Folk Wisdom and Pharmacy

[VeteranLocum]

I know that I have the reputation of being something of a Cassandra but cast your mind back to the days when you were a student or newly qualified. People you met perhaps asked what you did. And you told them. I can remember two stock replies: 1) "Ooh! You're going to be a Chemist. Chemist's shops are little gold mines" 2) (more usual from close relatives or intimates): "You get qualified as a Pharmacist and get a job managing. They get treated like little tin gods." And they were right on both counts because:

1 Consider the history of the typical Klondike gold mine. The vast majority produced no profit at all and the miners were left sitting on a pile of dirt next to a large hole in the ground. The people who made the profit were those who sold them the picks and shovels (read shop fitters, bankers, accountants, etc, etc).

2 Consider the life cycle of the little tin god. Made from raw materials with a great deal of sweat and then left in a corner, getting the occasional dust off and scant obeisance. Finally urinated on copiously by the ground troops of invading armies (read accountants, area managers, merchandisers , etc, etc, when the business is sold to a CCA Multiple)

There is much to be said for Folk Wisdom.

[Lia]

Hello,

I haven't been here long enough to know if you deserve the Cassandra nick-name, but what a little gem of thinking this is. Well done! I hope you do keep your thoughts on paper, too. Many of us here do have the talent of writing. While agreeing with you-this is a very good point- I also hope that you don't forget to count your blessings. Really, we are blessed to be able to do the work we do.

Lia

[VeteranLocum]

Hello,

I haven't been here long enough to know if you deserve the Cassandra nick-name, but what a little gem of thinking this is. Well done! I hope you do keep your thoughts on paper, too. Many of us here do have the talent of writing. While agreeing with you-this is a very good point- I also hope that you don't forget to count your blessings. Really, we are blessed to be able to do the work we do.

Lia

True and I do. Pharmacy has kept me where I want to be for forty years and I doubt I could have tolerated some of the professions that I look at wistfully (e.g. Law, Psychiatry) for very long.

[cartrefeira]

The only thing you missed out is the bit about Welsh gold mines.

Which had the turnover of a corner shop but a large board of directors of the great and the good in London and were usually simply a vehicle for stock market manipulation and speculation.

[honest]

When I told people I was training to be a pharmacist, I was often told that "well we'll always need them".

Am searching for my school careers advisor at the moment!

[Krystal]

When I told people I was training to be a pharmacist, I was often told that "well we'll always need them".

Am searching for my school careers advisor at the moment!

I am in consultatons with an independent financial advisor at the moment. When he found out what I do for a job he said ' Well you'll always have work'

I just wish I was as confident...........

[VeteranLocum]

When I told people I was training to be a pharmacist, I was often told that "well we'll always need them".

Am searching for my school careers advisor at the moment!

I am in consultatons with an independent financial advisor at the moment. When he found out what I do for a job he said ' Well you'll always have work'

I just wish I was as confident...........

And I think you probably can be, Krystal. I will attempt to salvage my reputation by referring to The Daily Telegraph 09/02/2010,
page 12 column 8 where there is a brief paragraoh entitled "Lack of Pharmacists risks patient safety" referring to the fact that 1/4 of junior pharmacy posts in hospitals are unfilled. 'Twer ever thus iirc but good to see it acknowledged in the establishment press.
There will always be something for us to do, imho. The question will be whether we can live as we would like to become accustomed on the income from it.

[cartrefeira]

When I told people I was training to be a pharmacist, I was often told that "well we'll always need them".

Am searching for my school careers advisor at the moment!

They used to say that about candle makers, because it was always going to be dark at night.

Then along came Swan and Edison, they said 'Let there be light'.

[johnep]

And horse shoe nail suppliers because 'you cannot move without a horse'.
When my wife and I were courting and a bit broke, we would take the 25 bus into London. it passed by the Prudential building in London and you could see 100s of girls operating comptometers. In later years, they had all gone.
johnep

[honest]

girls operating comptometers.
johnep

What are they? Sounds fascinating.

[Miall James]

And horse shoe nail suppliers because 'you cannot move without a horse'.
When my wife and I were courting and a bit broke, we would take the 25 bus into London. it passed by the Prudential building in London and you could see 100s of girls operating comptometers. In later years, they had all gone.
johnep

Prior to computers very much the same applied at the Pricing Authority's building in Newcastle. Pricing was done by hundreds of girls about 16-20, with just a few older ones as team leaders.

Should have mentioned, hence editing, that it was quite a popular trip for the male students from Sunderland! I think the girls quite liked it, too!


Miall

[johnep]

A comptometer was a mechanical calculating device normally costing 100s of pounds way back in the 50s. Marketed mainly by Burroughs and IBM. My brother sold small ones for Olivetti. Got £8 per week plus £2 bonus. His main problem was that his customers wanted pounds, shillings and pence whereas the machines he sold were decimal.

When I started at BTC in 1950, their till was a drawer with a paper pad. The introduction of NCR electric mechanical tills caused great excitement, particularly when we were told they cost £750 each.Prior to this the till pads had to go to Nottingham where 100s of girls used comptometers to add them up. The co-op did the same with the 'divi' slips, our divi nbr was 187071.

Comptometers were very noisy and our costing dept issued ear muffs. When calculators came in
and replaced most of the girls, they had to retrain as pool typists.
johnep

[El-Loco]

We were given training in school on using comptometers. They were mechanical calculators the size of a large typewriter but slow (depending on how quickly you cranked the handle) and awkward by today's standards. Any of you would have been able to use them perfectly after half an hour's training.

[cailleach]

When my husband started out in computing the computers with the equivalent capacity to an Iphone took up several airconditioned rooms. Any blips in the electricity supply sent him rushing out in case of computer crashes with the possibility that ships might bump into each other or stray off course. He was also involved in the first stock exchange online systems which were very labile too.
He worked for DEC which had the most advanced computers used in defence etc at the time but their great mistake was for the founder Ken Olsen (I think) who said that PCs would never catch on.

Catherine

[cartrefeira]

We were given training in school on using comptometers. They were mechanical calculators the size of a large typewriter but slow (depending on how quickly you cranked the handle) and awkward by today's standards. Any of you would have been able to use them perfectly after half an hour's training.

I think you have in mind Brunsviga-type mechanical calculators, one of which sits on a shelf behind me as I type. With these, one sets the numbers on a series of drums and then rotates the handle the necessary number of times (i.s. to multiply 23 by 47 you set 47 on he drums and then rotate them three times at the unit setting, shift the drums to the tens position and rotate twice. The Curta pocket machine works in a similar way.

With a comptometer, you have the digits o to 9 on a vertical row of buttons, with perhaps tens rows alongside. To multiply 47 by 23 you hold down the 7 key in the right hand row wnd simultaneously hold down 4 in the next row, then press both together 23 times (I think a shifting carriage lets you do the 3 and then the 2 but it's 48 years since I used one and don't have one in my collection).

Much more elegant are Napier's bones which I will leave to Google and Wikipedia for those who are interested.

Bob Gartside