The course is booked and the pharmacist has a place. Now look at Tuesday's roster. Who handles their shift while they are learning, who supervises their first appointments, and which hours will the senior pharmacist lose to questions after the course ends?

Lunch is rostered for 1:00 pm. At 1:00 pm, a patient needs counselling. At 1:10 pm, there are prescriptions waiting to be checked. At 1:25 pm, a colleague calls in sick. By 2:00 pm, the roster still shows a perfectly ordinary lunch break, though nobody has asked when the pharmacist actually took it.

The packs are ready to seal, and then the checking queue stops moving. A patient needs advice, a prescription needs clarification, and the pharmacist you counted on for checking is pulled back to the dispensary. By closing time, the packing run that looked manageable on the roster has spilled into tomorrow.

Running payroll for an Australian pharmacy is not simply a matter of multiplying hours worked by an hourly rate.

A community pharmacy may employ pharmacists, pharmacy interns, pharmacy assistants, students, casual employees and part-time employees. It may trade early mornings, evenings, Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. Employees may stay later than rostered, cover shifts at another pharmacy or move between different duties.

Every fall, the animals I care for get a little theatrical. This collection is my way of dressing up the Texas critters I know best, from opossums and raccoons to coyotes, roadrunners, and a very dapper caracara.