Yes, it is my eternal subject of changes. In the past month, two of my most least favorite coworkers retired. Yessiree bob, just like Elvis, they have left the building. It was never any secret that that we didn't get along, heck, most of the staff and these two didn't get along. They didn't get along with each other, either. I wasn't an island when it came to disagreements, and for decades they reigned chaos and dissent in the pharmacy.
Worker 1 is the person I was most recently sharing a work space with. She went out on medical leave last October and never came back. Well, she came back for one day and then put her retirement papers in the next day. The powers that be decided I could do her job, and mine, so she was called back to the main hospital to work second shift when she was finally forced back to work in May. Yes, she really did stretch a six week medical leave for eight months. It's no wonder no one threw a departmental party for her. 30-some years of crapping on her coworkers netted her the result of leaving with no one really caring.
Worker 2 retired after decades of tantrums, outbursts, physical fights, screaming matches, and total and complete incompetence. She fell several weeks ago at her home and broke her wrist in multiple places. She too, did not come back from her medical leave. However, it has been my contention that this person should have been fired decades ago. Between her nasty personality and total incompetence, I just don't understand how she managed to stay employed other than she sucked up to management big time.
Here's my favorite story of these two:
Many years ago, while I was working in the in-patient pharmacy and had several years of conflict with both of these persons, I witnessed the most epic collision two bodies could possibly have. Worker 1 is tall, obese, slow-moving, and unaware of her surroundings. She would not move unless she absolutely had to. And, it was slow movements at best. She has a sleepy hound dog look to her, and would slowly react to any situation. Sloth-like is the best way to describe how she reacts to the world around her. Lazy is the best description of her as a person. Worker 2, however, is a polar opposite: Short, tiny, skeletal, hyper-active, vibrates like a chihuahua on speed, and moves for no apparent reason. She also doesn't look where she's going, doesn't think anyone but her has a right-of-way (her driver's license was FINALLY revoked, thank God!), and charges full-steam ahead with her head down, like a battering-ram.
I was standing in the main part of the pharmacy putting an order away. My friend Kathie was across the room in the IV room filling IV's, there were a few scattered pharmacists standing around and a few other techs. In between the runner bay and the IV room was a very large freezer and a very large refrigerator that were side-by-side and formed a "wall" between the two areas. When it was close to round time, the runner would have to go to the IV room to get injectables for orders, and the IV room person would have to bring the IV's out for the round. As you can imagine, you would have to round the fridge in order to get to the runner bay and vice-versa. Well, worker 2 was charging full-speed ahead with her head down and worker 1 was slowly oozing from the IV side to the runner side, not paying any attention to whom was rounding the corner. Both Kathie and I were talking across the room and happen to be looking at the impeding doom, but worker 2 was moving so fast that we couldn't warn either person.
When the impact happened, it was like a 10-speed bike slamming into, and bouncing off of, a semi-truck! Worker 2 actually ended up on the floor, sprawled out in a confused state and worker 1 was still standing, looking around like a gnat had just buzzed by her. Kathie and I were hooting and hollering so hard we both almost peed our pants, and I yelled out, "it was like a 10-speed bouncing off of a semi!" To which worker 1 took great offense, and worker 2 was still on the ground, shaking her head and wondering what the hell just happened.
This is one of my favorite memories of working in-patient. Mainly because it was flippin' hilarious and because it was the epitome of how these two workers were so destructive to the morale of the pharmacy. Worker 2 got up and started yelling at worker 1 for running into her. It was quite clear that worker 1 moves so slowly that she has never run into anything in her life. Worker 2 is so oblivious to her surroundings that she runs into everything and then blames the world around her for being in her way. Neither understand that there is even a world that exists without them. I will not miss either, and have since found a new appreciation for my work now that I'm alone in my room with no bony elbows to elbow me in the runner bay or slow moving sloths to fall asleep while at lunch and have to be woken up to come back to work. Yes, both of these things happened multiple times. Worker 2's elbows could slice you open if you weren't careful, and we used to take bets as to how long worker 1 would sleep during her "lunch."
However, worker 1 is no longer in my work space and I don't miss her at all. I was asked by a pharmacist to go to a retirement party for worker 1 because, "there aren't that many Columbia people left and the Milwaukee people don't want to go." Well, this Columbia person didn't go, either. There is no way I could go, and play nice when she (and worker 2) were two of the three people I left the in-house pharmacy for. Even though I have found with time and absence of their presences, I could tolerate them for five minutes of idle chatter, I could not bring myself to the level of hypocrisy I would need to wish them happy retirement and go to a party for them.
Our world is in a constant state of change. Unfortunately, those changes don't always happen when we want them to. As I mentioned, these two were the biggest reasons I left the in-house pharmacy and pursued the path that I'm currently on. I often wonder what would have happened had I not left? How miserable would I have been? How happy? Would it have boiled over into some kind of HR intervention? These two were toxic to a dept, yet management never did anything about them. Maybe things worked out the way they should have. In any case, both are out of my life and, for that, I am extremely grateful.
