Foment your hatred of the evil empire and wage corporate warfare. Remove this forsaken stain from human existence. Live free or like a slave. I know which one I choose.
tired of retail... how do i get out?
- Thread starter vardenafil
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ok, dont know where you live, but here is a great suggestion--- find a closed-door, home infussion pharmacy or similar and walk in. ask for any prn work they got. if you have to drive 30mins to work at a place like that for prn work, so what, it will start to add up. pretty soon, you will get used to the ropes of actual IV compounding, etc... maybe that will get your foot in the door. you could take a few dollar cut and find an independant pharmacy to work for. sure the benefits suck, but the ones i have worked and currently work for have a heart. plus you wont have the feelings of commiting mass murder... well... maybe not as much....
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I'm wanted to ask this question and I wasn't sure if its threadworthy or not, but is working retail pharmacy comparable to working at a fast food restaurant? I mean, everyone I know who has worked at a fast food place hates it and bashes on it constantly...and from what I've been reading on this forum it seems like the same case for retail pharmacy. Can anyone give a little insight?
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fast food joints only dispense a handful of items on the menu and dont have to deal with insurance.
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so are you saying working at a fast food place would be better than retail pharmacy?
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i worked at popeyes chicken in high school. that was fun. i worked retail pharmacy 8 days. that wasnt fun at all.
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About the same actually.....
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I worked at Pizza Hut....that was a cool job. I made $3.35 an hour. Woo Hoo!!!
I have worked retail for 6 years and it isn't fun at all.....
To the OP. I think you need to just bite the bullet and do a residency. Its only a year, and maybe your kids wont get as much stuff as they're used to, but they'll have a happier more fulfilled mother. You can defer your student loan for those 12 months too. The year will come to pass in the blink if an eye, and when it does you can either be where you are right now, or have completed a residency and be on the brink of a new fulfilling career. Don't throw your life away on something you hate just for the sake of a few bucks.
As for whether retail pharmacy is like a fast food chain. I'd say its actually worse, but at least you get paid more. I did it for 8 months (at a chain) and could never go back to it. It's a horrible job and I didn't go to school for 8 years to be a bean counter and be disrespected by overweight lazy *****s yelling at me through the drive thru window.
As for whether retail pharmacy is like a fast food chain. I'd say its actually worse, but at least you get paid more. I did it for 8 months (at a chain) and could never go back to it. It's a horrible job and I didn't go to school for 8 years to be a bean counter and be disrespected by overweight lazy *****s yelling at me through the drive thru window.
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Dude Pizza Hut is where all the hot girls were! Popeyes? Please, who eats at Popeyes?
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That's the difference between you and me. You had to chase after hot girls even resorting to working at places where they were..and have them be forced to be around you... I didn't need to do that..
btw, I love popeyes... even knew the owner's kids as they lived down the road from me.. at the end of Transcontiental in Metairie, LA. I still eat it bout once a month...
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Y'all disappear for months...then just think you can waltz back in...
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Wow it must be old home week. Where have you been...or should I ask where haven't you been!
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So you don't like hot girls?
This very much, but my pharmacy has three chairs and no one cares if you sit as long as you're doing your job.
And I'm only a third year student, but if you hate standing, a hospital job may be out? The staff at the place I rotated at stood all the time. It wasn't even a busy hospital.
I think one of the biggest reasons it sucks is because after six years, you shut your brain off; no more questions about G+ or G- or wide spectrum antibiotics, you just say yes doctor and take the verbal script. Whenever I have questions for my pharmacists, the answer is met with half hearted replies with "let's take it down to retail level".
Ex: Victoza comes out. I read that it is a glucagon like peptide receptor agonist that stimulates insulin release. I do a double take. After a few minutes of going huh? what? with my pharmacist and debating on what the MOA is, it's "down to retail action - helps control your blood sugar".
Pharmacist and chain specific of course...
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I have been in that exact situation. The pharmacists try to humor me and sometimes they are interested in the answer but when it comes down to it, they do not care because they feel they will never use it in retail.
Why do they care about adjusting for renal function, when is the last time a script came to a retail pharmacy with a CHEM7 attached....
I have had the chance to make all sorts of interventions and expand my learning at sites where I had access to the whole patient profile but in retail, you are in the dark and I hate it! We can make sure they have a followup appt. for labs but that is about it.
I do enjoy some good ole fashion OTC counseling though...party on.
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That post made me sad.
Was it something I did?
It's also when I asked about oxybutynin, I never connected anti-cholinergic (or was it muscarinic, now look at me, getting Enablex and all these confused) with bladder convulsions so I was really confused, but we can all guess what happened.
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Well, it's not just to retail patients. Even in hospitals, you don't really need to go too far in depth.
Just earlier this week, my preceptor and I were rounding in the CCU when the issue of missing ulcer prophylaxis came up. The resident naturally said he'll start nexium, at which the attending started to educate him that this an open heart surgery patient who is on plavix. The attending is a pulmonaoloigist who knew vaguely of the drug interaction, but turned to us for info. I explained that it's via CYP2C19 inhibition and plavix is a prodrug that needs activation. That's when he laugh laughed and said "explained like pharmacists, we just kind of know it involves a P450 enzyme and decrease effect."
The hint being that he doesn't need to know the specifics, and the residents won't remember some exact P450 enzyme or which ones are prodrugs. And if the physicians don't need that kind of detailed info, nurses certainly won't. But truly, dumbing it down is not bad. All that info is meaningless if they can't remember or understand it.
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I bet only 5% or less of practicing pharms can name off the exact enzyme involved with that interaction off the top of their head, just sayin.....
I just graduated from pharmacy school and been dong retail since I graduated in May. I only have 3 months of intern hospital experience when I was a P1. Is it too late for me to switch over to hospital? It seems as though all the job postings for hospital require minimum 1 year hospital experience.
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LOL!! i know this thread is a lil old.. and no i didn't read all of it.. but damn son..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1e7BSdw7vI
Awesome band by the way!! but there is a time and place for everything
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So...you're a resident now?
I absolutely do not understand this way of thinking. WHO CARES if the personnel are standing or sitting, as long as the job gets done?
I also know of 4 cities where EVERY CVS experienced 100% turnover when they bought out Osco. A main reason was because they were not grandfathered in regarding seniority, and even had to wait for insurnace and 401(k) benefits as if they were brand new employees. Some of the people had obligations like kids in college or disabled spouses, and they weren't that desperate for a job.
A woman I know used to be an assistant manager at Steak & Shake, and she said, "How do you know so much about fast food? I thought you were a pharmacist." I replied, "I am, but I haven't always been, and the jobs are not as different as you might think."
Actually, they're really wanting new graduates with PGY1 experience. I asked someone just last week if it was because a lesser experienced pharmacist can be paid less, and she said it wasn't but I'm not totally convinced.
C'mon, I would rather have a clinical person with 20 years of experience over someone with 7 years of book learning, but then again, a younger person/new graduate is easier to manipulate and potentially abuse.
If you want to own your own business (home infusion, retail, etc.) it would be, and most large hospitals require it for directors.
I once worked at a 24-hour Hy-Vee store (midwestern grocery chain) and their satellite music service had over 100 channels, and sometimes the overnight crew would turn on hard rock, rap, or progressive. The middle one especially got lots of complaints from customers, and one time the hard rock channel played that Ted Nugent song where he screamed "If you came here to be mellow, you can just turn around and get the #$%^ out of here!"
Another time, someone changed the channel to country gospel and also accidentally bumped the volume, and trust me, Anne Murray doesn't sound very good at volume 11.I once opened the pharmacy at 7:55am to this. I've never taken acid, but it almost made me want to, and that channel also had the 17-minute version of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EeIWKTthOw
Actually, they're really wanting new graduates with PGY1 experience. I asked someone just last week if it was because a lesser experienced pharmacist can be paid less, and she said it wasn't but I'm not totally convinced.
C'mon, I would rather have a clinical person with 20 years of experience over someone with 7 years of book learning, but then again, a younger person/new graduate is easier to manipulate and potentially abuse.
Don't know about hospitals but I do know of one very large retail chain that is systematically getting rid of all the pharms with years of service. Writing them up for anything stupid they can find. replacing them with grads that get paid less per hour. Grads hate it and moral goes to the bottom but its about money. Seeing a bunch of friends getting the ax and stressed out trying to hold on to support their families.
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many options here..however, with 3 kids and student loan(s) you know what your priorities are and retail pays the most. If you seek educational advancement to get out, it will add more stress to you financially and take more time out of family time. Suck it up, "burnout yourself" and not the kids, your spouse and the family $$$ account. Retail is tough, but only the tough can manage it...be focused here.
Perhaps an agency like RXrelief that does temp/per diem staffing would provide a way to get hospital experience. At least something to put on a resume anyway.
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LOL How wrong you are.
Hello, I hear ya. In order to change your career, you are going to have to be more flexible with yourself. I suggest relocating to a hospital pharmacy which you will love and be there for a while.
The other option is to go back to school and work part time in retail. The money you get from working part-time in retail should be enough to support you through your school, etc.
Once you have your other degree then you can think about a career change. Like an MBA will probably allow you to get jobs in other fields but you should expect not to make the 100K that you are making. HOWEVER, the good news is that you will still have your license and with so many burned out retail pharmacists, you will probably be still able to work and pick your own hours to compliment your new job. It will take time before you can make the 100K as a pharmacist but its worthiness is entirely up to you.
Sources: my own personal experience working in retail for 2 years and went back to get an MBA
The other option is to go back to school and work part time in retail. The money you get from working part-time in retail should be enough to support you through your school, etc.
Once you have your other degree then you can think about a career change. Like an MBA will probably allow you to get jobs in other fields but you should expect not to make the 100K that you are making. HOWEVER, the good news is that you will still have your license and with so many burned out retail pharmacists, you will probably be still able to work and pick your own hours to compliment your new job. It will take time before you can make the 100K as a pharmacist but its worthiness is entirely up to you.
Sources: my own personal experience working in retail for 2 years and went back to get an MBA
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Any job that's not fully staffing that I see now requires a residency or experience in a similar position (but residency preferred), so it's not really wrong. I am not arguing the usefulness of doing a residency, just saying that employers like people with residencies.
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It's like working at a burger king where your customers expect their credit card to be on file because they went to taco bell last week.
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Exactly. Or they wonder why their hamburger cost $2.50 when they had a taco at Taco Bell last week that cost a $1.25. Or they do not understand why their hamburger costs $2.50 when 10 years ago they got it for $1.00. Or better yet they go to pay for their hamburger and their credit card doesn't work. They stand there and demand you call the credit card company and find out why it isn't working because they need their hamburger and will stave to death right there if they do not get it.
What chain is it? You can PM me if you don't want to post it here.
I have been unemployed since March because I was given the heave-ho to make room for the son of one of the hospital big shots, and seriously believe I will never work as a pharmacist again.
I refuse to do retail, and far too many hospitals are now requiring their pharmacists to have a Pharm.D. and at least 1 year of PGY fellowship or residency. You just know they're doing this so they can pay them less than someone with, say, 20 years of experience, and they can d1ck them around in ways that they can't to people with more life experience.
