I do clearly remember my first job as an intern though, in the late 80's, and the pharmacist who used to keep his ashtray under the computer monitor so he could puff away while shuffling your pills around.
I also remember ashtrays in the study lounges in pharmacy school. I shit you not. This would have been the early 90's
Now today, anyone attempting to light up in the pharmacy would most likely be crucified, but I don't remember any transition period. When did this happen? Was I drunk when the memo came out? It is still not kosher to fill prescriptions while you're drunk, right? Or has that changed too? Because if it has, I'm missing out on a lot of potential scotch by sobering out for you people during the workday.
I wonder what else has changed that I haven't noticed.....what is that thing you keep talking into and holding up to your ear? Are you crazy or something?
1993 was my best year. It was all downhill from there. Sigh.
14 comments:
Oh, reading this makes me feel old. I remember being a freshman in college and SMOKING IN THE CLASSROOM. Yes, really. There was a little group of us that sat in the back and lit up. (Cigarettes, that is; the other stuff was confined to dorms.)
I'm ten years older than you and haven't smoked since college, really. And I would probably give a dirty look to my neighbor if he sat in his backyard and smoked because that's the kind of hypocrite I am.
I think it was around 1992 DM. I had finished my psych degree and was waiting to start pharmacy school (my joke is I went to pharmacy school instead of going on in psych because I didn't want to be around crazy people all day...). I worked with an old GI-Bill pharmacist who smoked non-stop. Our supervisor and a VP were coming back to the pharmacy so Jim had to hide his cigarette. He threw it in the file drawer in front of me. The suits hung around longer than we thought they would and I forgot about the cigarette. A customer called to argue about the number of refills on her Vicodin, so I told her I would pull the hard copy. I opened the file drawer and smoke billowed out. I slammed the drawer shut and shot a look to our supervisor. He had seen the mushroom cloud but thankfully had distracted the VP. After that, Jim smoked in the breakroom.
Ugh, I teched in high school with smokers (pharmacists and techs). And the pharmacy was behind some great plexiglass for our protection or something. Seems like it was the late 80's-early 90's when that changed because when I graduated in 1991, it wasn't happening anymore, and hadn't for a couple years. Of course at some point they took out the plexiglass too, leaving us at the mercy of little old ladies with shopping carts looking for sale items and canned music with ads for "doxidan, doxidan, when nature needs a helping hand"
I still know a pharmacist who smokes throughout his day at his pharmacy. in our state if you have like 5 or fewer employees you can still smoke and he doesnt really give a flip what anyone thinks plus his is the only pharmacy in a tiny town.
I recall attending student association meetings in community college that were thick with smoke in the late '70's.
Kids in pharmacy school in the early '80's talked about the hypocrisy of selling cigs in retail shops, and the p'cog professor had cigarettes labeled for medicinal use for asthmatics in his collection.
I dropped out in early '80's. By mid '80's student get-togethers were no longer called 'smokers' and we didn't share each others' cans of coke. I didn't work with pharmacists that smoked near the workplace after 1988.
I suspect drinking to excess is still an ongoing issue, as well as drug abuse, but not in my pharmacies for the past five years, now that I've quit working in those particular shops out of the retaliatory territory--and, no, it's not because I've left, but because I've been able to get in on the scuttlebutt now that I'm no longer involved in accounting for leftover hydromorphone from compounding drips or why we're short a couple of bottles of 500 Lortab, amps of Nubain, or unit-dose boxes of alprazolam 0.5 mg
I myself am a stubborn type of person with heritage issues that would set me up for disease if I ever felt so inclined, but have always figured that with no extra IQ points to play around with there ain't no one going to make me; no way, no how.
Man, I don't smoke, but that sounds nice. The most extreme thing I've done is eat in the pharmacy, in the back, at a counter with no medication on it, and even then, I'd be fired if our district manager walked in.
Then again, I really wouldn't want people eating or smoking around my pills, either. If only those people that keep e-mailing our corporate office complaining that we don't wear gloves knew of some of the things that go on behind these counters..
I use a little independent pharmacy that has been in business since the 1920's. They were still smoking in there til about 3 years ago. (I remember, because I have asthma and was surprised when the smoking stopped.)
Not quite old enough to remember indoors smoking being acceptable in pretty much any public place but even if it was I still wouldn't. The 30 minutes worth of smoke breaks where I get to walk out of the pharmacy and get away for a brief respite are all I have to quell the homicidal urges somedays...
i remember in high school the "student smoking lounge"
i kid you not..
soda machine and ashtrays...
ahhh the 70's.. my mom smoked everywhere, grocery store, dr's office, wherever she friggin felt like it.. now that was freedom.
have a great day, thanks for blogging
Brother frankie
I tell stories of my chain smoking preceptor in '89-'91ish. When our district manager visited, he lit up too..Never a smoke free day behind the counter in those days. My staff doesn't believe me..
Now we complain if anyone smells like smoke.
Remember when you could smoke in bars? Dive bars just aren't the same these days either..
When I went back to college (at the ancient age of 31) I was a chain smoker. In my poetry classes we not only smoked but we brought bottles of wine as well. So by the end of the evening class each week we all had a nice buzz on. Then we'd trot on over to the nearest greasy spoon and eat cheeseburgers and drink dozens of pitchers of beer. And smoke.
Sometimes I really miss those classes. And cigarettes.
As an intern, I smoked clove cigarettes while studying (and this is less than 5 years ago). It gave me the buzz I needed where caffeine seemed to fail (and I remember the pounding headaches afterward).
An old pharmacist I worked for used to carry an empty bottle and chew tobacco in the pharmacy. Needless to say, I see a soda bottle with a dark liquid with this pharmacist and assume its his collection for the day. He is still working too.
i dont have a clue why, but i so enjoyed these comments..
maybe its because life was simpler back then. No political correctness yet.
Enjoy the day
Brother Frankie
I got out in 1994-you're exactly right. I don't remember it changing, but suddenly it did-no smoking in school.
I've never worked anywhere where people smoked on the premises, though.
From the very beginning ('87 was my first year in a pharmacy) people stepped outside to smoke.
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