Opinions on Rite Aid and Kroger

Started by ancient
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ancient

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Getting back into the workforce after taking several years off from retail.

Rite Aid has a PIC position at an extended hours store near me (store is open 87 hours per week). With the extra hours salary would be about $127,000 per year. How are they to work for? I did a search and found lots of gripes about CVS and Walgreens but could not find much about Rite Aid.

Kroger has a part time position not too far away from me, 24 hours per week, so maybe $60,000 per year in salary. Any opinions on Kroger would be welcome also. Not much came up about Kroger when I searched.

If you had a choice between the two jobs, which one looks better to you? $60,000 would be an adequate salary for me, although I would not be rolling in the dough.
 
ancient said:
Getting back into the workforce after taking several years off from retail.

Rite Aid has a PIC position at an extended hours store near me (store is open 87 hours per week). With the extra hours salary would be about $127,000 per year. How are they to work for? I did a search and found lots of gripes about CVS and Walgreens but could not find much about Rite Aid.

Kroger has a part time position not too far away from me, 24 hours per week, so maybe $60,000 per year in salary. Any opinions on Kroger would be welcome also. Not much came up about Kroger when I searched.

If you had a choice between the two jobs, which one looks better to you? $60,000 would be an adequate salary for me, although I would not be rolling in the dough.
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Given rite-aid's questionable corporate stability, also the fact that grocery store work is more laid back, Kroger seems like the obvious choice here. Plus you wont have to work as much!

I'd take the kroger job as long as it's not too low of volume. The only downside to the kroger job is that you may get bored if it's a low volume location. Also, obviously you wont get rich, but who goes into pharmacy to get rich anyway? $60,000 is a great salary!
 
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About the volume, Kroger has the $4 generics like Walmart so volume has increased dramatically. They have a full time opening in another town, the pharmacy does 700 prescriptions per day and they need a 4th Pharmacist. The commute is a little too far for me so the part time job closer to home is the one I am considering. I am not sure about the volume there but it must have increased quite a bit if they need 24 more Pharmacist hours per week.

The Rite Aid in question had a big shakeup and all Pharmacists and Techs were either fired or quit to go work for CVS. They are limping along on floaters and volume has plummeted to about 1000 prescriptions per week. They are looking for someone to turn things around, provide some stability there. I am confident I could change things for the better there but it would be quite a challenging situation.

Thanks for the comments so far.
 
ancient said:
About the volume, Kroger has the $4 generics like Walmart so volume has increased dramatically. They have a full time opening in another town, the pharmacy does 700 prescriptions per day and they need a 4th Pharmacist. The commute is a little too far for me so the part time job closer to home is the one I am considering. I am not sure about the volume there but it must have increased quite a bit if they need 24 more Pharmacist hours per week.

The Rite Aid in question had a big shakeup and all Pharmacists and Techs were either fired or quit to go work for CVS. They are limping along on floaters and volume has plummeted to about 1000 prescriptions per week. They are looking for someone to turn things around, provide some stability there. I am confident I could change things for the better there but it would be quite a challenging situation.

Thanks for the comments so far.
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Kroger has a deli, they win.
 
If 60k is enough for you, hey why not!

And plus, you can pick up a part-time opening at a hospital or somewhere too.
 
If 100k a year doesn't make u rich then somethings wrong with you or maybe your definition of rich is 10 Million or more.

type b pharmD said:
Given rite-aid's questionable corporate stability, also the fact that grocery store work is more laid back, Kroger seems like the obvious choice here. Plus you wont have to work as much!

I'd take the kroger job as long as it's not too low of volume. The only downside to the kroger job is that you may get bored if it's a low volume location. Also, obviously you wont get rich, but who goes into pharmacy to get rich anyway? $60,000 is a great salary!
Click to expand...
 
KARM12 said:
100K a year will allow you to live comfortably, but you will by no means be "rich."
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I guess it depends on what you think rich is. If I thought that I'd grow up to make $45k a year in a legal manner, I'd have been hella happy back in the day. $100k/year was unfathomable. In my hometown, my step-sister is closing on a gorgeous 3200 sq ft. home with a pool for $189,000. They make about $60k a year and can easily afford it. $100k there makes you rich.

$100k a year in San Francisco makes you lower middle class.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
$100k a year in San Francisco makes you lower middle class.
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Yeah this is about right....living in SF is a sucker's play, you can get some real cheap digs in the neighboring towns. In fact, you can probably squat in some foreclosed properties in Oakland if you don't mind living with homeless cokeheads and prostitutes with a raging case of chlamydia.

If you work retail, it's kind of the same environment anyway, except you get phone calls.


And to the OP...I'd go with Kroger, Rite Aid has progressively closed their stores in Vegas, SF, and most recently a store in Orange County....I doubt they'll be around much longer in their current form.
 
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dang.. I wish I bought RiteAid stocks when they were 0.25 cents 2 months ago -.-... quarduple your money LOL!!
 
Thanks for the comments and opinions. Most people I talk to say go with Kroger. That salary would be fine. If I decide that I need more money for some reason, I can always look for full time later or do some relief work.

Thanks again.
 
ancient said:
Thanks for the comments and opinions. Most people I talk to say go with Kroger. That salary would be fine. If I decide that I need more money for some reason, I can always look for full time later or do some relief work.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

The other thing too - once you get on with Kroger, then if they need fill-in help or they have a different opening come up, then you will be right there already and can possibly float to and/or move to a different store. If you do a good job with your part-time at first, then it is definitely to their advantage to offer you other opportunities with schedule rather than having to find someone else.
 
Today my pharmacist says "you shouldn't sit down while you count pills while there are customers waiting, they'll think you're lazy."
Says something about Rite Aid...
 
bacillus1 said:
Today my pharmacist says "you shouldn't sit down while you count pills while there are customers waiting, they'll think you're lazy."
Says something about Rite Aid...
Click to expand...

Or just your PIC. I don't care if people sit, stand, talk, or even listen to music I really don't like out of a tinny cell phone while they work, although I am really sick of the Twilight soundtrack, just do the work well.
The votes are in, but I'd also pick Kroger if I had a choice.
 
Megas said:
Or just your PIC. I don't care if people sit, stand, talk, or even listen to music I really don't like out of a tinny cell phone while they work, although I am really sick of the Twilight soundtrack, just do the work well.
The votes are in, but I'd also pick Kroger if I had a choice.
Click to expand...

Question: Don't you work for RA?
 
lumos said:
Question: Don't you work for RA?
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I've started moonlighting, perhaps, at other places in spare time which will not be divulged in a public forum.
Also, really, do people work for a company? I work for my family, for a great place to live, for i tunes cards, for the opportunity to help people recover from debilitation, for the absolute love of pharmacy and pharmacotherapy.
 
bacillus1 said:
Today my pharmacist says "you shouldn't sit down while you count pills while there are customers waiting, they'll think you're lazy."
Says something about Rite Aid...
Click to expand...

How do you sit while counting anyway? Because wouldn't you have to get up to get more stock bottles, etc..? The only person I could see sitting down is in-window tech (but even they would have to check stock on items) or the verification pharmacist (if their store is adequately staffed... big IF)..
 
Charlottefromca said:
How do you sit while counting anyway? Because wouldn't you have to get up to get more stock bottles, etc..? The only person I could see sitting down is in-window tech (but even they would have to check stock on items) or the verification pharmacist (if their store is adequately staffed... big IF)..
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In-window tech? Verification pharmacist? Try just 1 pharmacist and 1 tech there at certain times, thats it (with 200+ scripts a day). Certain times being weekends till 2PM (when it's actually still relatively busy) at one of my stores and tuesdays after 3:30PM at the other store I work (I work there Tuesdays).
I have never actually seen techs and pharmacists at one position the whole day at any of the 4 pharmacies I've worked at so far (3 rite aids and 1 independent).
But to answer your question, the pharmacist pulls the drug as he types the prescription and puts the basket in line for me to count, or I pull the drug then sit down while counting and then slide it over to the pharmacist to verify it (usually more sitting occurs during the first scenario).
But it's not like it takes much time to sit down or stand up.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I haven't been in a Kroger Pharmacy, but I'm doing my rotation with a Rite Aid right now and I can't wait to get out of there.
 
How good is Rite Aid's "new" computer system? I know years ago from what I heard their system was total garbage and antiquated. For instance, does it actually involve scanning rx's instead of trying to do 500 a day laying them out on the counter and checking by hand? Just curious...
 
StevePerry said:
How good is Rite Aid's "new" computer system? I know years ago from what I heard their system was total garbage and antiquated. For instance, does it actually involve scanning rx's instead of trying to do 500 a day laying them out on the counter and checking by hand? Just curious...
Click to expand...

Yes we can scan RXs and there are improvements added constantly. I actually don't mind the system. The new one will be a bit more profit-oriented though, involving things that are supposed to help the pharmacy not lose customers.
 
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To update, I did go ahead and apply with Kroger. It was a slow process, background check, drug test. In the meantime a full time position opened up just 10 minutes from my house for a staff pharmacist so it worked out. Salary is $114,000, which is about the same per hour as Rite Aid offered for a staff position. Less hours per week at Kroger (the Rite Aid was open 8am - 10pm during the week ... 14 hour days, ouch).

Thanks for the help. For the record only one person I talked to said to go with Rite Aid. He was a non-pharmacist and said I should go for the money. So maybe he doesn't count in the tally. 😀
 
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