Eight years. I was at my previous company for eight years. And what I learned there more than anything else is you can be REALLY good at something, the best really, and not like it. That's a hard lesson. I was hired by a specialty mail order pharmacy just after I earned my Bachelor's degree. I learned pharmacy on the job, having only worked in orthotics and prosthetics before.
I quickly became comfortable with the role of calling patients to set up refill shipments. All therapy lines, all day long. Forty hours a week that's what I did. As a specialty pharmacy we filled prescriptions for mainly long term conditions, such as psoriatic arthritis, Hepatitis C (a much more manageable condition now), and some cancers. And I was good at it. If the patient wasn't chatty I could do a complete, compliant, and thorough set up in 110 seconds. I was there almost a year before I finally told my boss "You know what would make my life easier? A headset." He went down to Best Buy on lunch and bought me one. My colleagues made fun of me. I didn't care. My neck wasn't creaked anymore like theirs was.
***not an actual photo of me***
I seemed to have a knack for connecting with people. I had patients that said they looked forward to my call every month. And we called every month, like clockwork. Our average shipment cost around $40,000, which was more than I made in a year. No way was that shipment going out the door without us speaking to you and making sure you knew it was coming and confirming we had the right address.
I don't know if it was the southern accent or how I just talked with them but I became a very busy girl. When asked if she could be pregnant on one call a female patient of mine laughed and said, "Oh honey, only if there is a star in the east!"
One of my Hepatitis C patients once told me when I asked if any of his other medications had changed since we last spoke, "Well, no, but I got a puppy for my depression." I fully supported that decision.
So while I enjoyed the people aspect of my job, I was fast becoming burnt out. My company had an employee case load average of 30-40. Special permission had to be obtained for me to carry my "normal" load, which was well over a hundred. I was so efficient I did 30 by my morning break. I became a myth. Our systems were all interconnected nationwide and people could look at other locations' ques and case loads. Once you were in the system under a certain username, that was your username forever and ever amen but your email could change. I got married. I took my husband's name. My email changed to my new name. My username stayed the same. Other locations began to think my que was a catch all que for problems that many people worked on. It wasn't until a manager from another location came to visit and was introduced to me that the myth was disproven. Her eyes got so big, "OH! YOU'RE <username redacted>! We all thought you didn't exist!" And then she told all her friends.
The VP of specialty operations visited one day. I met him at the coffee machine and showed him how to use it. In our conversation I mentioned I do not work without coffee. After meeting with my boss he came back to me and asked if I had enough coffee. Then, the next time he came to town, he brought me a cup of coffee and told me "Don't get up! Just stay right there!" So it was no secret I produced an incredible amount of work.
But that wasn't enough anymore. I was growing more and more disgruntled by the week. It was affecting my home life, it was affecting my mental health, and it got to the point where I thought if I make one more phone call I am going to scream. I became so miserable my husband finally said, "Find something else. Find anything else. Just get away from that position. Go bag groceries for all I care. Anything." Now, there is nothing wrong with bagging groceries and I believe there is no shame in an honest day's work but bagging groceries didn't exactly keep me in the pharmacy world, which I knew well.
I did begin looking for another job and found one at a local hospital. As I left the office on my last day, while I was scared to start a new path, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I was no longer in that cube in that stuffy office. I would be up, moving around, and doing things with my hands now. That excited me.
Do I regret the time I spent at that company? No, not really. My only regret is I didn't realize how it was affecting me sooner. Would I go back? Nope, not on your kidneys buster. I guess what I'm trying to say is take care of you. Pay attention to things you fill your time with. If you are good at them but secretly don't enjoy them, that will eat at you. The company I spent 8 years working for posted an ad to fill my position before the end of the week. They could find another patient care representative and did, quickly. If I had allowed the burn out to completely destroy me, my family couldn't find another me.
Be well y'all