Pharmacy managers crying

[PharmDstudent]

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So how many times have you known a pharmacy manager to cry about work? I now know of 2 instances. 🙁

 

[BrightLight]

So how many times have you known a pharmacy manager to cry about work? I now know of 2 instances. 🙁

What aspect about work did they cry about? I have not seen any

 

[PharmDstudent]

What aspect about work did they cry about? I have not seen any

Having to work themselves to death. The first PIC cried after Hurricane Katrina and the second PIC cried because of the latest budget cuts.

 

[BrightLight]

Is this in hospital? If in retail, why don't they just step down and become staff pharmacists them?

 

[PharmDstudent]

Is this in hospital? If in retail, why don't they just step down and become staff pharmacists them?

Retail, hence "pharmacy manager". They've both quit and found new jobs.

 

[Ackj]

The first PIC cried after Hurricane Katrina

I suppose that's reasonable. Natural disaster, lots of devastation, looting, death, etc.

the second PIC cried because of the latest budget cuts.

....yeah.....not so much....

 

[BrightLight]

Retail, hence "pharmacy manager". They've both quit and found new jobs.

Sounds like they are just not good managers. "Good" managers do not cry themselves; they make their underlings cry.

 

[wucool33]

I'm just carious... What additional tasks does a manager do as compared to a regular staff pharmacist? I know some... but not all... and from this thread, it's obvious that I don't know enough lol

 

[DASicari]

Well if you are working in a retail environment that measure pharmacy performance by multiple metrics, ultimately the PIC is responsible and held accountable for the performance of the pharmacy. For a particular employer, this may include items such as auto-refill rate, customers enrolled into text-messaging reminder alerting, if customers are addressed by name, etc.

 

[R xxx]

Hmm....must be female managers. I just can't see a guy crying. No job is worth your tears.

 

[Aznfarmerboi]

A good pharmacy manager can cry and still commend the full respect of his/her staff.

 

[R xxx]

A good pharmacy manager can cry and still commend the full respect of his/her staff.

So you cry at work?

 

[hsb1104]

I never saw a pharmacist cry until I started working in a hospital setting. The hormones are running free at my current place where it's a majority of women... seeing someone cry on a weekly basis doesn't even phase me anymore... and the thing is I have no idea what they're crying about 90% of the time. So bizarre

 

[Sparda29]

I've seen it happen three times, and it was the same pharmacy manager. The first two times, I saw it, it was a personal thing and I can see why she cried.

#1 - Ex-husband problems.
#2 - Sister almost died giving birth. Disseminated intravascular coagulation. Needed over 20 units of blood I think. I think Aznfarmerboi was a floater at the time and covered her shift at the store that weekend.
#3 - One tech quit, another tech was re-assigned to a different store, so we were pretty short staffed, leaving the store with just me, an elderly part-time tech, another intern, and a relatively new super-tech who was being forced to work 10AM-8PM because of the lack of techs.

I got an offer from Costco at the same time at a higher pay rate than what CVS was paying. I told her that I'd be leaving in 2 weeks unless CVS could match the offer, she said that the district manager wouldn't let her increase my pay so I said I had to leave then. She started crying because of this too.

 

[Ackj]

So you cry at work?

Tears of joy, every day.

 

[PharmDstudent]

Hmm....must be female managers. I just can't see a guy crying. No job is worth your tears.

It was a male and a female PIC.

The first PIC cried, because it was overwhelming to fill all of the scripts from the evacuees who didn't have bottles and things like that. It was total chaos. We even had people from out of state trying to help, but that didn't work out too well.

The second PIC cried, because of the impact of the budget cuts. We lost 20% of our pharmacy budget hours, which reduced us to 2 daytime pharmacists versus 3 most of the week and 2 fewer technicians with more trying to leave, because they can't make it on 20 hours per week.

 

[Ackj]

It was a male and a female PIC.

There's the answer. Hormones can be all kinds of messed up in those male/females

 

[StevePerry]

It was a male and a female PIC.

The first PIC cried, because it was overwhelming to fill all of the scripts from the evacuees who didn't have bottles and things like that. It was total chaos. We even had people from out of state trying to help, but that didn't work out too well.

The second PIC cried, because of the impact of the budget cuts. We lost 20% of our pharmacy budget hours, which reduced us to 2 daytime pharmacists versus 3 most of the week and 2 fewer technicians with more trying to leave, because they can't make it on 20 hours per week.

Just curious, what is your tech hours to scripts? Is Walgreens the lowest in this category now, like below Not-So-Rite Aid and CVS?

 

[PharmDstudent]

Just curious, what is your tech hours to scripts? Is Walgreens the lowest in this category now, like below Not-So-Rite Aid and CVS?

0.46 tech hours per script

 

[StevePerry]

0.46 tech hours per script

That can't be correct? Did you mean 0.046? Even that would be too low...

1000 scripts per week * 0.46 tech-hours/script = 460 tech hours per week --> seems waaaay too high...
1000 scripts per week *0.046 tech-hours/script = 46 tech hours per week --> seems a bit too low...

 

[PharmDstudent]

That can't be correct? Did you mean 0.046? Even that would be too low...

1000 scripts per week * 0.46 tech-hours/script = 460 tech hours per week --> seems waaaay too high...
1000 scripts per week *0.046 tech-hours/script = 46 tech hours per week --> seems a bit too low...

It used to be average number of scripts per day = total budget hours per week. If our average is 400 scripts per day or 2800 scripts per week, then 188 tech hours divided by 400 scripts equals 0.46 (per script).

But if you'd rather, let me divide 188 hours by 2800 scripts per week which equals 0.067.

 

[owlegrad]

Why would you divide weekly hours by daily scripts? 😕

Then again, I know absolutely nothing about how the budgeting works, so maybe that is the norm.

 

[Ackj]

Why would you divide weekly hours by daily scripts? 😕

Then again, I know absolutely nothing about how the budgeting works, so maybe that is the norm.

I am completely confused as well. I was actually thinking she made a typo and it was 0.064 instead of 0.046, since that seemed like a more reasonable number. Turns out I wasn't too far off with that guess.

 

[PharmDstudent]

Why would you divide weekly hours by daily scripts? 😕

I don't know. But you can ask my old pharmacy manager who has been working for the same retail chain for 27 years. 😛

 

[PharmDstudent]

Ok ok. Let me explain...

From what I understood, used to, the number of scripts you did per day = total budget hours. Since total budget hours is determined per week, then it was easy to say "the number of scripts you do is equal to the number of hours you get". People at Walgreens will say how many scripts they do as a daily average, not as a weekly average. It's not Target after all. So if they did 200 scripts per day, then they got 200 hours per week for the entire pharmacy (tech and pharmacist hours).

But now, it's less. Our average is 400 per day, but our total budget is 93% of that. And since it's a 24 hour store, we have less tech hours than non-24 hour stores, because the graveyard pharmacists' hours must also be taken into account.

 

[Ackj]

Ok ok. Let me explain...

From what I understood, used to, the number of scripts you did per day = total budget hours. Since total budget hours is determined per week, then it was easy to say "the number of scripts you do is equal to the number of hours you get". People at Walgreens will say how many scripts they do as a daily average, not as a weekly average. It's not Target after all. So if they did 200 scripts per day, then they got 200 hours per week for the entire pharmacy (tech and pharmacist hours).

But now, it's less. Our average is 400 per day, but our total budget is 93% of that. And since it's a 24 hour store, we have less tech hours than non-24 hour stores, because the graveyard pharmacists' hours must also be taken into account.

That makes sense, but the math still doesn't add up. You said 2800/wk, which is roughly 400/day. So then 400 rx = 400 hours, then accounting for that odd 93%, that's still 372. 😕

Maybe then you divide by 2 since it's a 24 hour instead of 12? That's 186, which is close to your 188. Aww, why did you have to try explain this crazy rule? Couldn't you have just said "we fill ~2800/wk and have 188 tech hours/wk"

 

[PharmDstudent]

That makes sense, but the math still doesn't add up. You said 2800/wk, which is roughly 400/day. So then 400 rx = 400 hours, then accounting for that odd 93%, that's still 372. 😕

Maybe then you divide by 2 since it's a 24 hour instead of 12? That's 186, which is close to your 188. Aww, why did you have to try explain this crazy rule? Couldn't you have just said "we fill ~2800/wk and have 188 tech hours/wk"

... sorry.

Our budget actually freaks a lot of people out. They think that since we're high volume we'll have a lot of hours. Wrong.

It's 188 tech hours and 184 pharmacist hours per week for a pharmacy that averages 400 scripts per day or 2800 scripts per week.