Just Half An Hour

So this morning I had an “OMG” moment, and believe me, I don’t have those very often.

So what does a pharmacist look like? What should a pharmacist look like? Is there a prototype? Do they have a look? Or maybe I should be asking if there is a look they shouldn’t have…

I’m on a business trip right now and I was having breakfast this morning at the hotel when a cute elderly couple struck up a conversation with me. I’m very much an introvert but I’m not rude so I politely engaged in conversation with them. The question of occupations came up and the wife told me she was a retired business owner, (she and her husband had owned a storage facility) and her husband was a retired lawyer. So naturally, my turn came to tell them what I did for a living. I said “I’m a pharmacist”. Benign enough right?

Well, prior to that statement the Mrs had perfect hearing, but now it seemed that her ears were going on the fritz. After almost choking on her tea or juice, I don’t recall exactly which she was drinking, she asked me three, yes three (3), times if I had said I was a pharmacist. “Yes” I said, “I’m a pharmacist”. Then she proceeded to ask if I was a real pharmacist… Honestly, being a pharmacist is NOT like being a celebrity actor or singer or supermodel… No one ever says they want to pretend they’re a pharmacist. Being a pharmacist is not a glamorous job. Oh it can be rewarding, and in the right practice setting it can be fulfilling also, but glamorous…? Heck to the no…!

So it got me thinking… Why was she so surprised that I was a pharmacist? Do I not look like what she thinks a pharmacist should look like, or do I look like I ought to be doing something else with my life?

I don’t want to cast any aspersions because I did not ask her directly, but honestly, I think I should have… Curse my shyness…why oh why can’t I be bolder when I really want to be??!! 😦

But hey, this is 2014. Should we have mental limitations of what we think people can or cannot do professionally? Am I to believe her surprise was because of my gender…? Could she really believe that I should be anything but a professional, and a doctor at that, because I’m a woman? I highly doubt that because judging from her age, she had to have lived through the sixties and that whole women’s lib movement. Plus, she owned a business so surely that can’t be it.

Maybe it’s my age. Perhaps pharmacists should be older than I am, or should look older than I look. But I don’t think I look all that juvenile so… I mean, sure I look fly and all, but that can hardly be helped now can it? 😉

To keep my mind from settling on a reason I don’t want to think or believe is the actual reason, I am making a conscious choice to stop dwelling on it now. I choose to permanently abort the thought at this point and at this moment.

It is finished.