Problem with CVS

[HaleyRX]

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Hi,
I have been employed with CVS for 5 months. I was hired as a Pharmacy Service Associate. In my state it takes 600 hours after you have your permit to become a tech. I sent off my tech candidate paperwork in March, but CVS kept giving me the wrong paperwork and the Pharm Board kept refusing it and now that it is all sorted out I have another problem with CVS.
I was hired at $7/hour. Since then, I have proved to be an excellent employee. Many customers have commented on my friendly attitude and overall I am pretty efficient. I take care of the 2 drive-thru lanes, the pick-up, handle a lot of drop-offs, answer the phone, restock the medicine, etc, etc. We are an extremely busy store (2nd busiest out of 20 in this city) and we have few hours to work with.
Needless to say it is a stressful place. They just hired a new associate with little work experience (I had worked at a pharmacy previously) at $7.50. I have spent the past 4 days training her. The pharmacy is abuzz with salary talk, and the district manager said that we could all be written up for discussing pay, and that he may just bump that girl down to $7 rather than increasing me and the other PSA to $7.50. He finally said he'll approve the raise but it will take a few weeks.
What do you guys think? Am I right to be a little upset? I am hesitate to spend $100 getting my tech in training permit when I am so unhappy. The CVS experience has made me doubt my future in pharmacy.

 

[binghamkid]

Hi,
I have been employed with CVS for 5 months. I was hired as a Pharmacy Service Associate. In my state it takes 600 hours after you have your permit to become a tech. I sent off my tech candidate paperwork in March, but CVS kept giving me the wrong paperwork and the Pharm Board kept refusing it and now that it is all sorted out I have another problem with CVS.
I was hired at $7/hour. Since then, I have proved to be an excellent employee. Many customers have commented on my friendly attitude and overall I am pretty efficient. I take care of the 2 drive-thru lanes, the pick-up, handle a lot of drop-offs, answer the phone, restock the medicine, etc, etc. We are an extremely busy store (2nd busiest out of 20 in this city) and we have few hours to work with.
Needless to say it is a stressful place. They just hired a new associate with little work experience (I had worked at a pharmacy previously) at $7.50. I have spent the past 4 days training her. The pharmacy is abuzz with salary talk, and the district manager said that we could all be written up for discussing pay, and that he may just bump that girl down to $7 rather than increasing me and the other PSA to $7.50. He finally said he'll approve the raise but it will take a few weeks.
What do you guys think? Am I right to be a little upset? I am hesitate to spend $100 getting my tech in training permit when I am so unhappy. The CVS experience has made me doubt my future in pharmacy.

You have to remember that the salary at which people enter at reflect the demand of the market place. If a store/company really needs people, they'll obviously offer more at that point in time. In general, it's considered professional courtesy not to talk about salary within the workplace, but I totally understand your unhappiness at the inequity of the situation. But you'll face this situation no matter the career path you choose. Professors and lab administrators that work along side me get paid less than their recently hired counterparts, and I make more than my predecessors did. It's all a matter of timing. If you don't like the corporate retail environment, I would suggest exploring other pharmacy environments (maybe an independent community pharmacy or a hospital pharmacy). If you were considering getting your tech certification, I would think you do have some interest in the career path. Don't get discouraged because of one bad experience because it's only one facet of the entire pharmacy career.

 

[ajh88]

I completely agree with Bingham. I've been training a Ph.D who is probably making double my salary for the past 4 months in our lab - I know it can easily lead to frustration when you know the other person is making more money than you. However, I could understand the argument more if you had both been there the same amount of time and she was an inferior employee in some way. If it were me, I probably would have brought it up at my review (I assume you have one at 6 months?) - perhaps you had a raise coming to you anyway at that time.

Large companies (at least the ones I have worked for), generally do not grant "performance" pay raises at random times. If you have been an exemplary employee, you should expect to be rewarded for that at your next review. I don't necessarily agree with this approach, but it seems to be how it works.

In the grand scheme, I wouldn't think the 50 cents between $7 and $7.50 would be enough to turn you off of pharmacy, but I understand there are other issues at play here. Like Bingham said, if you don't like the environment at CVS, search for other opportunities - you at least have some experience under your belt now! And by all means, still get your tech license - you will ultimately need it for any pharmacy job. I found that I could get a retail job easily before I was licensed, but I pretty much couldn't even apply for a hospital job until I got it.

Best of luck.

 

[RX CARE]

Hi,
I have been employed with CVS for 5 months. I was hired as a Pharmacy Service Associate. In my state it takes 600 hours after you have your permit to become a tech. I sent off my tech candidate paperwork in March, but CVS kept giving me the wrong paperwork and the Pharm Board kept refusing it and now that it is all sorted out I have another problem with CVS.
I was hired at $7/hour. Since then, I have proved to be an excellent employee. Many customers have commented on my friendly attitude and overall I am pretty efficient. I take care of the 2 drive-thru lanes, the pick-up, handle a lot of drop-offs, answer the phone, restock the medicine, etc, etc. We are an extremely busy store (2nd busiest out of 20 in this city) and we have few hours to work with.
Needless to say it is a stressful place. They just hired a new associate with little work experience (I had worked at a pharmacy previously) at $7.50. I have spent the past 4 days training her. The pharmacy is abuzz with salary talk, and the district manager said that we could all be written up for discussing pay, and that he may just bump that girl down to $7 rather than increasing me and the other PSA to $7.50. He finally said he'll approve the raise but it will take a few weeks.
What do you guys think? Am I right to be a little upset? I am hesitate to spend $100 getting my tech in training permit when I am so unhappy. The CVS experience has made me doubt my future in pharmacy.

Why don't u spend like 50 dollars more and just get nationally certified.....and then it's gonna override a lot of things.....u might find urself at 10 dollars. CVS is a good company, except things are a little different in Louisiana. Instead of hating the pharmacy and doubting ur career, u have to understand that all those things depend on how the district is managed. If the DPM sucks, things ARE gonna suck! So don't give up on CVS and especially don't give up on pharmacy

 

[PharmDstudent]

Aren't you glad you got out of that h***hole? 😀 It was nice hanging out by the way! You have to visit again before school starts or maybe I can go there???