Our Pharmacist Needs a Prescription for His Ills

Ivan Hunter, our fictional 35-year-old career-change explorer, has been a pharmacist for the fictional Moreland Drugs about 10 years but is very dissatisfied. He has no complaints about his work in terms of the pay or prestige, but something about it doesn’t satisfy him. He isn’t sure if this really is the right career for him, but he doesn’t know what to do about it. Indeed, this is a dilemma facing many people in Southern California.

Let’s see how Ivan describes his problem to his fictional neighbor, Barbara:

Ivan crossed his arms, leaned against the counter and listened as the frazzled mother of a rambunctious toddler asked his advice. Feeling as if he were peering at her through several feet of water, he heard himself say woodenly, “No ma’am, crushing an aspirin for your little boy and putting it in his milk isn’t a good idea. You can’t control the dosage, you see. The best thing is to use one of the products specifically designed for young children.” Suddenly inundated by a flood of “Gimmes” from her offspring, the woman closed her eyes in silent prayer and nodded her understanding.

“This isn’t right,” Ivan thought, watching her tow the youngster away. “I love this job, don’t I, and there’s nothing wrong, is there?” Far from it, he reassured himself as he glared irritably at the people bustling up and down the aisles. Wasn’t he the head pharmacist at the Vineland branch of Moreland Drugs? And after two years under his administration, wasn’t “his” pharmacy the most highly rated for efficiency and employee satisfaction in the whole chain? “So why do I feel like I’m being nibbled to death by ducks?” he frowned. Catching a customer eyeing him hesitantly, Ivan plastered a smile on his face and held out his hand for the elderly gentleman’s prescription slip.

Still feeling restless and anxious when he got home that evening, Ivan changed quickly, grabbed a beer and sat out on his front porch to watch the sunset. And found himself trying to remember exactly when he’d become a recreational surfer. He didn’t ask himself why he’d stopped getting up at 5:30 every morning to catch the dawn sets before going to work, or why he no longer spent long, satisfying hours sketching board designs. The 24-hour surfing life, Ivan believed, was only for the young and free--and he, as his mirror informed him every morning, was years past young and centuries past free.

He was still tottering unproductively down memory lane when his neighbor, Barbara Smith, pulled into her driveway. Wondering, as he often did, why the director of human resources for a major insurance company insisted on driving a battered pickup truck, Ivan felt a resurgence of the irritation that had plagued him throughout the day. Knowing that Barbara had the training and experience to help him sort himself out, however, Ivan loped over to her house and followed her up the steps.

“I just don’t get it,” Ivan shrugged a few minutes later. “What possible reason could I have for feeling so . . . dissatisfied?”

“If you’re not being pushed out of your job and you’re not butting heads with anyone,” Barbara said, handing him another beer, “then you’re probably bored. Don’t look at me like that. More jobs die of boredom than from any other cause. If boredom’s the problem, you have two options,” she continued, ushering him out onto her patio. “You could try expanding or changing the scope of your present duties to make the job fresh and exciting again, or you could take a sabbatical to recharge your batteries.

“If boredom isn’t the problem, then you could be feeling stifled. Maybe your job’s a dead end and you lack the skills to either advance further with Moreland or qualify for a job with advancement potential at another company. If that’s the case, you can remedy the situation by going back to school for a few semesters or taking some evening classes.

“And if lack of advancement isn’t the problem, a less likely but still very real possibility is that you’re burned out, either by the demands of the job or because you’ve chosen the wrong career. If so, you need to seriously consider starting over again in a whole new industry.”

“Well, I know I don’t want to start over again,” Ivan said peevishly, “and I don’t think I’m suffering from thwarted ambition, so I’m probably just bored. Freshen up the job, huh--how do I do that?”

“You could start by talking with your boss. See if there’s anything in the store you’d enjoy doing, even if it’s not directly connected with the pharmacy, and explore the possibility of off-loading some of your more tedious present duties onto someone who’d enjoy the challenge. If freshening the job doesn’t put the spring back in your step, though, I strongly recommend that you speak with Moreland’s human resources director about taking a sabbatical.”