How do you deal with stress and where they come from

[ornithoptor]

I am curios about how pharmacist from different settings get their stresses from and how they release their stresses at work or home?

Setting: retail, hospital, long term care, nuclear, poison center, school......
Job descriptions: student, staff, clinical, managerial, prn......
Sources of stress: money, co-workers, boss, district rules, company policy, nurses, providers, entitled customers, insurance company......
Stress relief: stress ball, fishing, racing, libation, video game, vacation, and hopefully not: co-workers, technicians, family members......

Me:
Setting: Multi hospital system IDN
Job descriptions: Purchasing, contracting and reimbursement. Average 10 to 20 hours in meetings per week. No interactions with patients, nursing and minimal interaction with providers
Sources of stress: Deadline on projects, presentations, inability to do more, reps talk in circle, unexpected shortages
Stress relief: At times, I may ask sales rep harder questions I know they can't answer and watch them stutter(just kidding). I also shoot zombies in video games at home.

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[quickpic007]

Retail staffing, national company

Work stress: Tech call outs/quits. Working short staffed when you don't have enough help (not that bad, CVS is tough)
Relief: Snooze at home

 

[RxPreceptor]

Retail/Community Setting (overnight shift, not nearly as stressful/noisy as daytime)

Work Stress: tech call outs, high turnover rate/constant training, typical metric targets, irrational patients (honestly not many, just a crazy or 2 every once in a while who make threats), physically draining working a week straight standing 12-15 hours/day
Relief: Sleep, weight lifting, cardio, reading

 

[Charcoales]

Stress: too busy, not enough help, rude/threatening customers
Relief: lifting weights, Wine, sleep

 

[pharmacystudent1011]

Retail big chain/daytime

Stress: call outs/ turnover, new techs, irresponsible techs, dramatic techs, techs talk too much, metrics/pressure, DM call/text on days off, no true day off.
Relief: family, video games, not being at work

 

[PharmacistFl12]

Stress: Busy retail, company cutting tech hours constantly
Relief: Stock investing, reading, biking, jogging, chasing cash rewards from credit cards

 

[wagrxm2000]

Setting: retail
Stress: too many friendly customers that want to chat with me.
Relief: all the sweets they make for me so I always forgive them.

It's a burden being this adored by customers. Sometimes I have to let them know I'm busy but will call them in a few minutes at home.

 

[Sine Cura]

Setting: retail
Job description: retail drone
Annoyances (not stress per se): really clunky and sluggish pharmacy management system resulting in delayed order completion plus network problems (to give a specific example for WM peeps, there is no good reason for completed Rx entering resolution to hit 60%. Even at other WM locations a typical % for ghetto locations is low 40%). It takes forever to hold techs accountable (i.e., termination) due to red tape. Having to explain to dentists why their office management is incompetent for ordering/using obsolete/outdated/non-compliant controlled substance prescription forms and putting pharmacies in the position of refusing to fill their controls. Ex:

Pharmacies rejecting dentist prescription forms (5/4/2015)

Pharmacies are rejecting prescriptions due to noncompliant forms (11/10/2017)

Relief: looking at my retirement accounts and taxable account

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Setting: Graveyard Shift at CVS in Philly
JD: Counting by 5s. Deterrence of drug addicts.
Source of Stress: Lack of food delivery options. CVSs abhorrent computer system.
Stress Relief: Complaining. To other people...sometimes online...sometimes out loud to myself when nobody else is around.

 

[PeterYoshi]

Stress comes from family pressure, school work, work...I tend to listen to relaxing music when I am too stressed out. I won't do anything but lying in bed listening to musics

 

[grizzlesgrizzlies]

Stress: lack of help, crazy demands interrupting workflow
Relief: paying down mortgage and investing so I can have an exit strategy (from the profession) in place

 

[HandsomeVampire]

Stress: People
Relief: Get away from people.

 

[smhrx11]

Setting: hospital and outpatient clinic
Job descriptions: check doses on and enter chemotherapy orders, compound chemotherapy, pharmacokinetics. Just made a move to informatics, so this is going to change.

Sources of stress: high volume, minimal staff (most times I'm by myself), dangerous drugs, etc
Stress relief: reading, fishing, PS4/XBOX, television

 

[Zelda840]

Job: pharmacy student and pension acct mgr

Stress: balancing a 30 hour workweek at a stressful job with maintaining grades that are good enough to get scholarship $, taking care of a sick family member, etc.

Relief: exercise, painting, putting sweat equity into my little house, cooking a fancy meal for the people I love, Super Mario 64 speed runs.

 

[ornithoptor]

Based on number of responds versus number of the forum members, it sounds like most of us are not stressed.

Some good feedback from people in retail and little from hospitals and schools.

Now, what can we do about some of the common concerns: Corrective action plan, anyone?

 

[RxPreceptor]

Based on number of responds versus number of the forum members, it sounds like most of us are not stressed.

Some good feedback from people in retail and little from hospitals and schools.

Now, what can we do about some of the common concerns: Corrective action plan, anyone?

You sound exactly like a DM....you want it in an excel spreadsheet I assume? lol

 

[owlegrad]

Setting: LTC
Job descriptions: Compare pill description to actual pill, compare image of script against script label, other pharmacist-y sort of things
Sources of stress: Hmmm. Being all call is stressful for me. Dealing with nurses can be stressful. Incompetent coworkers are also tough to deal with sometimes. Trying to get anything done in a culture of complacency/laziness can be frustrating, although since I am not management I am trying to learn to let that go. Speaking of which, Management isn't too bad although I wish they were more "tough on crime".
Stress relief: Paying off loans, going to the gym (or is that actually more stress?!), dating (again, more stress?), reading, video games, movie/tv.

 

[disgonbgud]

Based on number of responds versus number of the forum members, it sounds like most of us are not stressed.

Some good feedback from people in retail and little from hospitals and schools.

Now, what can we do about some of the common concerns: Corrective action plan, anyone?

This is a hilarious conclusion to come to.

 

[HandsomeVampire]

Based on number of responds versus number of the forum members, it sounds like most of us are not stressed.

Some good feedback from people in retail and little from hospitals and schools.

Now, what can we do about some of the common concerns: Corrective action plan, anyone?

Based on my response being people...

The only corrective action plan is to eliminate people, thereby eliminating the stress.

But since that is illegal, I do not have one. I'll get a 0 on the corrective action plan =(.

 

[Robbin]

Stress is nothing it is just the tiredness of the mind.

 

[sakigt]

Im generally not stressed. I listen to a lot of podcasts, have taken a lot off my mental plate. Have been doing the Headspace app for a year now so apparently that's helping. Im generally anxious and Type A so I make lots of lists. I try and get three things accomplished a day: learn a bit of Spanish, meditate and read. Good days I get all three. Most I get 2/3. I also work out 3 days a week.

At work I can start to get overwhelmed but maybe with my primary job being in the ED if you aint dying it can wait. And Ill be happy to explain why to anyone interested.