16 YEARS TRAPPED AT THE CORNER OF HAPPY & HEALTHY

This is picture of me I have in journal

                   When I turned 16 years old on January 7^th, 1998 I decided it was time for me to find a part-time job.   About a week or two later I was working at my local Walgreens as a service clerk a few times a week.  I would never had expected that I would stay with this company for almost 17 years and now in 8 days on November 22^nd I will be working my final shift at America’s favorite pharmacy.  Originally I chose to work for Walgreens, because I did not want to work in fast food and there are few options for teenagers in high school.  A funny fact is that Ashley, my wife, worked at a Walgreens back in her home state of Texas.  However, she only stayed at the company for less than a week before she made her escape.  I have so many mixed feelings as I approach my last day, but overall I am very happy to be leaving the company.

                  While I was in high school and getting my undergraduate degree, it was a good job overall to have.  They were flexible with my schedule, had a profit sharing program that I joined when I turned 18, and had paid vacation days.  I could handle my hours at Walgreens better back then, because all along I thought to myself that my main role in life was of student and once I graduated I would shortly leave Walgreens to start my “real job.”  Then in December of 2004 I graduated with my bachelors of Sociology and it was nice to just work full-time at store for a bit and take a break from school.  However, when I finally decided to start looking for a new full time job I found this more difficult than I predicted.  At Walgreens I was no longer a service clerk, but now a photo-specialist.  I enjoyed hiding out by the photo machine, trying to avoid customers and just developing the pictures.  Film was still pretty popular back then and digital cameras were just starting to become popular.  I loved glimpsing photos of people on vacations and weddings, you got to see their happy moments.

                  Since, the job hunt was not going well, I decided that I should go back and get my Masters in Sociology.  In the fall of 2006, I went back to UWM and in addition to attending graduate classes I became a teaching assistant for “Sociology of Sexuality” and then “Social Problem” course.  Even though I was often nervous speaking in front of the students, I really enjoyed this job.  I wore professional clothes, not blue vest or scrubs, and I had my own desk and an office that I shared with a few other graduate students.  I felt like this job was the job I always wanted to work at.  During these few years of graduate school I continued to still work a few days a week at Walgreens.  Again it was good to get some extra money and of course I’d quit soon after graduate school.

                  Then in May 2009 I defend my MA paper, “Young Transgender Women’s Attitudes on Sexual Reassignment Surgery.”  With my new degree in hand I started applying for my new career and again I foolishly thought this should not take so long.  Prior to this working at Walgreens was an okay job, I had some great co-workers and it paid the bills.  However, now that I was no longer a graduate student, I became a full-time worker at Walgreens.  I feel bad admitting that I worked at Walgreens when meeting new people and they would ask me what I did for a living.  Friends from high school would be amazed at times to learn that yes, I was still at Walgreens.   I know many amazing and smart people who’ve worked at Walgreens and continue to work for the company, they have nothing to feel ashamed about.  It was my own insecurities and I felt there was this injustice that now that I have a MA and I am still working in retail, what did I do wrong?  There is not enough room in those post to talk about the struggle it is for many of us to find a job in this economy.  In next weeks post maybe I'll  try to tackle this situation that many of us find ourselves in.

                  In October of 2011, I decided that since I was not escaping this store I would at least change departments.  I went from being a photo-specialist to a pharmacy technician.  Looking back this was a good decision, since it gave me experience learning something new and working in more medical environment.  It was difficult to go from knowing everything about the photo department to having to learn about various drugs and working with insurance companies.  Another big change came a few months later when I was promised a raise and more hours if I switched stores.  I had been working this entire time at the Walgreens in Wauwatosa on 76^th and Center, and they wanted me to move about a mile away to 76^th and Capitol in Milwaukee.  Anyone who works in retail knows it’s a struggle to find a job that guarantees 40 hours a week, so I went to Capitol since they were offering more hours than I was getting at the moment.

                  At 76^th and Capitol I would spend the last three years of this Walgreens saga.  This store was open 24 hours and was the busiest pharmacy in our district.  A few months after coming to this store I went to the bathroom one afternoon and while I was sitting in my stall the lady next to me fell off the toilet.  I tried to talk to her, but when she did not respond I got the pharmacist.  I found out shortly later that this young white college kid was doing heroin in our bathroom and had OD, but she was awake by the time the paramedics came.  Nothing like this happened at my old shore.    Back at Wauwatosa store we thought it was busy when they had 40 scripts to fill at a moment, at this store I have seen it at 130 scripts to fill at one time.  We are always understaffed, but my God did the time fly by in this place.  It is a mad house, but the techs there are great at their jobs and I did enjoy the fast pace of it all.  However, it is also so stressful to keep up with the filling and the huge amount of customers and I do not believe the techs don't get paid enough to deal with the stress that comes with working at this store.  

                  By some miracle last week I was offered a new job that relates better to my academic field and pays better.  This last Monday I put my two weeks-notice and I only have a handful of shifts to go at Walgreens.  My manager wanted to know if I wanted to stay on part-time and work a few times a month, so I could keep my discount and make some extra bucks.  Even though this would probably work with my new job, I want this chapter of my life to be over.  I am thankful for Walgreens for giving me a job for these past decades, but I need to move on.  I have worked with some amazing folks over the years and I wish them the best, but now I am embarking on a new journey in my life.