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Selling Drugs on Sundays

     My alarm goes off at 7:30, every Sunday morning. I roll out of bed, brush my teeth and wash my face. I put on the same black collared shirt and khakis. I brush my hair, eat a cereal bar and off I go to work. Every Sunday morning I sit at the same red light for over five minutes, I don’t know why it takes so long to change. I always find myself wondering, what if I didn’t go to work today? Somehow I always end up going. It’s extremely hard to convince myself to go when I know I’ll be doing a lot of work for minimum wage, but someone’s got to do it. 
     I walk in the door at 8:30, everyone looks miserable and I know that no one wants to be there. I walk to the back of the pharmacy, open a register and prepare for the customers to arrive. At work I always need to keep a smile on my face and I need to be extremely polite to everyone, which I don’t mind at all. Throughout the day I deal with hundreds of people, some that are very nice, others that feel they are better than me and can therefore treat me like dirt. I help fill prescriptions, sell them to sick people, clean and also work as a cashier. I look at the clock at least a thousand times throughout the day and time seems to move by so slowly. Some days I work with some really nice girls, and we have fun talking and gossiping. Other days I work with people that I barely know and we stand in silence and pretend to look busy.
    When the pharmacy is slow, I clean out old prescriptions that were supposed to be picked up two weeks ago and I wonder why the person never came. Whenever adolescents come in with friends and are joking around and having fun, I smirk to myself knowing that they’ll be working too in a few years. Towards the end of my shift I “face-off” the shelves, which means pulling everything forward and putting back things that people pick up and are too lazy to put back on their own.
    When I look at the clock and see that there are only a few minutes left, I realize that working there isn’t so bad. When the next shift arrives, we make small talk and I pull my drawer and take it to the back room. I sit down at a cold, round table and count my money. Then I pick up my pay check, it’s not a lot, but enough to get me by for another two weeks. Going to work encourages me to go to college and work hard, so that I can have a good job that I enjoy going to. I feel compassion for people that have to actually go to a job that they hate every single day. At 1:15 I get in my car and drive home and realize that things aren’t so bad and that I wont have to go back… until Tuesday.

Filed by Mr. Hillman at March 26th, 2008 under Confessions of Serial Teenager


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i like this vignette. it reminds me of how all of the places i work/worked in sucked with the same horrible routine

   dwagrap — March 27, 2008 @ 6:06 pm

I think this one stood out to me because unlike a lot of the other vignettes it doesn’t detail a specific situation, but instead a routine that allows the reader a little insight into the writers life.

   adrienne08 — March 27, 2008 @ 9:46 pm

I found this interesting because i know exactly how this person feels while working at cvs. Its the same fricken thing over and over again, and it becomes god aweful. However, there are advantages like the 5 finger discount.

   tschmidt — March 27, 2008 @ 11:09 pm

I liked ths alot. I agree with Adrienne as it has a different style than most vignettes. I felt compassion also because I work at a similar place and no what this person is feeling.

   mbrigidi — March 27, 2008 @ 11:16 pm

the tone of the vignette is very nice. it also reminds me of why i don’t work.

   eunjister — March 27, 2008 @ 11:19 pm

I wrote about my first job in one of my vignettes. This reminds me of my experiences.

   natedawg08 — March 27, 2008 @ 11:38 pm

i liked this vignette for many of the same reasons as those posted above, its a situation that doesn’t happen just once and something that many of us can relate to

   aweinstein — March 30, 2008 @ 12:02 pm

i really liked this one, especially because of the title. A title like that would definitely rope a lot of people into reading it, like myself. then once you start reading it, you realize that when you first read the title, you were led in a direction totally opposite to what the story’s really about, but at the same time, the title still completely pertains to the story. i also know exactly what this person means when they explain how work can be fun if you’re working with the right people, or really bad if you’re working with the wrong people. For instance, i know that my next shift at CVS is going to suck because i’m working with tommy.

   alessio7 — March 30, 2008 @ 4:51 pm

I like this vignette because it’s relatable, and anyone who has had a job can definitely agree with this persons experiences. It reminds me of the orphic cycles of going to work each week. Waking up on weekend mornings, grabbing a quick breakfast, acting polite to every customer(no matter how annoying they may be), and watching the clock towards the end of the day.
My favorite part of this vignette is the description of the adolescents who come in joking around, because I experience the same thing at my job and i always laugh to myself about them.

   mloughery26 — March 30, 2008 @ 7:56 pm

I can definitly relate to this vignette. Way to grasp the true reality as working as an adolescent. Esepecially with the repeated concept of checking the time and facing tasks that we as teens do not want to do.

   cow15 — March 30, 2008 @ 10:29 pm

I liked this because it shows a monotonous routine in the persons life. They write very well and can make the story for them seem very boring however for us it is interesting to read.

   truddy — March 30, 2008 @ 10:31 pm

I really enjoyed this vignette because I can imagine many of the same situaions where I work with the same repetitive rutines. I feel like this probably applies to most kids that work while going to high school.

   dwittmer — March 31, 2008 @ 2:03 am

HAHAHHAHA this is exactly how my day was when i worked at the rite aid pharmacy. I really did hate it because it was so boring and old, cranky people always complain about their medication whenever they have a chance. Yea i completely sympathize with you.

   justinparkk — March 31, 2008 @ 12:41 pm

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