Vaccination chit-chat.

So, when I got my COVID booster last month -- I had to wait 2-3 months after my COVID infection -- I went to a local chain pharmacy, since that's what my GP recommended as an option when I messaged them online to set up an appointment for the booster.

And, it was surprisingly convenient to schedule online, and there was a (younger) (black) woman who did intake for me and then there were two (younger) (lightly hijabbed) (kind of light-to-slightly-middle-toned brown-skinned) women also working there, one of whom who was the person who went and actually gave me the COVID booster, not to mention the flu vaccine, too, since I had also requested that.

And so, since I had been reading about a shortage of pharm techs -- low wages, no mobility -- as well as the effects of that in the area -- closure of many pharmacies on weekends, or consolidation of locations -- I made sure to ask her how stuff was, and if that was all really still going on.

"I say," one of the (lightly hihabbed) women was like, "that this is the greatest job in the world, but, I need more people to join me."

. . .

(Yes, it really was still going on, the staff shortage, though it seemed to have stabilized a bit, she said.)

. . .

(I'm still kind of in shock how eldercare fell apart after I put in 4-5 years there and established myself where I could begin to move around in the sector...  I had gone there because the pay wasn't the best, but it was better than normal, and there was good mobility and growing demand, and the job agreed with me if you were at a good place, and it seemed resistant to getting hacked up by the internet. But, wage compression did a number that is only starting to get paid attention to like with the California differential minimum wage for healthcare jobs, and then temp staffing was able to even invade there, too, destabilizing entire workplaces to the point where everything starts to smell like lawsuits, even if you're in a different facet of the organization from where that sh*t goes down. I mean, why would you want to deal with stuff like that, if you can get another job without all that that pays similar, like at a restaurant?)