Contrary to what one might think, Percy didn't hate working as a pharmacy tech.

She merely hated corporate metrics, trouble customers, doctors sending in invalid scripts, argumentative customers, corporate adding new impossible metrics, customers who insisted they were right despite all evidence to the contrary, corporate cutting hours and a number of other things. Did she mention metrics and half the customer base?

But despite a few trifling parts of the job, Percy didn't hate it. Most importantly, she loved her team. Her coworkers Latrisha and Pam, her pharmacists Kerry and Samara; the five of them had been more than coworkers, they had become friends, family even. Other techs had come and gone, but their core group had weathered the turbulent waves of corporate demands and customer service together for years. Her team was the only reason Percy had stuck it out for the eight years she had.

But nothing is forever, and Percy's makeshift family was no exception.

Latrisha was the first to go, unwilling to turn down another job with a substatial pay raise and less corporate bullshit.

The covid pandemic hit her pharmacy like a truck populating an isekai story. A staff of four couldn't run a pharmacy during a normal week, let alone during the pandemic with an increased workload and new services. When Percy and Pam came down with covid from exposure via customer social hour at the pharmacy, Samara and Holly were left on their own to run the pharmacy; three weeks of alternating fourteen hour shifts, one person attempting to do the work that really should be split at bare minimum four ways. When the next year's raise came around Holly was told she was worth three more cents an hour, but "thanks for going above and beyond and being such a great inspiration!" So that was Holly gone, much happier with her new, lower stress job, even if it came with a three cent pay cut.

After the pandemic debacle, Pam decided that with a mind bogling and unacknowledged fifty five years of dedication to the company behind her that she was retiring.

Then the final shoe dropped and Samara was gone, moved to another state after her husband received a promotion.

Overnight Percy, the baby of the gang, was the only staffmember that knew where everything was, the highest authority in all but name and system access. She was the team leader, the problem solver, the one who had to step in and deal with the increasingly common angry customers. The staffing was a mess, a constant stream of new hires that quit after a month or so when they realized the job was far more than "dumping some pills in a jar and slapping a label on it". And the pharmacists?

Hah. The revolving roster of floaters were a problem in and of themselves. No drive, no care for the way they left the pharmacy after their shift (90% of the time worse off). Or alternatively they had no idea how to solve problems that cropped up every day; indeed, Percy wondered if these people had ever received any training. If Percy couldnt solve the problem, the floater would just leave it for tomorrow.

"Tomorrow" and "the next pharmacist" became the solution to every issue, to every floater's shift as the store sunk ever further into the red.

No matter how hard she worked Percy couldn't run the pharmacy on her own. She shouldn't have to. She knew that, but she still cared; Still held vestigal pride in what had once been the best store, still cherished the place that had been the center of her world for years. She didn't want to admit it was over, was scared to admit it was over and she was left with nothing. She too chased the elusive tomorrow that was better than today.

The trouble with tomorrow is that tomorrow never comes.

After months of working extra shifts always racing for deadlines, trying to put out fires, trying to justify to corporate why the store wasn't picking up even with several (new) techs (that would likely quit soon), tired of breaking down into tears after work from the stress, from frustration and anger, from caring, Percy was defeated.

She had used to care, but anymore...

Tired. Percy was tired.

Lucky for Percy, that was when she received notice that she was sole beneficiary of her late aunt's will.