The 5 stages of Grief

Grief is universal.
It has touched each and everyone of us in some major way in our lifetime;
Grief could be trivial or life altering.
We find ourselves changed in the end but to first live and survive through it we must first come to terms with the thing.

I find myself in the throws of what are known as "The 5 Stages of Grief."

Stage 1. Denial.
When I first heard that they were replacing both pharmacist at my job and two of my useless coworkers, I thought great new people!

 I've been under a constant bombardment of stress, all of December, ever since they bought the pharmacy next door and acquired all the loons that came along with it.
New pharmacists and coworkers, why it's just the thing this place needs right now.
February was looking like a bust, the car had me miserable, surely March had to be different.


It was on a very busy Sunday that the rumors began swirling about Dragon.
I couldn't believe it, did not want to even entertain the idea of her possible resurfacing into my little calm life.
I've managed to dodge her for a long time, avoiding floater shifts at her pharmacy.
I couldn't picture hearing her whiny, nasally voice barking orders at me.
I didn't want to imagine her shiny scales shimmering off the computer screens  behind me.
I couldn't imagine her lasting for long at my pharmacy anyway even if she was to transfer there.
My pharmacy had become infamous.
We were officially a "challenged store."
Every single one of us had a horrible nemesis patient who sought out to ruin our day with constant complaints and outlandish unmedicated outbursts.
Dragon is an anxiety riddled large child, throwing temper tantrums here and there.
This pharmacy would eat her alive.
They can't send her here, what are these people thinking.
No way she's going to be my new boss, no fucking way!

Stage 2. Anger.
Monday Morning and there is a very flashy Red Mustang in the parking lot.
I immediately knew who's car that was.
Holy fuck nuggets, Smaug has taken over the Mountain.
As I open the door to work, there she is.
Smug Smaug.
She starts making changes immediately, remodeling the pharmacy to make room for her enormous ego.
She's making stupid choices too, like taking down the shelves with all the OTC (over the counter) meds because "It's ugly to look at."
What!? Ugly? No stupid reptile, you're ugly.
Don't go touching things here, you're a tourist, a drifter just passing through town. Don't you dare grow roots here.

I am livid.
I am stuck with her again. No!
God I couldn't believe I would be having a birthday in the presence of this monstrosity.
It's bad enough I have to age, I don't want to get older with her!
I hate that I have to kiss her ass and pretend I don't hate her stupid guts.
Why is she here!?
Why Lord, am I really such a bad person to be punished this way?
 Fuck man as if this stupid job wasn't hard enough already.

Stage 3. Bargaining. 
It was official, she was here to stay.
She was already making waves at the pharmacy.
There was even an incident where she had one of our more colorful patients make her cry.
She had made enemies with our more seasoned overly medicated narcotic meds only patients.
She went one complete week denying Vicodin, Adderals, Oxycontin's, Morphine and Methadone..
Our usual customers hated her stupid guts more than I did.
My only comfort was in the little hope I had every morning, as soon as the alarm blared, I would lie in bed for five full minutes and pray that today she wouldn't go off in one of those bipolarish moods of hers.
Please Lord above or below, anyone out there??
Zeus, Allah, Easter Bunny?
Someone please make this woman call out of work or transfer out due to a nervous breakdown or something, please..
I promise that I will work harder and try to be a better mom, or girlfriend, maybe I could look into charity work or serve the homeless.
Please someone out there just take her out.. I will be be ever so grateful.

Stage 4. Depression.
I found myself crying in the shower every morning, crying in the car on the way to work.
I found myself sleeping less and bingeing more.
I am depressed.
My fate is sealed.
Maybe it's time to find another pharmacy to work at, maybe it's time to find another line of work.
You win this one Dragon, the place is all yours.
Working with her is awful. She makes me feel like nothing I do is eery good enough, like I'm a rookie. I find myself making first year mistakes too. I feel like I can't do anything right.
My house is a mess, I work so much I have no time to do laundry or do housework, all I really want to do is just lay in bed.
I chase painkillers with alcohol and pass out into the late night, it's the only way I will get any kind of sleep.
I am a moody mess, fighting with my boyfriend over nonsense, isolating myself and gaining weight. Ugh gaining so much weight. I am so fat. I don't want to be looked at.
I'm disgusting :(
I'm a big sad lonely mess.
I don't feel like anything good is going to ever happen to me. I'm just not one of those lucky people that look so put together and have so much going for them.
I can't have it all, can't even have some..

Stage 5. Acceptance.
The Pharmacy has stabilized finally.
My other pharmacist who had her own reputation for being an uber bitch actually doesn't piss me off.
On Tuesday she and I worked alone for ten complete hours without incidents.
She even kept commenting on what a perfect day it was.
I don't have a nickname for her yet although she talks with a Lisp...
Maybe Lisp lady would suit her.
Dragon is still annoying but she annoys everyone so I thank God for small miracles, at least I'm not the only one getting burnt from her fire breathing flames.
Our new head honcho at corporate is checking up on the progress at the store and scolded me for dropping my score in "Action notes" which is just fancy medical jargon for me being too busy to call patients and let them know if we are out of stock on something or if their insurance doesn't cover their herpes medications anymore.
I was taken aback by him and upset. To imply that I would purposely slack off is to insult my character. I've been busting my ass working six days a week for this place.
I blurted out that I would work harder if I knew that the end justified the means ergo my performance review that was due in October would be done, I was due for a raise last year. How can I work so hard for a company who only acknowledges the bad but ignores the good.
The head honcho said no worries he would take care of that.
So on Thursday Morning Dragon surprised me by having me sign my performance review. It was good, I exceed expectations.
Sometime next week they will sit down with me and let me know how much my raise will be, and not only that I will get retroactive pay for all of last year and this years pay adjustment.
The majority of bad patients from the merger have all but transferred out so now we have less patients again. We are all in the process of just re acclimating ourselves with the pharmacy sans craziness again.
They are changing my schedule around, giving me a schedule of five days a week and promising to not cut my hours so I can continue to receive my full (40) time hours.
If I can just not feel like my carpal tunnel is going to kill me or my legs will stop trying to buckle on me than I can survive this.

So folks looks like I'm stuck here until further notice with Smaug.
Good thing I'm an excellent Burglar or I could be in some serious trouble.