Do you like your job?

[Propofol482]

Hi my name is Chris, i'm new to SDN. I've been a CPhT for almost 3 years now, i've worked 2 years in retail and almost 1 in hospital. To be honest I hate being a tech, mainly because I didn't take that test and pass it to be thrown in a drive-thru or at a cash registar for 8 hours. The hospital was a bad experience all together. I want to go to medical school, but I am seriously considering applying to pharmacy school next year, because you still get to help people in a way and also get to have a life beside work.

Do you guy's(pharmacist) like your job or do you wish you would've went into something else? I know there's other options like being a drug-rep or do research, but I do want to make a nice living and retail is where the $ is. That aside, I just would like to see if most of you are happy with the career you chose. I just don't want to dred going to work everyday like I did while being a tech. Any advice will be appreciated.

Thanks

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[jj99]

You might dread the work in retail, but you'll love that paycheck. Grab an MBA or something while you're at it so that you can jettison into something related when the burnout hits.

 

[drx604]

i have been working for 3 1/2 years now in the retail sector... currently a pharmacy manager

working with customers... especially some of the 'needy' ones can get irritating.... answering drug info questions is fun b/c it really shows the clients that pharmacists are knowledgeable sources of info... not just pill counters..

i guess, for my situation, ... i only do like max: 150 Rx a day (two pharmacists/two techs) so i find my job to be low stress...

compensation is good.... considering i do half the script cound of most other stores in my company and still get paid the same.... bonus is a dift story tho...

right now tho.... i'm looking into getting my pharmD (i only have my BSc (pharm) ).... i feel that i could do the 'retail' thing later... and maybe i should work in a more clinical setting (ie. hospital) right now to challenge myself more... we'll see......

so far... i'd say im at a 9/10 in terms of job satisfaction

 

[GravyRPH]

Originally posted by drx604

i guess, for my situation, ... i only do like max: 150 Rx a day (two pharmacists/two techs) so i find my job to be low stress...

150/day with 2 pharmacists and 2 techs!! Wow!! What company is that?! And remind me not to buy their stock. Heh.

 

[AngryRPh]

I think you would be hard pressed to find many retail RPh's that enjoy their job unless they are in a low volume store. Hospital RPh's seem to be somewhat happier...especially the clinical guys. I don't know anyone that works in mail order, so I don't know what it's like or if most of the people are happy. nuclear is another animal. Either you love it or you hate it. Everyone I work with in nuke left retail because they knew it was just a matter of time before they choked someone to death.

 

[jayski2030]

What's nuclear pharmacy?

 

[Propofol482]

Wow! when I was working for Walgreens we were filling 800+ scripts a day. I think that's why I hated retail, along with the irate customer's. 150 scipt's would have been a vacation at work. At the hospital they were cutting back on inventory, and then on weekend's the few of us that were there had to deal with angry nurses and doctors because we were out of everything. I think the drug rep side of things would be cool, but I don't know too much about what they do. I think i'm leaning towards being a doc. I know I will respest the pharmacist's a lot more than most when I become one, because i've had a first hand look at the HE double hockey stick that you guy's go through. lol Thanks for your input and keep it coming, maybe somethin will come up to change my mind.

 

[GravyRPH]

Originally posted by Propofol482
At the hospital they were cutting back on inventory, and then on weekend's the few of us that were there had to deal with angry nurses and doctors because we were out of everything. I think the drug rep side of things would be cool, but I don't know too much about what they do. I think i'm leaning towards being a doc. I know I will respest the pharmacist's a lot more than most when I become one, because i've had a first hand look at the HE double hockey stick that you guy's go through. lol Thanks for your input and keep it coming, maybe somethin will come up to change my mind.

Eeek. It sounds like that was a poorly run hospital. I mean, the idea was right and all, but you should really know what you're doing before you start cutting inventory. You should never actually run out of something, and if you do, you should have alternate ways of getting it.
It sounds like you've seen a lot of backwards experiences. You have to remember with pharmacy, if you don't like one job there's 500 more openings waiting for you. And they are all unique, different places and specialties and businesses and ownerships and etc. etc. Its amazing all you can do with a PharmD. Heck, you can even join the FBI, which I even considered a bit, but I'm sure it's not as exciting as it sounds. That idiot who was diluting chemos was partly apprehended by a pharmacist agent.

 

[LVPharm]

Originally posted by jayski2030
What's nuclear pharmacy?

http://www.pfizercareerguide.com/pdfs/pharmacy.pdf

page 84 (Chapter 15)

 

[drx604]

Originally posted by GravyRPH
150/day with 2 pharmacists and 2 techs!! Wow!! What company is that?! And remind me not to buy their stock. Heh.

haha.... im a pharmacy manager for a wal-mart... and their stock isn't that bad!!

i was considering moving to the states too... but after reading horror stories on the net of people doing 700 Rx a day.... maybe living/working in Canada isn't half as bad...

for those ppl doing 700-800 scripts a day... how much staff do you have?? and what sort of wait time do you have?

 

[Propofol482]

At the Walgreens I worked at we had 3 Pharmacists on duty, and usually 4 techs. We had a lot of help in there, but then you have to consider, the drive-thru takes up a tech. plus the front register. Then we had a tech in the in-window, and one filling. Wait times varied, if someone was waiting in the store we usually gave them a 20 minute wait, and in the drive-thru it was always an hour. There were times when the wait was 2 to 3 hours, because of the volume of prescriptions coming in. I felt like this while in the drive-thru