My nights at the Midnight circus

My first and most entertaining pharmacy experience was at The Midnight Pharmacy, on the main drag of downtown Edmonton. In my second or third year of pharmacy school, I picked up a six- to-midnight shift a few nights a week at the Midnight through a good friend. Not only did I need the cash, but I had also noticed that my friend seemed to have a lot of answers to questions which were not from material we covered in class. The main purpose of these shifts was to file. Yes, file. Either the lovely and calm manager—I shall call her Elayne—was obsessed with filing, or it was the practice of the time to attach every refill label to the original prescription. Given some of my future tasks with Elayne, I suspect it was her exacting nature that invented this monotonously boring job for students. When asked, she told me was that she liked to view every prescription like a book: if you pulled the original prescription, you had the whole story. Oddly enough, even though the pharmacy did over around 1,000 prescriptions a day, I could file weeks’ worth of prescriptions in an hour. After nine hours of classes, this mind-numbing task would put me into a trance where I could immediately pull the right prescription to attach the refill slip. The owners of the pharmacy were two pharmacist brothers. I never really got them straight because I never worked in the pharmacy with either of them, and they both always wore beige. But during each shift, at around 10 pm, one or the other would appear at the pharmacy with their binders of mug shots. Oh yes, they were obsessed with shoplifters. Binders full of shoplifters These large binders were full of photos of a miserable selection of Edmonton’s finest. And I do mean finest, as in addition to the expected mug shots of desperate-looking individuals, just as many sported a fur coat or a cleric’s collar or diamond earrings. They would often be posed in the staff room with their pilfered items. Cosmetics, condoms, mouth wash; the odd ham or block of cheese from the food section. Family albums of people related only by one action—stealing from the beige brothers. The binders would find permanent homes on the staff lunch table, where we were instructed to peruse them on our breaks and alert staff when we noticed a perp in the store. The pinnacle of the brother pharmacists’ pursuits came when they installed a dummy column in the middle of the card aisle. I was unaware of the column, until one night a short skinny man burst out of a hidden door in the column in pursuit of some hapless individual at high speed down the card aisle. The customers of the Midnight were another source of entertainment to my small-town eyes. This particular street in Edmonton was lined along the river side with high rises (homes to major league hockey players and other such elites) while the streets behind the pharmacy were dotted with social assistance housing. This made for an interesting mix. It was likely a good cover for the famous residents as none of the rest of us knew who they were. The exception was Jason, the other pharmacist— I think he only worked there to talk to hockey players. Well, for that and for his exceptional skills as a bouncer. And we often needed a bouncer. Although Elayne would say “Just let them run,” as the customer grabbed and dashed with some condoms, Jason and the beige brothers would take off in high pursuit, even tossing people out the back door. We who worked in the pharmacy met a lot of these people, because we kept almost everything (other than the hams) behind the counter. We sold syringes individually and condoms in three- packs. We hid the Listerine behind the counter and were told to limit the number sold per person. Codeine, condoms and a syringe was a common request. One colourful customer used to dress up in a costume to try to purchase more than one package of codeine a day. It was a game to try to spot him—and given how Edmontonians bundle up in -45 degree winters, that was often hard to do. From Elayne, I learned the importance of always remaining calm, not judging patients for the shape, form or situation they found themselves in, and the importance of … filing (and accuracy). She once made me re-price an entire shopping cart of shampoo, which, in my 11 pm stupor after classes and work, I had priced at 96 cents instead of 97 cents. I blame the sticker gun slipping; but either way, she made me redo it all for 1 cent, I swear just to impress the importance of accuracy. And yes—shocking to today’s graduates—we were pricing stock! We pharmacy staff were responsible for certain sections of the front store. We had to count lottery tickets at night, make up cash deposits—we were taught how the whole business runs and we were expected to participate in it. Pharmacy was, is,business. From Jason, I learned that pharmacists can stand up for themselves— and how to spin bottle caps into a standing jar. Yes… well… it gets a bit weird at all-nighter pharmacies in the middle of the night. I owe my skill at beer pong to Jason. He would set up the prescription bottle cap disposal can (it was not large) at one end of the dispensary, and we would compete to spin the lid of the bottle we were opening and get it to land in the receptacle. Did I mention he was obsessed with sports? I felt I experienced everything weird and wonderful in pharmacy at the Midnight before I had even graduated. I had seen it all. I recommend that everyone either be a locum at some point in their career, or expand your comfort zone and work in as many varied types of pharmacies as you can. It is not only a great learning experience from a medical perspective, it’s just good fun.

My nights at the Midnight circus

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Blog Author

Corrine Wilson