02/10/2026
He could recognize his own handwriting from across the room.
Not because it was neat—it wasn’t—but because it was familiar. Slight slant to the right. The way the “g” dipped low. The way he always wrote the patient’s name a little larger than everything else.
Before printers, before barcodes, before anyone talked about “workflow,” every label was written by hand. One bottle at a time. One person at a time. You didn’t rush it, because mistakes weren’t an option.
He learned early that handwriting carried responsibility. If someone couldn’t read it, they couldn’t take their medicine safely. So he slowed down. Always slowed down.
Over the years, his handwriting changed. The letters got tighter. The pressure lighter. But the care stayed the same. Some customers noticed. A few even joked they could tell how busy the day had been just by looking at the label.
There were names he wrote thousands of times. Names that meant more than accounts or numbers ever could. When a refill came through without a face attached to it, he still pictured the person it belonged to.
When computers arrived, the labels got cleaner. Faster. Impersonal. But he kept the old pads in a drawer behind the counter. Not out of nostalgia—out of habit. Out of respect.
Every now and then, when the printer jammed or the system went down, he’d pull one out. The motion came back instantly. Muscle memory. Purpose.
People trusted his handwriting long before they trusted the system.
And in a profession built on precision, that kind of trust was earned—one label at a time.
