Do Retail Pharmacists Really Hate Their Jobs Or Just Their Bosses?

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

I truly believe that retail pharmacy corporations can be great places to work with the right support.

If you had a more supportive and caring leader, would that change anything for you?

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[zelman]

I truly believe that retail pharmacy corporations can be great places to work with the right support.

If you had a more supportive and caring leader, would that change anything for you?

It’s not the unsupportive leaders. It’s the lack of in-store staffing and training hours.

 

[3boooda]

Short answer: Both

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

It’s not the unsupportive leaders. It’s the lack of in-store staffing and training hours.

With a supportive leader, you can find solutions to these problems.

Everyone has a budget to meet, but what if resources can be re-allocated?

What if there was a way? What if..

Good leaders have a growth mindset and aren't afraid to push some boundaries.

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

Short answer: Both

Give me the long answer 🙂

 

[WVUPharm2007]

I see my boss more as a corporate robot than a human being. It's not his fault. The **** starts at the top and rolls downhill. He does what the regional manager tells him to do. And that dude does what the area manager tells him to do. And it's set up to be cutthroat that high up the ladder. I can't blame the humans in the system, I blame the system. And the system values shareholders over all else. Literally by law, they have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value.

That said, I really don't hate my job. I don't mind it at all, in fact. It's a great way to make a decent living.

I do admit that the stupid corporate propaganda parts of the job get tiring. Like take PCQ calls. Thankfully, I don't do them due to the nature of my position, but the day shift people have to. But they are starting to send out a metric with health outcomes. "Lives saved," "heart attacks prevented," "stokes prevented." And so forth. It somehow calculates how many theoretical lives we saved by making phone calls all weekend. It's pretty ridiculous.

They actually think we are stupid enough not to realize that they came up with these metrics to guilt us into being more enthusiastic about the phone calls. They do the phone calls because it both sells more prescriptions as well as being something that Aetna/Caremark can offer as a means towards saving money and selling health plans.

Insulting my intelligence is really just needless. Just tell me you want me to make the phone calls because you are trying to maximize value and profit to the shareholders. That's fine. I get it. We all do. I don't need you to justify things to me. You sign my paycheck. If you want me to sit on a stool and make phone calls in between checking scripts, whatever. You're the boss.

Just say that. I don't need my feelings coddled.

If you really want to save money, lay off the propagandists that come up with ways to "frame" new initiatives with employees.

 

[Xenophylia]

Yeah the "RAH RAH" corporate bullsh*t gets old fast. Like WVU said, we're not idiots. We know why they do the things they do regardless of however corporate tries to spin it. Letting us in on the joke might improve morale. By the time I was finished with retail, I loathed management but had really started to hate the entitled, idiotic public as well- mostly for buying into the bull**** like an addict lapping up crack. My opinion of humanity in general couldn't get any lower....

 

[Xenophylia]

Plus the chain I worked for had declared open season on pharmacists- store management was encouraged to tell us how worthless we had become due to the surplus, and that we were basically slaves to them since it would be so difficult to find employment elsewhere (their words, not mine). They hoped by doing this to scare us into putting up with the ever increasing load of bullsh*t they were feeding us by making us think we had no other option than to stay and take it. Handing in my notice was really, really sweet. No one in management would even speak to me during my last 2 weeks....

 

[zelman]

Literally by law, they have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value.

This is a common misconception. If it was true corporations could never sponsor anything or donate to charities.

 

[zelman]

With a supportive leader, you can find solutions to these problems.

Everyone has a budget to meet, but what if resources can be re-allocated?

What if there was a way? What if..

Good leaders have a growth mindset and aren't afraid to push some boundaries.

Bull$hit. Three phone lines are ringing and there are 4 queues of people waiting to be helped. There’s one pharmacist and one technician. Reallocate that.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

We know why they do the things they do regardless of however corporate tries to spin it. Letting us in on the joke might improve morale.

Exactly. This is why everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, to the pharmacist, misses our old pharmacy supervisor. He'd still have us do all the stupid ****, but he'd be honest about it. He'd basically say "hey, corporate is up my ass about this, so you have to do it. Sorry. It is what it is." And you know what? Everyone understood the situation. He made himself likable, so we did whatever needed to be done. Because we knew what other jackasses the region had running the show and we wanted no part of any of them. Why none of the other district managers have figured this out yet I'll never know.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

This is a common misconception. If it was true corporations could never sponsor anything or donate to charities.

They absolutely do have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. Donations and sponsorships are justified by creating good will with the public, thus indirectly creating value.

 

[Xenophylia]

Yeah. That's really it. Telling it like it really is. I'm much more likely to do stupid stuff for a boss if they admit it's bull**** from the getgo.....

 

[zelman]

They absolutely do have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. Donations and sponsorships are justified by creating good will with the public, thus indirectly creating value.

You should probably let the Supreme Court know that.

While it is certainly true that a central objective of for-profit corporations is to make money, modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so. For-profit corporations, with ownership approval, support a wide variety of charitable causes, and it is not at all uncommon for such corporations to further humanitarian and other altruistic objectives. Many examples come readily to mind. So long as its owners agree, a for-profit corporation may take costly pollution-control and energy-conservation measures that go beyond what the law requires.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

You should probably let the Supreme Court know that.

While it is certainly true that a central objective of for-profit corporations is to make money, modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so. For-profit corporations, with ownership approval, support a wide variety of charitable causes, and it is not at all uncommon for such corporations to further humanitarian and other altruistic objectives. Many examples come readily to mind. So long as its owners agree, a for-profit corporation may take costly pollution-control and energy-conservation measures that go beyond what the law requires.

I didn't say profit, I said value.

 

[zelman]

I didn't say profit, I said value.

Appropriate staffing is valuable.

Edit: you didn’t say otherwise. Disregard.

 

[mustang sally]

Depends on the person. I actually had pretty good bosses in retail, just couldn’t stand the job itself.

 

[PharFromNormal]

This is a common misconception. If it was true corporations could never sponsor anything or donate to charities.

I think this is a common misconception. Appearing charitable and/or donating to the right causes can open up additional partnerships and attract more customers. If two mega PBMs are trying to win over some state Medicaid business and price is equivalent, do you not think that donating to a bunch of local/city causes is not a sweetener? Also do you not think that getting in bed with a vocal charitable stakeholder group can help advance policy positions that you are aligned with but not be able to directly come out and support? Do you not think mega donations generate goodwill and are an attempt of positive publicity and marketing for the corporation that helps present them in a favorable light? There’s always an ROI, maybe you just can’t see it or are directly aware of it. They don’t donate anonymously.

 

[Pharmacy is a Scam]

I think this is a common misconception. Appearing charitable and/or donating to the right causes can open up additional partnerships and attract more customers. If two mega PBMs are trying to win over some state Medicaid business and price is equivalent, do you not think that donating to a bunch of local/city causes is not a sweetener? Also do you not think that getting in bed with a vocal charitable stakeholder group can help advance policy positions that you are aligned with but not be able to directly come out and support? Do you not think mega donations generate goodwill and are an attempt of positive publicity and marketing for the corporation that helps present them in a favorable light? There’s always an ROI, maybe you just can’t see it or are directly aware of it. They don’t donate anonymously.

Not to mention lining up a certain amount of donations to hand out each year to maximize your tax breaks. It’s very strategic and is a win-win for corporations if they play the cards right.

 

[Pharmacy is a Scam]

They actually think we are stupid enough not to realize that they came up with these metrics to guilt us into being more enthusiastic about the phone calls.

Insulting my intelligence is really just needless.

Nothing personal, but companies always cater to the current generation of workers so suffice it to say that while old-timers/seasoned pharmacists may see through the propaganda and call BS, I’m not sure there is much intelligence to be insulted as the waves of fresh grads each year get greener and greener (for these new grads, going into pharmacy to begin with is already a low IQ move). With intern position cuts happening across the country, you now have newly minted pharmacists that have zero pharmacy experience going into pharmacy school and zero work experience coming out of pharmacy school, so they wouldn’t know any better.

You might call it Kool Aid, they might call it Purple Drank. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder. Sadly, there aren’t going to be enough seasoned pharmacists sticking around to teach the next generation what Kool Aid is, because corporate is doing what they can to can the old-timers.

 

[ancienbon]

Plus the chain I worked for had declared open season on pharmacists- store management was encouraged to tell us how worthless we had become due to the surplus, and that we were basically slaves to them since it would be so difficult to find employment elsewhere (their words, not mine). They hoped by doing this to scare us into putting up with the ever increasing load of bullsh*t they were feeding us by making us think we had no other option than to stay and take it. Handing in my notice was really, really sweet. No one in management would even speak to me during my last 2 weeks....

What chain?

 

[Sine Cura]

Even under not-terrible conditions, you still have to interface with the public and deal with their rampant stupidity and moral hazard, insurance B.S., prescriber B.S., threat of robberies, can't tell abusive psychopaths to GTFO etc.

 

[PharmtoCS]

You can’t squeeze 5 from 2 and 2.

 

[ProudRPhMom]

I truly believe that retail pharmacy corporations can be great places to work with the right support.

If you had a more supportive and caring leader, would that change anything for you?

I love my job and I DO believe corporations could be a great place to work with the right support. The problem is that those times in which you had a supportive and caring leader are long gone. With all the "cuts" happening across the country, corporations are hiring and/or promoting Leaders who have little to no management experience. Experience and knowledgeable Leaders are left behind, because they are expensive (payroll) and they are no longer needed. Nowadays, highly sophisticated Pharmacy softwares are used to replace the management skills from an experienced Corporate Leader needed years ago. It is somewhat frustrating and demoralizing that our current Leaders are ... or at least come across ... as totally naive and inexperienced.

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

I love my job and I DO believe corporations could be a great place to work with the right support. The problem is that those times in which you had a supportive and caring leader are long gone. With all the "cuts" happening across the country, corporations are hiring and/or promoting Leaders who have little to no management experience. Experience and knowledgeable Leaders are left behind, because they are expensive (payroll) and they are no longer needed. Nowadays, highly sophisticated Pharmacy softwares are used to replace the management skills from an experienced Corporate Leader needed years ago. It is somewhat frustrating and demoralizing that our current Leaders are ... or at least come across ... as totally naive and inexperienced.

It's definitely rare to find caring and supportive leaders in a cut-throat corporate environment. It doesn't sound like a good fit, right?

I always believed that you have to character AND competence to succeed in leadership.

Unfortunately now, the landscape is so hostile that 'corporate competence' really means doing the impossible. Doing more with less, and executing within 30 days.

However, if leaders learned to see the bigger picture and not just individual metrics, they may have a fighting chance to stand up for their teams.

Not all metrics need to be within normal limits at all times. Not all metrics have business relevance to financial outcomes.

And maybe then, their teams will be able to navigate through all the minutiae and daily grind to find purpose in their work.

Then they remember what it means to wear the white coat.

Maybe, they find inspiration to stand back up after being beaten down.

Lots of ifs and maybes. A realist wouldn't bet on these.

There's much work to be done..

 

[owlegrad]

Not all metrics have business relevance to financial outcomes.

Yeah I remember once having a meeting with my DM about the WeCare scorecard. One of our metrics was actually really good (high 80s or low 90s when the rest of the stores in the district were struggling to be above 50s and 60s) but a sub-metric was bad. I pointed out that it was an ungraded sub-metric and his exact response (as I recall it) was "It's directional". I was like...yeah, but the metric itself is solid so I am not going to focus my efforts on fixing a "directional" sub-metric when the metric itself is strong. His attitude was basically "just fix it" and acting like I was the crazy one for not wanting to fix it. I suspect that he was giving the same "direction" to all his stores regardless of if that direction made sense for that store or not. Or maybe he only knew how to focus on problem areas. Who knows.

Never mind that not a single metric on that scorecard was even financial to begin with. What a total waste of time/energy/morale.

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

I see my boss more as a corporate robot than a human being. It's not his fault. The **** starts at the top and rolls downhill. He does what the regional manager tells him to do. And that dude does what the area manager tells him to do. And it's set up to be cutthroat that high up the ladder. I can't blame the humans in the system, I blame the system. And the system values shareholders over all else. Literally by law, they have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value.

That said, I really don't hate my job. I don't mind it at all, in fact. It's a great way to make a decent living.

I do admit that the stupid corporate propaganda parts of the job get tiring. Like take PCQ calls. Thankfully, I don't do them due to the nature of my position, but the day shift people have to. But they are starting to send out a metric with health outcomes. "Lives saved," "heart attacks prevented," "stokes prevented." And so forth. It somehow calculates how many theoretical lives we saved by making phone calls all weekend. It's pretty ridiculous.

They actually think we are stupid enough not to realize that they came up with these metrics to guilt us into being more enthusiastic about the phone calls. They do the phone calls because it both sells more prescriptions as well as being something that Aetna/Caremark can offer as a means towards saving money and selling health plans.

Insulting my intelligence is really just needless. Just tell me you want me to make the phone calls because you are trying to maximize value and profit to the shareholders. That's fine. I get it. We all do. I don't need you to justify things to me. You sign my paycheck. If you want me to sit on a stool and make phone calls in between checking scripts, whatever. You're the boss.

Just say that. I don't need my feelings coddled.

If you really want to save money, lay off the propagandists that come up with ways to "frame" new initiatives with employees.

I love this answer because it shows that you understand reality. You also don't take things personally and let external circumstances paralyze you from fulfilling responsibility to your employer.

You're right that we really are all pawns for a higher agenda. That's the engine that makes money so we can have a purpose.

The reality of PCQ calls is that not all calls are true adherence opportunities. The majority of them are pointless meds like fluticasone or montelukast that really should be inactivated or scheduled once a year until the patient needs them. But that's also why the goal isn't 100%, but 30%.

My team literally tracked all the PCQ opportunities with screenshots and handwritten notes for my store for 1 year. We originally did it to get ammunition to fight back with. If our scores were ever low, we'd be able to say, "Well half of those were stupid meds the patient didn't need."

What we found was that about 1/3 of those medicines were maintenance medicine that the patient needed to be on. Granted, some of those were also false outreach where the patient had extra medicine from vacation or was no longer taking.

The point is that it's up to us to use the system to determine what is important and what isn't. I have 25,000 patients at my pharmacy. How am I supposed to remember every patient or make sure everyone is adherent?

I can't and I don't. I let the system help me ensure that NO ONE is left behind. If I have to call 50 people every week to find the one elderly patient who genuinely forgot why she needs her lisinopril, so be it.

Everything else is all about the dollars like you said. But those dollars also fund my payroll budget. Every cent I make over what the company thinks I will make is spent on extra payroll so I can deliver on all the other long-term priorities i.e. service, healthcare outcomes, breaks for me and my team.

We have to spend money to make money. "No margin, no mission." If more leaders gave their pharmacy managers full autonomy to make these decisions, retail pharmacy culture would change.

When you work for a leader that sees the bigger picture, it's easier to balance the purpose and financials.

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

Yeah the "RAH RAH" corporate bullsh*t gets old fast. Like WVU said, we're not idiots. We know why they do the things they do regardless of however corporate tries to spin it. Letting us in on the joke might improve morale. By the time I was finished with retail, I loathed management but had really started to hate the entitled, idiotic public as well- mostly for buying into the bull**** like an addict lapping up crack. My opinion of humanity in general couldn't get any lower....

This is the downfall of our profession. When you have a team made up of talented, intelligent pharmacists, yet are unable to get their buy-in (whether it's purpose, inclusion, autonomy, or financial).

Too many leaders treat their teams like children, hand-holding and micromanaging.

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

Plus the chain I worked for had declared open season on pharmacists- store management was encouraged to tell us how worthless we had become due to the surplus, and that we were basically slaves to them since it would be so difficult to find employment elsewhere (their words, not mine). They hoped by doing this to scare us into putting up with the ever increasing load of bullsh*t they were feeding us by making us think we had no other option than to stay and take it. Handing in my notice was really, really sweet. No one in management would even speak to me during my last 2 weeks....

Sounds like manipulation tactics to prevent people from leaving. Using fear and authority instead of purpose and investment. May you find your true calling!

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

Bull$hit. Three phone lines are ringing and there are 4 queues of people waiting to be helped. There’s one pharmacist and one technician. Reallocate that.

Add BOP visit and a misfill on top of that. That's reality.

The challenge for a manager: how do you convert that chaos into $$ and smiley faces? Figure out how to do that, then fight for the autonomy to make sound business decisions aka spend $50 to call in an extra tech.

I started doing this when my boss told me to give gift cards to patients that are deemed escalation risks. If I can spend money to protect my profit in this way, what's stopping me from doing that in other ways?

 

[pharmalt82]

When I first started, things were hard.
But, after an year, if your IQ is over 80, you'll know how the game is played.
The biggest thing to remember is to become efficient in doing your core job.
That part was and still is actually fun for me.

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

I think this is a common misconception. Appearing charitable and/or donating to the right causes can open up additional partnerships and attract more customers. If two mega PBMs are trying to win over some state Medicaid business and price is equivalent, do you not think that donating to a bunch of local/city causes is not a sweetener? Also do you not think that getting in bed with a vocal charitable stakeholder group can help advance policy positions that you are aligned with but not be able to directly come out and support? Do you not think mega donations generate goodwill and are an attempt of positive publicity and marketing for the corporation that helps present them in a favorable light? There’s always an ROI, maybe you just can’t see it or are directly aware of it. They don’t donate anonymously.

Getting a return on philanthropy is called strategic positioning lol. Touche

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

Nothing personal, but companies always cater to the current generation of workers so suffice it to say that while old-timers/seasoned pharmacists may see through the propaganda and call BS, I’m not sure there is much intelligence to be insulted as the waves of fresh grads each year get greener and greener (for these new grads, going into pharmacy to begin with is already a low IQ move). With intern position cuts happening across the country, you now have newly minted pharmacists that have zero pharmacy experience going into pharmacy school and zero work experience coming out of pharmacy school, so they wouldn’t know any better.

You might call it Kool Aid, they might call it Purple Drank. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder. Sadly, there aren’t going to be enough seasoned pharmacists sticking around to teach the next generation what Kool Aid is, because corporate is doing what they can to can the old-timers.

Was that a Dave Chappelle reference? 🙂

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

When I first started, things were hard.
But, after an year, if your IQ is over 80, you'll know how the game is played.
The biggest thing to remember is to become efficient in doing your core job.
That part was and still is actually fun for me.

Politics and perception are very real parts of corporate culture. But you're right about having those core skills.

We have to continually re-sharpen and renew ourselves. Having a large mental and physical bandwidth isn't enough anymore.

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

Yeah I remember once having a meeting with my DM about the WeCare scorecard. One of our metrics was actually really good (high 80s or low 90s when the rest of the stores in the district were struggling to be above 50s and 60s) but a sub-metric was bad. I pointed out that it was an ungraded sub-metric and his exact response (as I recall it) was "It's directional". I was like...yeah, but the metric itself is solid so I am not going to focus my efforts on fixing a "directional" sub-metric when the metric itself is strong. His attitude was basically "just fix it" and acting like I was the crazy one for not wanting to fix it. I suspect that he was giving the same "direction" to all his stores regardless of if that direction made sense for that store or not. Or maybe he only knew how to focus on problem areas. Who knows.

Never mind that not a single metric on that scorecard was even financial to begin with. What a total waste of time/energy/morale.

He probably knew that his logic wasn't sound. But maybe he was flexing and holding his ground because you challenged him in front of an entire group.

If he's a pharmacist, he should know that treating a lab value with no clinical relevance isn't good healthcare.

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

Even under not-terrible conditions, you still have to interface with the public and deal with their rampant stupidity and moral hazard, insurance B.S., prescriber B.S., threat of robberies, can't tell abusive psychopaths to GTFO etc.

Retail Pharmacy is a beast of burden. Mainly all people problems. Risk management. Definitely not what pharmacy school prepares you for.

 

[pharmalt82]

Retail Pharmacy is a beast of burden. Mainly all people problems. Risk management. Definitely not what pharmacy school prepares you for.

All school for all professions is like that though. I know doctors who say something similar (except the hardcore non-practicing academic path ones). Doctors in my family complain that they get paid for dealing with patient quirks rather than practicing medicine.

So many pharmacy students entered pharmacy school thinking that a pulse and good GPA automatically means that they can do hospital or retail with ease.

Then, when you ask them to look at a screen and judge whether a given dose of Bactrim is likely to be correct for a 5 year old: they draw a blank.
They also draw a blank when asked for the best way to communicate to a parent that a dose is likely to be too high for a 5 year old unless they weigh a lot more than the average 5 year old.
Can't put a good sentence together.

If you can't understand, execute, and communicate the basic requirements of your job, then what good are you? You're just a useless walking diploma.

Lacking real world skills to do your job makes you hate your job more than the nature of the job itself.

I see this in old-timers and new-timers.

Anyone can lookup **** on Lexi-Comp. Not everyone can interpret, apply, and communicate that info accurately and efficiently though.

 

[firework]

They hate their bosses, their customers and their fellow pharmacists because there are too many of them.

 

[Rxcoffee]

It’s not the unsupportive leaders. It’s the lack of in-store staffing and training hours.

Bosses could support by just sometimes showing the guts to speak up in front of the management - for the need of more staff and training hrs! If only few voiced!
The irony of this profession is - the moment that pharmacist becomes the DM / DL aka boss they start singing to the tunes of management - playing completely oblivious to all the misery they went through at one point. The problems suddenly don’t exit and start holding the same insane conference calls of meeting the nonsensical metrics with less and less staff!

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

They hate their bosses, their customers and their fellow pharmacists because there are too many of them.

Mental Bandwidth is very important in retail pharmacy..

I don't think pharmacists hate each other though..

We all want our profession to grow and for everyone to have a job.

Empathy for the debt-stricken new grad facing retail apocalypse comes very easily for me

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

Bosses could support by just sometimes showing the guts to speak up in front of the management - for the need of more staff and training hrs! If only few voiced!
The irony of this profession is - the moment that pharmacist becomes the DM / DL aka boss they start singing to the tunes of management - playing completely oblivious to all the misery they went through at one point. The problems suddenly don’t exit and start holding the same insane conference calls of meeting the nonsensical metrics with less and less staff!

You're right. More leaders should prime the pump and openly discuss concerns about staffing. Maybe then it would seem like they cared.

All too often, upper management has a fixed mindset around metrics and budgets without looking at the bigger picture.

When they give up on investing in morale, longevity, and work/life balance for their people, they unknowingly create poor performing teams who then need to be micromanaged.

Then the cycle continues.. it's a shame.

In the words of Dani Targaryen, "Let's break the wheel."

Why Pharmacists Hate Their Jobs – The Corporate PharmD

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[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

All school for all professions is like that though. I know doctors who say something similar (except the hardcore non-practicing academic path ones). Doctors in my family complain that they get paid for dealing with patient quirks rather than practicing medicine.

So many pharmacy students entered pharmacy school thinking that a pulse and good GPA automatically means that they can do hospital or retail with ease.

Then, when you ask them to look at a screen and judge whether a given dose of Bactrim is likely to be correct for a 5 year old: they draw a blank.
They also draw a blank when asked for the best way to communicate to a parent that a dose is likely to be too high for a 5 year old unless they weigh a lot more than the average 5 year old.
Can't put a good sentence together.

If you can't understand, execute, and communicate the basic requirements of your job, then what good are you? You're just a useless walking diploma.

Lacking real world skills to do your job makes you hate your job more than the nature of the job itself.

I see this in old-timers and new-timers.

Anyone can lookup **** on Lexi-Comp. Not everyone can interpret, apply, and communicate that info accurately and efficiently though.

This is spot on. Such a persistent theme in pharmacy because the barrier to entry is very low IMO.

So many people pursued pharmacy for the tangibles.

And now that the job conditions worsened, expectations increased, debt has gone up, and pay is going down..

They're finding themselves more unmotivated and unhappy than ever.

But even so, there is a small faction of new generation pharmacists who understand what they're getting into. It's not breaking news anymore.

My hope is that they pursue this career intentionally, strategically, and with full preparation for life after school.

 

[Xenophylia]

Bosses could support by just sometimes showing the guts to speak up in front of the management - for the need of more staff and training hrs! If only few voiced!
The irony of this profession is - the moment that pharmacist becomes the DM / DL aka boss they start singing to the tunes of management - playing completely oblivious to all the misery they went through at one point. The problems suddenly don’t exit and start holding the same insane conference calls of meeting the nonsensical metrics with less and less staff!

Yeah- we always referred to this as the "Jedi Mindf*ck". They would get the "would be" DM, strap 'em down and shine a bright light in their face while playing nonstop retail jingles until their minds completely broke. Result- complete amnesia to all their days in retail. Made them perfect, uncaring automatons just like corporate wanted...

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

Yeah- we always referred to this as the "Jedi Mindf*ck". They would get the "would be" DM, strap 'em down and shine a bright light in their face while playing nonstop retail jingles until their minds completely broke. Result- complete amnesia to all their days in retail. Made them perfect, uncaring automatons just like corporate wanted...

Such a shame. This needs to change.

 

[Xenophylia]

Yeah retail pharmacy was ALWAYS a crappy job, even in the golden days. Working for bosses who are community college flunkies, dealing with the crappy public. But take away the rewards (which they mostly have) and it baffles me why anyone would want to do that job. I want to understand...but I just can't.

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

Yeah retail pharmacy was ALWAYS a crappy job, even in the golden days. Working for bosses who are community college flunkies, dealing with the crappy public. But take away the rewards (which they mostly have) and it baffles me why anyone would want to do that job. I want to understand...but I just can't.

Good leadership (DM and RM) makes a world of difference. Culture, engagement, morale, purpose, work/life balance.

I can see this sounding like a foreign language without the right support and working environment, though.

 

[hye345]

You're right. More leaders should prime the pump and openly discuss concerns about staffing. Maybe then it would seem like they cared.

All too often, upper management has a fixed mindset around metrics and budgets without looking at the bigger picture.

When they give up on investing in morale, longevity, and work/life balance for their people, they unknowingly create poor performing teams who then need to be micromanaged.

Then the cycle continues.. it's a shame.

In the words of Dani Targaryen, "Let's break the wheel."

Why Pharmacists Hate Their Jobs – The Corporate PharmD

You’ll hear the same complaints over and over about why certain pharmacists hate their retail jobs. Patients get on their nerves. Working long hours without lunches. Bosses that never praiseRead More Why Pharmacists Hate Their Jobs

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How Pharmacists Beat Micromanagement – The Corporate PharmD

It's hard working for a micromanager, especially as a new pharmacist. Hundreds of patients to care for. How do you get your nagging boss to back off?

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Too soon bro 😢

But to answer your question, yes, the attitude of management has a huge impact on morale. I respect them more when they are honest about the intentions and realistic about the challenges. My first supervisor was very talented at this: he had standards, and the company line to tout, but even he understood that realistically, it couldn't all be met. Plus, he also got down and dirty in the trenches whenever he visited us. I remember once, he was showing me a P&L statement, and mentioned something about a portion of the profits to be siphoned off to "the mother-ship" (you guys know it as the Red Devil headquarters). Thought it was nice touch.

On the other end of the spectrum: my next gig, same company, but different district: the scheduler was something of a lapdog to the DM, and would often come in to help out in a tech capacity; this being at a time where we were several WEEKS behind. I remember one time, I asked her if she could stop filling, and complete another task. Her reply? "Nope, I'm gonna fill, so that (the DM) will know I helped out" (paraphrase). Literal definition of a corporate lackey

 

[Mr. Corporate Pharmacist]

Too soon bro 😢

But to answer your question, yes, the attitude of management has a huge impact on morale. I respect them more when they are honest about the intentions and realistic about the challenges. My first supervisor was very talented at this: he had standards, and the company line to tout, but even he understood that realistically, it couldn't all be met. Plus, he also got down and dirty in the trenches whenever he visited us. I remember once, he was showing me a P&L statement, and mentioned something about a portion of the profits to be siphoned off to "the mother-ship" (you guys know it as the Red Devil headquarters). Thought it was nice touch.

On the other end of the spectrum: my next gig, same company, but different district: the scheduler was something of a lapdog to the DM, and would often come in to help out in a tech capacity; this being at a time where we were several WEEKS behind. I remember one time, I asked her if she could stop filling, and complete another task. Her reply? "Nope, I'm gonna fill, so that (the DM) will know I helped out" (paraphrase). Literal definition of a corporate lackey

It's nice to hear that good leaders exist! How do we find more like them?

If only there was a way to bridge this communication gap.

I know I appreciate my boss whenever he rolls up his sleeves and starts typing or filling.

He works at the speed of a snail (sometimes, he is like -0.5 technician and we have to take things from him).

 

[owlegrad]

Haha I used to have a colleague who would try to help out and I used to think of her as “-1/2 tech”. Just everything she put her hands on became more work for me or someone else to fix. It’s like...please just stop trying to help LOL

 

[Lexington2012]

What is stupid about PCQ calls is that very few people will answer their phone anymore. We had only about 10% of people answer the call. That's how you know you're calling too much.