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Well it looks like I'll be saved the hassle of fabricating torchlit bushwalks and rafting adventures that never were.

I think I'll keep mum about the details.

The point is, I'm home.

Shouted conversation between girl #1 and Mirjana this morning:

girl #1: Last Thursday the pharmacist here gave me these eyedrops (Visine for Red Eyes) for my sore eyes, but these aren't actually for sore eyes. They're for red eyes and mine weren't red at all.
Mirjana: I'm afraid you'll have to come back on Thursday and speak to Jim about that.
girl #1: Can't you help me with it?
Mirjana: Unfortunately not, because I wasn't here when he gave it out so it's best that you come back to speak with Jim. [1]
girl #1: Is that how you run things here?
Mirjana: says something along the lines of [1]
girl #1: So you're saying it's my fault?
Mirjana: No I'm not saying that at all. says something along the lines of [1]
girl #1: So what, you can't make any decisions, is that right?
Mirjana: says something along the lines of [1]
girl #1: I don't want to come back on Thursday! snake shoots out of girl's mouth and bites everyone in the eyeballs

I stood on the side debating silently whether I should intervene and suggest that we give the girl something for her sore eyes in the meantime, but decided against it.

Then it got me thinking - how would I run a pharmacy? Jim, John, Mirjana and Harsha are constantly at loggerheads with each other over orders and layout and whatnot. I admit my retail management knowledge is laughably limited, but from what I've picked up at work during the last six months I have some ideas I might want to implement when and if I own my very own little pharmacy.

Depending on demographics, multilingual pharmacy assistants will be preferred, although it's essential that they are fluent in English. I'm okay with accents, as long as it doesn't impact their coherence. I won't be picky about whether or not they're pharmacy students, because as the pharmacist, dispensing and paperwork are my responsibilities and nobody else's. That being said it could be true that pharmacy students are more dedicated because they have more incentive. Anyway, neither will I be picky about gender. A little workplace flirting could make things interesting.

I won't stock the following items:

- Shoe-laces
- Miniature key for easy removal of earrings
- Pansy bath items from Innoxa that pretend to be sophisticated gift sets. I've never seen anyone buy them
- Shoe-shine
- Cheap-looking, badly coloured plastic travel cases for soaps, toothbrushes, etc. I'm sure I can find better quality equivalents
- Ombrello hair accessories
- Lingerie of bad taste. See Greenwood

I will, however, follow Greenwood's footsteps in keeping:

- L'Occitane
- Jurlique
- L'Oreal
- Covergirl
- Natio
- Maxfactor
- Propoline by Apivita (though this is just for the novelty factor)

And perhaps add:

- Napoleon
- Bloom
- Clinique
- I wish I could add MAC but I don't think they do pharmacies

I'll make sure that there is a storage room large enough for all excess stock. I won't have any spares sitting on the top- or bottom-most shelf cluttering up the place. If storage size is insufficient, I'd either cut down size of shopfront or reduce number of lines. In terms of layout, the one thing I must have is products lined neatly along the shelves - no turning boxes on their side to conserve space, no displaying different products in front of or behind each other, no items on the floor or the edges of gondolas where they shouldn't be.

Like Greenwood, registers will be spacious and have those gutter slot things for candy and gum and pocket tissue and whatever other impulse-buys people impulsively buy. However, the countertop will remain free from all objects other than monitor, keyboard, EFTPOS machine and printer. I'll also glue the sign-pad on so it doesn't shift all over the place.

There will be a single notebook in which people will write down details such as customers and staff owing payment, contact numbers to call when special orders come in, etc. There will also be a lost-and-found box for credit cards, keys, repeat forms and others. At the moment we're sticking all of these along the wall in the form of hundreds of bits of paper for the world to see. It's disgraceful. A notice-board might be cute, but definitely only in private view of staff in the dispensary or storage room. And this isn't even a notice-board! I should make that suggestion next time I'm at work.

I'm still undecided about the floor. Tiles give a toilet-esque look I'd rather avoid and carpets dirty too easily. So I'm thinking timber. I bet nobody has timber floors in their pharmacy. I also bet it's hella expensive.

Let's move to the dispensary. First of all I'd like it to be in the vicinity of the cash registers. This would save us from the hassle of calling people back because they've received their medications from the former and walked out without pausing to pay at the latter. I'm quite happy with the maximum-surface-area shelves we've got going at the moment, although more space would definitely be welcome.

Assuming that I'm successful in hiring workers who are computer-literate, all contact details of staff, reps, delivery, orders, etc will be stored electronically. A printed copy will probably be available in case of erm, blackout. There won't be, however, any Harsha-ish cluttering of business cards and scrap bits of paper with random phone number scrawled and crossed out and scrawled again.

One shelf will be dedicated to handbooks, manuals, TI (if I fancy keeping the volumes at work) and other paperwork such as credit books, profitunities books, planograms, invoice records, etc.

Storage, not cardboard, boxes will be used for old scripts and receipts.

A large filing cabinet will be needed for statements and invoices. Somebody (possibly me) will be in charge of ensuring that all papers are filed under the correct alphabet (i.e. DHL deliveries does not, under any circumstances, go under C. I don't care if the D folder is glued shut. Pry it open).

LOTS will be the dispensing program.

The following kitchen utilities will be available to staff:

- Refrigerator separate from the medical refrigerator (which by the way will accomodate medications arranged neatly in alphabetical order)
- Freezer
- Microwave
- Kettle
- Jaffle-maker
- Coffee machine
- Toaster
- Blender's going a bit far, no? Okay, scrap blender
- Chopping board

There will most definitely be a uniform. Only the pharmacist, i.e. me, is allowed white blouses. Therefore under no circumstances are any of you allowed to wear white. However, if I wanted to dress in a colour other than white, I may do so but I will advise you beforehand in case the colour of my choice coincides with your uniform, in which case you'll wear a different colour. Capice?

I'm thinking a nice, Tiffany blue paired with grey bottoms. Preferably high-waisted pencil skirts. Black pointed flats, black stockings. It's been a long battle, but I've finally accepted the fact that nobody working in a pharmacy can wear heels on a long-term basis. Boys will wear pretty much the same stuff - blue shirt, grey pinstriped pants (see Jez's sexy grey work pants) because solid grey is too school-uniform, black shoes. If you dare turn up in black sneakers, I'll acetylcholinesterase your coffee.

Everyone will wear name-badges. Not the blank-card-with-plastic-clip-ons. Proper, metal, engraved-and-inked badges. If your name is ugly I'll give you a new one.

That's all for now!

P.S. Jez obviously wrote the last entry. And for the record, he tried to video me while I was blindfolded but his phone was low on batteries. He told me this later. Sheepishly.