Quitting Retail!

[1800callsaul]

Four months of retail as a new grad I've decided it's just not for me. I don't like the stress and out-of-control work environment. I don't have any student loans so the money is nice but the stress will put me in an early grave.

I've found a unicorn job that starts the beginning of the year. As soon as I get my license number for the new state in which I'm getting licensed, I'm putting in my letter of resignation.

I'm on excellent terms with my DM and partner. I will not go back to retail but I still don't want to burn any bridges.

Do I quit face to face (my district office is over 2 hours away .... so logistically this sucks)?

Should I quit over the phone?

Do I tell my DM first?

Do I tell my partner first?

Should I even bother telling my partner, or should I just let the DM let her know?

Thanks!

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[N974]

I'm not Sara Palin therefor I'm no expert on quitting. What I would do is ramp it up. A text to your DM and partner saying you need to talk to them (setting the serious tone). Tell them on the phone you will be emailing out your resignation tomorrow. Then do it and don't look back.

Congrats!!!

 

[Momus]

Call and Email will be sufficient. #1 they don't care about you. Staff Rph is a commodity.

 

[StellargalS]

Congratulations!

 

[Jell0]

Congrats!!! We're in the exact same boat except I'm still looking for my unicorn job =( my personal deadline is also early 2014... I'll be leaving the company whether or not I find something else. If I were you I'd call the DM early in the morning when he's not tied up w/ other things, let him know that although you LOVE retail (yea right...), at this point in your career you'd like to explore other areas of pharmacy before it's too late, then send him a formal resignation letter. After that, curse out every $@#$!@ who pisses you off at the store

Btw... care to share any details on how you landed your unicorn job?

 

[HouTX]

looks like new grads have positions

 

[1800callsaul]

After that, curse out every $@#$!@ who pisses you off at the store

Btw... care to share any details on how you landed your unicorn job?

I think that's what I'm going to look forward to the most. For a brief period, I WONT LET THE CUSTOMERS PUSH ME AROUND!!!

As far as getting the job....I did well on a rotation and I knew some people from the company even before I rotated through (that's how I got a rotation there in the first place). Their operation is expanding and I had a string of too many awful days in retail so I sent an e-mail to my preceptor and the rest is history.

 

[Eht-Ostaf]

what is a unicorn job?

 

[nextyearrx]

So I heard lot of Rphs are quitting retail world for less stressful work environment, so I started retail job 5 months ago and I am thinking of staying at a retail setting for 1 more year!! YEAH that much!

On average, how much other pharmacists work at retail before moving to hospital or other setting???

Any help please

 

[WVUPharm2007]

I went from hospital/clinical to retail and I find it about 1/4 as stressful. A "unicorn" job might not be all its cracked up to be. Be wary, especially in this sort of employment market.

 

[type b pharmD]

I went from hospital/clinical to retail and I find it about 1/4 as stressful. A "unicorn" job might not be all its cracked up to be. Be wary, especially in this sort of employment market.

Retail really can be the best job in pharmacy imho! A good retail job is way more fun than I imagine these unicorns are having in their cubicles in between doing projects and meeting after meeting!

 

[pezdispenser]

So I heard lot of Rphs are quitting retail world for less stressful work environment, so I started retail job 5 months ago and I am thinking of staying at a retail setting for 1 more year!! YEAH that much!

On average, how much other pharmacists work at retail before moving to hospital or other setting???

Any help please

I like it when RPhs can't take retail and quit. Leaves more jobs for those of us who can take it, and keeps the pressure on the employers to pay us top dollar.

I've been in retail for 10 years and have no intentions of moving to hospital (even if they would consider me).

 

[waiter]

will most chains let you stay on as a floater if you leave a FT position for another company?

 

[Lnsean]

will most chains let you stay on as a floater if you leave a FT position for another company?

nah...you might be able to convince them to put u in per diem and they may have needs for it...depends on your district...but my DM got rid of most of the part-timers since there is an abundance of new rphs looking for hours. there is really no need to keep you on the payroll really. It's probably more of a hassle for them to have to remember to schedule you in order to keep you active.

 

[brianuseruser]

I work at a federal prison. We are considered an ambulatory care facility. M-f 7:30-4:00. Big pay cut but it's my unicorn job.

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[ChalupaBatman86]

I work at a federal prison. We are considered an ambulatory care facility. M-f 7:30-4:00. Big pay cut but it's my unicorn job.

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I am just picturing this as a pharmacy school brochure. A smiling man wearing scrubs, handing a bottle of pills to a scary looking prisoner flanked by 2 prison guards, this quote at the bottom..."...it's my unicorn job".

 

[cj98]

I am just picturing this as a pharmacy school brochure. A smiling man wearing scrubs, handing a bottle of pills to a scary looking prisoner flanked by 2 prison guards, this quote at the bottom..."...it's my unicorn job".

Ahahah it's actually not like that!! I am also a prison pharmacist and it's like a mix between hospital/retail. From what I understand, most prisons in CA are using a "complete care" model so I get to be involved in different committees, discuss complicated cases with doctors and have my suggestions be valued

 

[Lnsean]

I work at a federal prison. We are considered an ambulatory care facility. M-f 7:30-4:00. Big pay cut but it's my unicorn job.

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saw some postings a few months ago...you start at GS-11....wtf? That's like 60k?

 

[6GodPharm]

Retail is where the money is at. I don't think I will ever have it in me to take a paycut in my career. Cut hours and spend more time with family later on I can see, but a paycut i'll pass on that.

 

[brianuseruser]

saw some postings a few months ago...you start at GS-11....wtf? That's like 60k?

no I took a chief pharmacist position and they offered me incentives. The job listing was listed as a GS12 with a salary of 76k. HR asked for my previous employer paystub and sent a request to central to get me a more comparative rate with my old job. Took a while, but they offered me a little over 98k as well as a 25% sign on bonus in exchange for a 2 year commitment. (All federal job salaries are pubic information anyways). I declined that since I am in the process of converting to PHS. Still a huge pay cut considering I made over 177k as a pharmacy manager in retail last year (included OT though).

 

[lord999]

no I took a chief pharmacist position and they offered me incentives. The job listing was listed as a GS12 with a salary of 76k. HR asked for my previous employer paystub and sent a request to central to get me a more comparative rate with my old job. Took a while, but they offered me a little over 98k as well as a 25% sign on bonus in exchange for a 2 year commitment. (All federal job salaries are pubic information anyways). I declined that since I am in the process of converting to PHS. Still a huge pay cut considering I made over 177k as a pharmacy manager in retail last year (included OT though).

Wow, even for PHS, the grade standards for a PHS pharmacy chief are only GS-12?! Does that pharmacy actually still hire GS-9 pharmacy grades (abolished in DoD, VA, FDA, and CMS)? If you are going to convert to PHS, make sure they consider you for direct to O-4 grade if you are actually in a chief billet (I don't think O-3 can in statutory). I hope you also know that if you don't intend to make it a career, it's probably a really bad idea to go into the Commissioned Corps due to the working conditions.

 

[beautifulrobot]

Wow, even for PHS, the grade standards for a PHS pharmacy chief are only GS-12?! Does that pharmacy actually still hire GS-9 pharmacy grades (abolished in DoD, VA, FDA, and CMS)? If you are going to convert to PHS, make sure they consider you for direct to O-4 grade if you are actually in a chief billet (I don't think O-3 can in statutory). I hope you also know that if you don't intend to make it a career, it's probably a really bad idea to go into the Commissioned Corps due to the working conditions.

They don't let pharmacists commission directly as an O-4 anymore, since they now cap the T&E for pharmacists at 9 years, and you need 12 years to be eligible for O-4. Currently, only dental and medical officers can be called to active duty as an O-4 or above (if they meet T&E requirements, etc.). For pharmacists, even if one's job is graded at a higher billet (e.g. O-4), they'll still only be able to come in as an O-3. If the chief pharmacist position is a GS-12, it's likely just a one-man shop where you don't supervise other pharmacists, and that's why it's at a lower GS. That will likely translate to an O-4 billet in the PHS world, with a potential to be "upgraded" to an O-5 billet once one becomes a "senior" chief pharmacist (and serving in a higher billet than one's rank is important when it comes time for promotion boards).

 

[lord999]

That really sucks. PHS regularly commissioned O-4 during my (possibly our) age due to the inability to find chiefs and major medical center supervisors (and technical pharmacists for CMS, FDA, and VA when we still used CC). The above the billet rule games are one of the few things that I consider part of the CC's inexcusable business practices toward their workers. It's just the issue of how long someone stays in O-4 considering the O-3 was a training rank than an actual 'responsible' one most of the time. But on the other hand, the O-4 pharmacists took their time getting promoted to O-5 despite holding O-5/O-6 billets for the entirety of their career as there was a shadow penalty applied to those who commissioned higher. Although due to the labor market right now, even PHS and DoD don't seem to have problems filling their rosters, while I remember the pharmacist corps under Pittman to be 60% as an achievement under his tenure. I guess there was a right time to be hired.

 

[brianuseruser]

Yep, the Commissioned Corps is no longer pharmacy's best kept secret (and yeah, things don't seem that much better with DOD - I occasionally help out at an MTF and get to talk to the pharmacists in our sister services, and it definitely doesn't seem like DOD is desperate for pharmacists). PHS actually only accepts applications for pharmacists during a short window (usually a few weeks) each year (and this is true for other disciplines, except again for medical and dental), because the recruitment team gets overwhelmed with applications and can't handle it all (this has always been true, actually, but it has just gotten so much worse over the past few years that they've decided to limit the time frames during which they will even accept applications). They also will only accept applications from pharmacists who commit to applying and accepting jobs with BOP, IHS, ICE, and FDA ORA (i.e. FDA field inspectors) - so if you want to go straight into CMS, NIH, FDA CDER, CDC, etc., tough luck (there are some loop holes, but putting that aside, that's the general idea). They still offer the $30,000 sign-on bonus, but that's because it would take more effort than it's worth to change the policy - but I am sure that eventually the bonus will go away.

I should say, it's not that PHS doesn't need pharmacists, the problem more is that PHS isn't truly able to force pharmacists to go to the places that they need them the most - such as IHS and BOP. Most of the pharmacists that apply try to get jobs in urban IHS locations or with FDA, CMS, or other agencies in desirable locations. Due to the screwy way things are set up, the CC can't simply assign pharmacists to the locations where they are needed most, so they end up having to play all these games with the application process.

There's a lot going on internally that I could talk about, but it's probably best not to air the dirty laundry on an internet forum. I'll just say that ever since the Reagan administration put the last nail in the coffin of the PHS hospital and clinic system, it really seems like things have gone downhill for the CC, and it hasn't ever been able to fully recover from it. I would also argue that our public health infrastructure in the United States has gone downhill with it, and it really is a shame that there isn't more investment in the CC. Heck, most people these days have never heard of PHS or the Commissioned Corps, and don't realize that CDC, NIH, IHS, SAMHSA, Coast Guard Health Services, and more are all part of PHS. We really could do some great things for this country if we just had more control over our own officers and had some more of our own resources again (instead of having to fight and negotiate with HHS leadership as much as we do).

It's very frustrating to me that I was on the presidential nomination list for PHS but was still told after taking this job as a civilian it would be an additional 6-9 months to get commissioned. I first applied during the two week open application window in 2014, so you can see how long the process is taking. I hope I can get commissioned by the end of the year, especially if they do intend to take away the 30k sign on bonus.

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