Thoughts form a 2007 Graduate

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I should have been a residential plumber or electrician. One lives near me and it makes me sad when I drive by his truck in his driveway on my way to work on Saturday Mornings

 

[UofK]

The economy overall is horrible. If you have been following the news, you should have known the unemployment rate this month is 9.2% and it is uptrending now. Look at the chart below:

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

The economy has never been recovered!!!!!!!! We're still in a recession. As long as we are in a recession, would you expect jobs created???
Since 1990 to now, I have never seen unemployment rate at this high and it keeps climbing up. Our government really f* it up badly. I won't blame on Obama solely because he has no really power.

The bottom line: job market is bad now and it's gonna be like this for a while (at least 5 more years...if not 7 or 10). Pharmacy is not immuned either from this bad recession. I am sick of people telling others this phrase :" Look for other areas of pharmacy. Don't just look at retails or hospital only." Yes, we all know pharmacy has zillions of speciaties, such as nuclear pharmacy, amb care, infectious disease, industry, blah blah blah. But really? How many nuclear pharmacists are there in the US? How many nuclear pharmacist positions available right now? Or even before market was saturated? Do you think other pharmacists love to work in retail settings and choosing retail over nuclear or ID? They just have no choice because retail settings are where jobs are most abundant. The number of jobs in specities is really just a fraction of # pharmacy jobs. If everyone want to be a nuclear pharmacist or an amb care pharmacist, who will dispense meds at walgreens?????

To new graduates: Hang in there, market yourselves well. To pharmacy school students and pre-pharmacy students: Good luck! You need it, indeed.

This is a point that does generally gets lost when these types of oversaturation discussions come up. Last fall, a regional manager/director/whatever the job title was of Kroger chain gave a presentation, and later during the Q&A, he admitted that Kroger had plans to open several new stores. By several, I mean 10-15, but the projects were on hold due to the economy.

Is the market more saturated? Absolutely, but let's not discount the economy (nor use it as any sort of excuse either), because it is a contributing factor.

 

[UofK]

I should have been a residential plumber or electrician. One lives near me and it makes me sad when I drive by his truck in his driveway on my way to work on Saturday Mornings

One of my friends is a 23 year old plumber who makes $80K per year. He works approximately 5-6 hours per day responding to 3-4 calls. He has his own house, 2 cars, 1 truck, 1 work van, 2 ATV's, a boat (cheapy, but still), and 1 motorcycle. I'm 24, 40K in debt, haven't even been admitted to a professional school, 0 social life do to school / commute / me being me, I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent (which sounds ironic since he is the one that appears to have made the better choice in life, at least as of right now), but don't have a damn thing to claim for myself. Doing it all over again, making sure turds flush appropriately might have been a lucrative, more rewarding path for me too.

 

[Hello2011]

One of my friends is a 23 year old plumber who makes $80K per year. He works approximately 5-6 hours per day responding to 3-4 calls. He has his own house, 2 cars, 1 truck, 1 work van, 2 ATV's, a boat (cheapy, but still), and 1 motorcycle. I'm 24, 40K in debt, haven't even been admitted to a professional school, 0 social life do to school / commute / me being me, I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent (which sounds ironic since he is the one that appears to have made the better choice in life, at least as of right now), but don't have a damn thing to claim for myself. Doing it all over again, making sure turds flush appropriately might have been a lucrative, more rewarding path for me too.

I get so sick of the plumber/truck driver nonsense from everyone. When people are unhappy in their career all they do is focus on the negative of their job and only the positive of another field. If you truly believed a plumber would be a better career for you, you could easily do that right NOW, but we both know you wont so obviously you don't really think plumbing would be a better career.

Oh, and if you have 0 social life due to school and you're not even in professional school yet then guess what: YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG! VERY WRONG! Oh and 40K debt and you're not even in pharmacy school yet is way too much. Just ask SHC, the one thing I agree with her on is 200k for pharmacy school is not worth it and 150 isn't either. 130 is the highest I would go and with you already owing 40, I doubt you will be able to keep your pharmacy debt below the point to make the degree worth it so you're doing that wrong too. Maybe you better look into plumber training.

 

[PharmaTope]

One of my friends is a 23 year old plumber who makes $80K per year. He works approximately 5-6 hours per day responding to 3-4 calls. He has his own house, 2 cars, 1 truck, 1 work van, 2 ATV's, a boat (cheapy, but still), and 1 motorcycle. I'm 24, 40K in debt, haven't even been admitted to a professional school, 0 social life do to school / commute / me being me, I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent (which sounds ironic since he is the one that appears to have made the better choice in life, at least as of right now), but don't have a damn thing to claim for myself. Doing it all over again, making sure turds flush appropriately might have been a lucrative, more rewarding path for me too.

see the thing you are missing out on is being a business owner. in pharmacy you will be an EMPLOYEE. as an employee you will get **** on, dumped on, abused etc.... UNLESS THEY CANT FIND SOMEONE TO REPLACE YOU..... like the shortage of pharmacists. they kissed your ass, begged you to work etc. now they are like whatever we got 40 more people waiting to come in here and start working. your friend is smart, he has his own business and his quality of life will be much better than a pharmacist. he isnt standing all day for 12-14 hours in retail. he can say "sorry we gonna have to see your house tomorrow" if he wants. he can dictate more how his day will go unlike pharmacy. plus nobody gonna bitch at him about his name tag, other corporate bull****.

there is a reason why small business owners were happier even though they were not making 100s of thousands of dollars. they were their own boss which made a BIG DIFFERENCE in their life.

 

[UofK]

I get so sick of the plumber/truck driver nonsense from everyone. When people are unhappy in their career all they do is focus on the negative of their job and only the positive of another field. If you truly believed a plumber would be a better career for you, you could easily do that right NOW, but we both know you wont so obviously you don't really think plumbing would be a better career.

Oh, and if you have 0 social life due to school and you're not even in professional school yet then guess what: YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG! VERY WRONG! Oh and 40K debt and you're not even in pharmacy school yet is way too much. Just ask SHC, the one thing I agree with her on is 200k for pharmacy school is not worth it and 150 isn't either. 130 is the highest I would go and with you already owing 40, I doubt you will be able to keep your pharmacy debt below the point to make the degree worth it so you're doing that wrong too. Maybe you better look into plumber training.

Or maybe just spend another year in undergrad, take the MCAT, and get into a D.O. school, but no your attempted insulting scenario seems to be more reasonable thing for me to do .

 

[gotdrugs]

there is a reason why small business owners were happier even though they were not making 100s of thousands of dollars. they were their own boss which made a BIG DIFFERENCE in their life.

I agree. And you should start your own business and stop bitching on here.

The entertainment value of your rants have gone from to 🙄 to

 

[gotdrugs]

I should have been a residential plumber or electrician. One lives near me and it makes me sad when I drive by his truck in his driveway on my way to work on Saturday Mornings

It's not too late. Go be one. Stop whining about being a pharmacist.

 

[owlegrad]

It's not too late. Go be one. Stop whining about being a pharmacist.

I am sorry, but you are way off base here. npage is awesome. 😀👍

 

[Ackj]

see the thing you are missing out on is being a business owner. in pharmacy you will be an EMPLOYEE. as an employee you will get **** on, dumped on,

Wait... I thought the plumbers were the ones who.... nevermind.

 

[MountainPharmD]

I should have been a residential plumber or electrician. One lives near me and it makes me sad when I drive by his truck in his driveway on my way to work on Saturday Mornings

I am with ya! HVAC teck for me.

 

[VCU07]

Wait... I thought the plumbers were the ones who.... nevermind.

I agree, plumbing is the way to go. People are always going to be full of ****. Another thing I would have done, professional pooper scooper. People take better care of their dogs then themselves. Hence the laizyness in picking up the poop. I can come in scoop it up and get paid to do it. Actually, maybe I will dump that into the toilet and let my pluming company then fix it!

 

[Silvermist]

I know some of the comments here are meant to be facetious, but I do think people are glorifying the plumbing profession a bit much. Besides the poo, and the heavy lifting, and the crawling around in mucky crawlspaces, plumbers are one of the highest risk careers for developing asbestos-related illness later in life (because asbestos was used pretty much everywhere in residential and commercial construction until the 1970s, and plumbers often have to disturb floors, walls, pipes where it is located).

Even without the ick factor of the job, that's a pretty major downside 😎

 

[UofK]

I know some of the comments here are meant to be facetious, but I do think people are glorifying the plumbing profession a bit much. Besides the poo, and the heavy lifting, and the crawling around in mucky crawlspaces, plumbers are one of the highest risk careers for developing asbestos-related illness later in life (because asbestos was used pretty much everywhere in residential and commercial construction until the 1970s, and plumbers often have to disturb floors, walls, pipes where it is located).

Even without the ick factor of the job, that's a pretty major downside 😎

My comment was semi facetious as I personally value having a white collar lifestyle (both parents are blue collar and their lives have been difficult), but it is fun playing the hypothetical what if game to see purely from a financial standpoint how any professional would have turned out had they jumped immediately into the workforce out of high school. Doing it again, I still would have gone to school in a heart beat rather than pumping shat through a pipe, or hanging drywall like my dad, or working in a factory like my mom.

 

[clockwork247]

I know some of the comments here are meant to be facetious, but I do think people are glorifying the plumbing profession a bit much. Besides the poo, and the heavy lifting, and the crawling around in mucky crawlspaces, plumbers are one of the highest risk careers for developing asbestos-related illness later in life (because asbestos was used pretty much everywhere in residential and commercial construction until the 1970s, and plumbers often have to disturb floors, walls, pipes where it is located).

Even without the ick factor of the job, that's a pretty major downside 😎

I think most of them after 5-10 years end up owning their own business and just chill... that's what happen to alot of labor job, those guys after a few years own their own business, then hit up an accountant and start ditching taxes like crazy.

But that's not to say that a plumber has a better job, he might make more money but it's still labor intensive.

i wish the best of luck for the new pharmacis that's comming out in the next few years, alot of my friends are in that group, I'm sure it's not that bad.

 

[museabuse]

But that's not to say that a plumber has a better job, he might make more money but it's still labor intensive.

Verifying 320 scripts and giving 10 flu shots in a 12 hour period in a busy retail setting with no other pharmacist working is not labor intensive?

 

[Hello2011]

Verifying 320 scripts and giving 10 flu shots in a 12 hour period in a busy retail setting with no other pharmacist working is not labor intensive?

Try working construction and then tell me how hard pharmacy labor is.

 

[museabuse]

Try working construction and then tell me how hard pharmacy labor is.

15 years pharmacy still doing same crap. 15 years construction you can be the foreman(I think that's the boss). If construction is digging ditches or shuvling asphalt then yes I'd rather do pharmacy. But if I got 120000 to drive a backhoe, I would do that in a second over pharmacy.

My point wasn't standing on your feet running in every direction all day without a break while people are staring and bitching is harder than digging ditches but it IS hard not only physically but mentally.

 

[member111]

so bottom line is it even worth going to pharm school if you are still a prepharm?

 

[Pharmacy Kid]

so bottom line is it even worth going to pharm school if you are still a prepharm?

I never tell people to go into a profession or to not go into a profession. You have to do your own research, categorize your priorities, and then make a sound decision.