I’ve been working in a pharmacy for a little less than a year. I’m technically still a pharmacy technician in training since I’m not certified, but I am effectively a full tech. This is my first job. In a retail pharmacy. Boy, do I regret that decision now!
When I was hired, we had about eight people on staff as full-time techs. The workload was high but manageable. But over the course of the last few months, everything has changed. Everyone at our store is chronically underpaid — even as a newbie, I got paid the same as my coworkers who had been there for five years. Raises here are notoriously hard to get and even harder to fight for, so people started leaving.
We got new hires to replace the people that left, but some of them left, as did more of the original employees.
We’re now down to three part-time techs and two full-time ones. I’m one of the part-timers, and I’m alone on the weekends: one pharmacist, one tech. All of the other pharmacies in the area have started to close on the weekends. I just can’t fathom how nothing is being done! I’m seriously about to quit my job. If my manager weren’t the literal nicest guy I’ve ever met, I would have been out of there months ago. Instead, I get to watch the rollercoaster we’re on take a nose dive and keep plowing through straight into the fifth circle of Hell.
Now, if you’d told me the position the pharmacy would end up in a few months ago, I would have dipped so fast I would have clipped through the door. But now, having actually experienced it, I’m kind of glad I stayed.
I have an innate love for watching poorly-managed, abusive workplaces burn to the ground. Working for [Pharmacy], I not only get front-row seats, but I am also in the splash zone. One pharmacist walked out mid-shift, and now the other pharmacists have all followed him. Every. Single. One. Where we once had about seven pharmacists working here, including two guys totally new to the field, we now have a grand total of zilch. Every shift is covered by either a float or our regional manager himself. Every time I clock in, I spin a mental roulette wheel, wondering who we’ll get that day — if anyone at all.
As you can imagine, this has affected our productivity a little. Just a tad. In September, we were 800 prescriptions in the hole. It’s now December, and as of my last shift, that has literally doubled. And that’s just the fill queue. We don’t talk about data entry or declined prescriptions. God help you if you look at the data review.
We’re so backed up at this point that we’ve had to resort to only filling prescriptions for people who come in looking for stuff that was supposed to be done two weeks ago. As you can guess, this is like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound. I imagine we’re going to run into the problem eventually that we can’t help everyone who comes inside. We’re already basically leaving the phones completely unanswered — with the exception of transfers to other pharmacies and doctors calling… which usually results in a new script that doesn’t get filled — and the drive-thru hasn’t been open in months.
But I promise, there is good news! Every good death has some kind of payout. And boy, is this one paying out.
After tearing out what is left of his hair, my regional manager decides to say, “To h*** with it,” and just duke it out with corporate. And, to everyone’s shock and awe, he wins. I guess they realized that if the board of pharmacy saw us in the state we’re in, we’d be forced to shut down.
Everyone at my store has been making a baseline of about sixteen dollars an hour, including me. That number has changed a bit. Non-certified techs in training are being bumped up to nineteen dollars an hour. Certified techs are going to twenty-seven. If I decided to take the test and pass, I’d be getting a solid eleven-dollar raise. Not terrible!
But, I guess I can’t say I’m all that surprised. I know at least 95% of this is retention. We have the same problem we’ve had for months; if we hire a new person, they’ll be out within a month. My proof? Three of the people who were hired in September have already quit or are quitting soon. One of the girls we hired decided she was done after Thanksgiving. The new guy we have has been here four weeks and is already interviewing elsewhere. And I’m not even mad. I can’t be, because I’m actively encouraging them to get out while they still can.
Sure, I’m the only person working Saturdays now. Sure, the manager I adored has finally had enough and left. And sure, this is probably the worst possible job I could have started with.
But oh, my God, I am having the time of my life. I can’t move jobs anyway, with my schedule being so insane. So, you know what? I’m going to enjoy every single bit of this. I’ll get out eventually. Right now, though, I’m gonna eventually be getting paid twenty-seven dollars an hour to see just how deep this downward spiral of a rabbit hole goes. And to me, that’s enough for now.
