I was an intern at Fred Meyer (Olympia area) for almost 3 years. They started at 14/hr in the Seattle area for 1st years, and went up $1 each year you stayed on. or, they could hire you at $14+ your years of school completed if you had other experience that justifed it and your manager set it up that way. Rumor has it that OR is a little higher in general, but I'm not sure if that carries over to Fred Meyer. Fred Meyer does a good job of providing adequate staff. In that geographic area I'd recommend Fred Meyer or Safeway based on the experience of myself and people I know well. Shopko seems well liked up here, also. I'm not sure about the Vancouver/Portland specific chains. I would not recommend Rite Aid or Walgreens from a staffing standpoint. Albertsons (if you have them) is getting a reputation as one of the more stressful stores to work in, so I wouldn't recommend them either. They screwed with benefits big time after being bought by Sav-On. But, even those who came on after that seem to run like hell once they get out of their contract period. Costco pharmacists in this area generally complain about sheer Rx volume, but some stay because the hours are cushy and the wages are ok. I wouldn't assume they pay interns well - they were in my pharmacy once trying to hire our technicians off of us and offering about $4/hr lower than our starting wage. Bi-mart I know nothing about working for. I can't think of who else you might have down there but if you throw out some names I can give you an idea of the general company reputations and any particular reasons I have heard for people's likes and dislikes.
Fred Meyer/Kroger is supposedly about to launch Connexus, which is a really easy computer system to work with.
Is Leon the DM down there?
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