all the hospitals in Washington state and then found the webpage for each of those hospitals and searched for open pharmacist positions. The first thing I discovered is that the job market isn't quite as good as I had expected. Of course I'm doing this at the worst possible time of year. I'll be looking for a job at the exact same time that all the new students are graduating and all of this year's residents are finishing up their residencies. Really if you had a choice between hiring a person who had just finished up a residency or an equally qualified person who had just finished up sitting on her ass for a year, who would you choose? Yeah, not a tough decision. But anyway, I discovered that of the 89 hospitals who's webpages I visited, 40 had posted listings for open pharmacist positions. Twenty-three of those positions are full time positions. Three of those positions I don't qualify for because they require two or more years of experience and six more I don't particularly want because they are located in the eastern side of the state where I don't want to live. One more position appears to be in the hospital's outpatient pharmacy which is also not what I'm looking for. So that leaves me 13 jobs that I'm interested in. Of the 13, there are 3 that look like they are pretty much what I've always said I've wanted. They are full-time, variable schedule, staff pharmacist positions at major hospitals in Seattle. This would be the perfect kind of position to be in to move into more specialized areas (like critical care) eventually. There are three more positions which I'm qualified for but aren't exactly what I've had in mind and would probably be more challenging and more interesting for me and would force me to stretch myself. One is working in a cancer center, another is working as a core pharmacist in ambulatory care clinics, and another is a position in which I'd mostly be teaching fellow health care workers and developing their skills as opposed to working with patients. All of those positions scare me a bit. Three more positions have particularly piqued my interest for various reasons. Two of these are night positions. The schedule is 7 nights on, 7 nights off. I find that intriguing and I wonder if I could handle it. If I could handle working at night, wouldn't it be great to have every other week off? I could go on vacation easily, never really have trouble scheduling a dentist appointment, or even get a second job during my time off. I could work part time at another hospital or do relief work or even get a job at a community pharmacy. Plus the pay is at least $10 more per hour than any of the other jobs that posted pay. And I'd always be driving counter-commute. The third one is in this category strictly for its location. The first time I drove through this little town about nine years ago I totally fell in love with it and told myself I'd really like to live there someday. It's a cute little town and the location is gorgeous. The drawbacks of course are all the drawbacks of small town life that I've discussed at great length before and also that the job probably wouldn't be too stimulating because it's in such a small hospital. And the remaining four jobs are lumped together because there's really nothing special about them. They fit the criteria of being full time hospital pharmacy jobs in western Washington and nothing more."

As of today, I'm thinking maybe that small town job really isn't a good idea. It's probably not the right fit for someone in my current situation. I'm having a lot of fun right now dreaming about possible futures. The good ones. I've been online checking out neighborhoods and houses and whatnot. I can't wait to start doing the real thing! After next week I'll be done with the tests. Then I'll have a week with nothing scheduled in it yet, then a week in Houston, and when I come back I should find out whether or not I passed. Whether or not I'm licensed in the state of Washington. Whether or not I can start my life!