The Pharmacy Chick

Pharmacy Chick has 3 major social outings:  Work, church, and my sport activity of choice.  My chosen church is a larger church and has opportunities for many after-service social functions.  The women’s ministry is very active with all sorts of luncheons, retreats, meetings, speakers, culture nights, craft nights, card nights, you-name-it-nights.  And, for 99% of them, I stay home.  Not that they are bad,  they aren’t. In fact they are wonderful.  I get invitations for all of them by my friends from church.  “you’ll have FUN, come on!”  The largest majority of these events I have an automatic “out” because they happen to be scheduled when I am working.  However most of these invites are from my stay-at-home mom friends.  I have a lot of them.

I respect (and am envious to some degree) that they can stay at home and I believe their children will be better for it.  I think kids are better off if they are raised by full time parents instead of spending 40 hours a week in day care. ( no hate mail from working parents–I understand why you have to work too OK???) BUT where I am going with this post is this: to me, these social outings are like being at work, and I am at work too much already.  Stay with me here.

When I am at work, I am in a very noisy public setting, being at the beckon call of patients, their family and caregivers, doctors, nurses, drug reps, and fellow employees. Every one of them wants a piece of the Chick and I have little say as to how my pieces are doled out. I cannot control when the phone rings,  or when I am summoned for a counsel. I put out a hundred fires a day all on somebody elses time table. I eat between prescriptions and when a patient  interrupts me with an insincere ”sorry to interrupt your meal BUT….”  I want to scream “SO DON’T OK?” 

I have gotten to the point where my FREE TIME is not free..its very valuable to me.  It is my most valued non-tangible posession, and I like to be in control of how (and with whom) I spend my free time.  The last thing I want to be doing in my free time is spending it in more noisy public situations, where I have to make small talk with people I don’t know very well.  Once somebody finds out what I do for a living, the inevitable questions start next and BAM, I am at work again.

Its not that I am antisocial,  I love to hang out with my friends.  I do however, love my quiet time at home with just Mr. Chick and myself.  Home is a special place for me. Caller ID determines if I am going to answer the phone, and when I see “800-service” on the screen, I ignore it.  I can see who is at my door with out being seen and if I see a stranger, I may not answer it. I’ve picked up a few hobbies I can pursue at home and it feels good to be able to do them.

I feel this is a casualty of the exposure overload I get all day at work. Maybe if I worked at a desk all day or if I was a stay-at-home-mom, I’d appreciate the social stimulation.  For now, give me some yarn and  a crochet hook, turn off the TV and leave me in peace.

Tags: personal life, quiet please, thanks but no thanks | |