For Pharm tech, is Walmart or CVS better?

[lesept2]

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I got a call more than 2 weeks after 1st interview for a second interview on tuesday. At the time I though they were interested and I had called CVS and had a first interview with them last tuesday. Anyhow, if I get a job offer from both, which store should I go work with for part-time?

 

[Pharmacopia]

Look at the amount of workload/volume, wage, and how much help the pharmacy gets b4 you make your decision.

If I were in your shoes, it would be walmart. No drive throughs, decent hours. No immunizations (last I heard). Those are alone enough for me to pick walmart.

 

[dancingallday]

I've never worked at Walmart, but I agree with the above poster: anywhere that does not have a drive-thru is going to eliminate at least some potential stress. I don't know what the difference in pay is, but you can't be paid too much less than I was when I started at CVS (8.30 an hour.)

 

[SavoirFaire]

Let me say that I work as a CPhT at CVS and I do not recommend it! From what I have researched CVS seems to be one of the lowest paying pharmacies for technicians (and I am considering switching). The workload is huge; between handling the drive-thru, filling prescriptions, answering phones, I do not stop moving once I get there.

I would go for Walmart. The no drive-thru part is enough by itself.

 

[phathead]

I refuse to set foot anywhere near a Walmart pharmacy for what they have done to the profession. If the only pharmacist job in town was at a Walmart, I'd go flip burgers at McDonald's instead.

But then again, I have high moral standards 😉

 

[Got Em]

Is this even a question? If the pay is about the same, then DEFINITELY walmart. The only CVS stores that you want to work at are the ones that average less than 150 a day. It's hard to find those stores. I don't know too many techs that are happy working at WAG/CVS.

 

[Pharmacopia]

I refuse to set foot anywhere near a Walmart pharmacy for what they have done to the profession. If the only pharmacist job in town was at a Walmart, I'd go flip burgers at McDonald's instead.

But then again, I have high moral standards 😉

Hard to believe but in the pharmacy world, Walmart is actually pretty decent. Lots of help, good hours, competitive pay, no drive through, no immunizations. Only thing is you have to deal with the trashy customers.

 

[owlegrad]

Hard to believe but in the pharmacy world, Walmart is actually pretty decent. Lots of help, good hours, competitive pay, no drive through, no immunizations. Only thing is you have to deal with the trashy customers.

Some people blame Walmart for turning the profession into a product driven one rather than a service driven one (the $4 list). I think the truth is a quite a bit more complicated than that, but I figured some perspective might help.

Interestingly, many places give away some meds for free (or gift cards), but Walmart is easier to hate I think. Also Walmart gives pharmacists their breaks (the pharmacy closes if need be). There are actually many positives and negatives about the company, just like any other. Walmart is far from the worst.

 

[phathead]

Hard to believe but in the pharmacy world, Walmart is actually pretty decent. Lots of help, good hours, competitive pay, no drive through, no immunizations. Only thing is you have to deal with the trashy customers.

You do realize that Walmart as a whole does not care about pharmacy, but merely uses it as a driving force to keep people in their stores. That was the main reason they first installed a pharmacy 30 years ago or so, and that is the main reason they are there now. When I worked for them for a short while (not in the pharmacy) I had the regional VP, who happened to be a good guy, state that this was the main reason they have pharmacies in their stores. The reason they don't do immunizations is that it goes against the "flow" of their stores.

And then there is the $4 generic list. Do you know how drastically this has changed pharmacy in the few short years it has been around? I know it was a death blow for three different independent pharmacies (who were granted on shaky ground to begin with). There is also an extended effect whereas Walmart essentially justified reduced payments by PBMs, something which is not overtly stated but observations can show a correlation to it.

I'm sorry, but I won't work in a Walmart pharmacy because they don't care about pharmacy.

 

[fluorometholone]

I'm with Phathead- Walmart is a disgrace to the profession. At WAG and CVS, the pharmacy drives the store. Without the pharmacy, there is no store. So yeah, you might make a tiny bit less (what, maybe $1/hr?), and yeah you might be crapped on the way all retail pharmacists are, but at the end of the day, you are needed. At Walmart, you're just another cog in the monster wheel of the store. Your general manager sees you as no different from the dodo restocking produce.
Plus, just think if you ever want to live anywhere other than where you live now, there's almost always gonna be a CVS to move to. Might not always have a Walmart right there.
PS what does everyone know about the Walmart re-education camps in Alabama for pharmacists? Is it true that for every five mistakes they have to get brainwashed for a week, and after two trips to "camp" they get the ax?

 

[tlt2796]

To OP:
Walmart pays pretty well for technician (I got 12.8 with PTCB certification, they didn't ask me but I chose as certified tech). Sometimes you have to deal with impolite customers . Well, my manager told me not to take it personally, forget it and move on. I am happy that Walmart does not have drive-through and immunization. I heard lots of complaints about them. So, as a tech at Walmart, all you do are greeting, inputting info to computer, filling, ringing up (is that all?). Someone just said that CVS paid 8.3 for a tech. Well, I made 8.4 as a clerk at Walmart 😕

 

[R2pharmD2]

To OP:
Walmart pays pretty well for technician (I got 12.8 with PTCB certification, they didn't ask me but I chose as certified tech). Sometimes you have to deal with impolite customers . Well, my manager told me not to take it personally, forget it and move on. I am happy that Walmart does not have drive-through and immunization. I heard lots of complaints about them. So, as a tech at Walmart, all you do are greeting, inputting info to computer, filling, ringing up (is that all?). Someone just said that CVS paid 8.3 for a tech. Well, I made 8.4 as a clerk at Walmart 😕

This.

I freakin hate drive thru.

Customer complaints and impoliteness are a fact of life no matter which pharmacy you work at, and you really can't predict which pharmacy will be better to work at just based on the name of the chain. Chain pharmacies are more or less similar (with some variation based on geographic region, district manager,etc.), but it's the individual stores within them that vary. I say pick the one that gives you better pay and/or benefits, is less of a drive, and preferably doesn't have a drive thru

 

[Busta919]

I just came off a rotation at a CVS and a Walmart before that. I would not throw out the immunization thing because a tech cannot perform this task. Paperwork, is another matter. I didn't have any bad experiences at the drivethrough and we were busy most of the time. At the Walmart, I spent most of my time doing fills. Great system, but I only really saw the counting and labeling part. To be fair, I needed that experience. The CVS put me into the position where I performed some counciling, mostly filling, and working the counter and drivethrough. I refused to answer the phones as I was not an employee and I would just have to stop someone else to as them if they had product X on the shelf and how much is it. I only had 1 immunization to perform, 2 others were given in my time there.

Walmart separates the influenza vaccination from the pharmacy, which is good because the pharmacy was hopping all the time.

CVS is not Walmart and vic versa. The tech will have tech duties and they are fairly similar at both places. The patients do not automatically become lobotamized when they walk through the door at Walmart, so happiness of the patient/customer is the same at both. No drive through at Walmart.

Walmart just switched over from the basket fill system to a bag system (I don't know how much more efficient filling will be as a result). It should take some load off the Pharmacist in the respect of piles of baskets to manage. Walmart utilizes a handheld scanner and remote printers at the fill tables. It forces you to fill just the one script at a time. Also the printer only prints the bottle label. Unfortunately the Pharmacist have to print all the accompaning paperwork and perform final packaging. They were talking about passing the final pack on to the techs. The CVS tech prints the bag label, attaches it to a bag, and the bottle label. I find this to be both wise and wasteful. If you have multiple containers, then you have to print a whole sheet to get the bottle label. This however, relieves the burdon of printing extra paperwork and attaching it to a bag, from the Pharmacist. Both systems require scanning the stock bottle for verification. CVS requires credentials to print the labels, so I had to wait for someone else to do this for me.

Go to each location and talk to the techs. Get their opions about the staff they work with. These are your potential co-workers, if you cannot get along with them...

It isn't always about how much you are compensated. If you work somewhere that you hate, but he compensation is good, you will probably start looking for work elsewhere. If you are at a position that doesn't pay as well, but you really enjoy the people and the work...If you are paid enough and you are content/happy, then that is the place I would work. Job satisfaction is a major measure in finding your place. Depending on your state, you will only be a tech until you begin your PharmD curriculum at that point you will become an intern.

In the end, only you can decide what is best for you. Good luck.

 

[owlegrad]

The CVS tech prints the bag label, attaches it to a bag, and the bottle label.

Not at any of the CVS' I have worked at.

 

[Pharmacopia]

Some people blame Walmart for turning the profession into a product driven one rather than a service driven one (the $4 list). I think the truth is a quite a bit more complicated than that, but I figured some perspective might help.

Interestingly, many places give away some meds for free (or gift cards), but Walmart is easier to hate I think. Also Walmart gives pharmacists their breaks (the pharmacy closes if need be). There are actually many positives and negatives about the company, just like any other. Walmart is far from the worst.

Exactly, I try to keep things in perspective. I may not agree with their business practices, but it doesn't mean they are a bad employer (at least for pharmacists anyway).

To all the other people:

I disdain Walmart just as much as the next guy, but I'm not going to lay blame on them for what they didn't do. Don't think for one minute, that the big 3 care for the pharmacy profession. If they had their way they would still be in the pharmacy business without pharmacists. Why do you say that? Its quite simple? Pharmacist salaries costs these companies a lot of money, especially when your profits are already razor thin, and you have to rely on just prescription sales and front store merchandise to turn a profit. Walmart on the other hand, don't rely on pharmacy to make money. They make money by any means necessary and have the buying power and enough product/service diversification where they don't have to cut pharmacists out of the equation, and offer cushy jobs to attract pharmacists (and they do…..) Luckily for us, the only reason pharmacists still exist is because government statutes mandates us.

Having walmart in the pharmacy profession is bad for business because of their history of pulverizing the competition, and it doesn't help that the big 3 hold a large percentage of the retail jobs out there. If any of them gets knocked out, the pharmacy profession is in trouble. Thats why Walmart is bad for business.

Do not get confused as to which companies are to blame for the sad shape of our profession. Pharmacy was already the mcdonalds of the healthcare profession long before Walmart got into the game. What Walmart did was make prescriptions cost as much as a mcdonald's big mac, and scare the living daylights out of the big 3 chain pharmacies. Hey since we are already Mcdonald's lets set the prices as such, right???

For me, the retail chains still is a great place to work and if you are extremely motivated, you can get a lot of personal satisfaction out of it. I work for the company that I work for because of my own personal reasons, which are listed below:

Here is a general idea of what I do:
Btw, I do 12 hour shifts. I don't get to leave the pharmacy on my lunch. I have a skeleton crew, and I still have to meet immunization and script quota's. If I meet my quota's, I save my technicians from getting their hours cut, but their hours are going to get cut anyways? why? because for the next quarter, the quota will be set high enough where I won't meet it, and the tech hours will be cut. Pharmacist staffing is already at the bare minimum. I have to keep my customer complaints below 10 percent, and I have to cut inventory costs. Whats worse, is my performance is measured in real time with my sister stores...and my location is not in the greatest location. Overtime, I don't get any. When I'm not filling scripts, I'm doing inventory, if I'm not doing that, I'm doing payroll. If I'm not doing that, I'm auditing my controls. If I'm not doing that, I have to vacuum my floors (or make my techs do it) and have techs fix the shelves. If I'm not doing that, I have to call patients who are not satisfied with my store, or asking why they transfered out. I don't even get to sit down, unless its my lunch break. Phones constantly ringing, drive throughs are always chiming, kids yelling, people staring at me, and lastly, I have to keep my employees happy.

However, I do this for a living, and I love it. I do this because I made this choice, and I love a challenge. I do this because I'm young, and its my store. I want to get paid the most I've ever been paid before. I don't want to sit around and do nothing. I want to make changes and see results. I want my store to grow, its like watching your kids grow, or your own business grow. I want to see my store succeed. I want to see my technicians go on to better careers. I want them to nurture my technicians into the best they can be. When my patients are angry, I want to see them be happy because of my awesome employees. This is my drive, I will do my whatever it takes not to quit. However, my body is already tired, and one day so will my mind and I won't want to do this..hopefully one day, WALMART will buy out my store, and I won't have to work so hard

 

[Busta919]

Not at any of the CVS' I have worked at.

Well, Florida ia a completely different animal than Tennessee. 😀
The best part of doing a rotation at CVS was to get to perform all the pre-employment web training only to be given the disclaimer at the end; You are not an employee of CVS, and you are not entitled to a job when you complete your rotation. I finished with this paperwork before I did my second week, and they continued to tell me I needed to complete this training up to the 3rd week (the preceptor kept getting e-mails from their HR). I fortunately had my login information in my pocket so I could log in and show the Pharmacist that their HR department was mistaken. Hopefully I will get another CVS rotation before April so I will not have to go through the training again.

 

[SavoirFaire]

To OP:
Walmart pays pretty well for technician (I got 12.8 with PTCB certification, they didn't ask me but I chose as certified tech). Sometimes you have to deal with impolite customers . Well, my manager told me not to take it personally, forget it and move on. I am happy that Walmart does not have drive-through and immunization. I heard lots of complaints about them. So, as a tech at Walmart, all you do are greeting, inputting info to computer, filling, ringing up (is that all?). Someone just said that CVS paid 8.3 for a tech. Well, I made 8.4 as a clerk at Walmart 😕

12.80 pay rate at Walmart?! I need to leave CVS then. I make 9/hr at CVS and I am a CPhT. I work very hard at CVS; I asked for a raise but was told that they only do reviews 1x per year.

I'm going to check around and see what other pharmacies are paying / if they are hiring.

 

[MissYuk]

I just came off a rotation at a CVS and a Walmart before that. I would not throw out the immunization thing because a tech cannot perform this task. Paperwork, is another matter. I didn't have any bad experiences at the drivethrough and we were busy most of the time. At the Walmart, I spent most of my time doing fills. Great system, but I only really saw the counting and labeling part. To be fair, I needed that experience. The CVS put me into the position where I performed some counciling, mostly filling, and working the counter and drivethrough. I refused to answer the phones as I was not an employee and I would just have to stop someone else to as them if they had product X on the shelf and how much is it. I only had 1 immunization to perform, 2 others were given in my time there.

Walmart separates the influenza vaccination from the pharmacy, which is good because the pharmacy was hopping all the time.

CVS is not Walmart and vic versa. The tech will have tech duties and they are fairly similar at both places. The patients do not automatically become lobotamized when they walk through the door at Walmart, so happiness of the patient/customer is the same at both. No drive through at Walmart.

Walmart just switched over from the basket fill system to a bag system (I don't know how much more efficient filling will be as a result). It should take some load off the Pharmacist in the respect of piles of baskets to manage. Walmart utilizes a handheld scanner and remote printers at the fill tables. It forces you to fill just the one script at a time. Also the printer only prints the bottle label. Unfortunately the Pharmacist have to print all the accompaning paperwork and perform final packaging. They were talking about passing the final pack on to the techs. The CVS tech prints the bag label, attaches it to a bag, and the bottle label. I find this to be both wise and wasteful. If you have multiple containers, then you have to print a whole sheet to get the bottle label. This however, relieves the burdon of printing extra paperwork and attaching it to a bag, from the Pharmacist. Both systems require scanning the stock bottle for verification. CVS requires credentials to print the labels, so I had to wait for someone else to do this for me.

Go to each location and talk to the techs. Get their opions about the staff they work with. These are your potential co-workers, if you cannot get along with them...

It isn't always about how much you are compensated. If you work somewhere that you hate, but he compensation is good, you will probably start looking for work elsewhere. If you are at a position that doesn't pay as well, but you really enjoy the people and the work...If you are paid enough and you are content/happy, then that is the place I would work. Job satisfaction is a major measure in finding your place. Depending on your state, you will only be a tech until you begin your PharmD curriculum at that point you will become an intern.

In the end, only you can decide what is best for you. Good luck.

Wow I can't believe as an intern you weren't answering phones...were you not being paid? If not I can understand, but I work for Wal-Mart and all of our interns are paid employees of the store. How could you not pick up the phone to assist patients with refills, medication questions, etc? I understand that patients call in to ask about prices of medication but there are OTC employees for that.

I have worked at Wal-Mart for 2 years as a certified tech while going to school. Yes, they have driven out the small independent pharmacy, but from speaking with other pharmacists the Connexus computer system is said to be one of the best. With that said, over the past two years new practices have been implemented (log copies and the new bagging system) that have eased the role of the tech. I get paid a competitive wage but I had prior work experience. If you don't have quality work experience, be prepared to make less.

 

[MissYuk]

12.80 pay rate at Walmart?! I need to leave CVS then. I make 9/hr at CVS and I am a CPhT. I work very hard at CVS; I asked for a raise but was told that they only do reviews 1x per year.

I'm going to check around and see what other pharmacies are paying / if they are hiring.

Wal-Mart goes off market comparisons of other pharmacies so it does vary from state to state. Additionally, they consider prior work experience. I make $15.90/hr as a CPhT at Wal-Mart.

 

[pharm B]

I agree with the ethical points raised by phathead. I must admit, though, that as a married college student, I just wanted a comfortable work environment that paid decently. I've heard nothing but horror stories about CVS/walgreens, and I loved my time as a WalMart pharmacy tech, or at least most of it. It is still a job after all. 🙄

Regarding drive throughs, though: The new stores constructed in my area actually have drive throughs. 🙁

 

[whatbout2morrow]

You do realize that Walmart as a whole does not care about pharmacy, but merely uses it as a driving force to keep people in their stores. That was the main reason they first installed a pharmacy 30 years ago or so, and that is the main reason they are there now. When I worked for them for a short while (not in the pharmacy) I had the regional VP, who happened to be a good guy, state that this was the main reason they have pharmacies in their stores. The reason they don't do immunizations is that it goes against the "flow" of their stores.

Capitalism is evil 😉.

And then there is the $4 generic list. Do you know how drastically this has changed pharmacy in the few short years it has been around? I know it was a death blow for three different independent pharmacies (who were granted on shaky ground to begin with). There is also an extended effect whereas Walmart essentially justified reduced payments by PBMs, something which is not overtly stated but observations can show a correlation to it.

Yeah, that $4 generic list is really really bad. Unless you're the one who doesn't have insurance and can't afford your maintenance meds.


I hate the drive-thru. It makes people think they can have everything done in 30 seconds like at Taco Bell or something.

 

[R2pharmD2]

Yeah, that $4 generic list is really really bad. Unless you're the one who doesn't have insurance and can't afford your maintenance meds.

I get the whole "bastardization of pharmacy" argument that people make about the $4 generics, but for a lot of patients it really is a godsend. Gotta take the good with the bad here I suppose.