Walgreens freezes salary

Started by wagrxm2000
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wagrxm2000

Walgreens enthusiast. Called the peak in Bitcoin.
7+ Year Member
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Not sure if this is nationwide but it sounds like Walgreens is freezing salaries this year. No raise no matter how high your review is. Guess there's no point in giving raises even if it upsets people especially if you can just hire a new grad. Should be official on Monday.
 
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Surprising from a business standpoint --- trying to avoid negative workplace morale --- they went this route than just give a nominal 0.5% raise.

I totally get the fact they don't care about the pharmacists, but, isn't it better to give a nominal raise than avoid a silent "revolt". Even a 1-2% loss of productivity erases the gains of giving no raise.
 
Meanwhile the overall unemployment rate is around 4% which should put upward pressure on wages for the general market.
 
I have techs so butthurt about not getting 25 cents/hr raise for a performance raise but I wonder if pharmacists care all that much. Those rare old pharmacists in chain retail thinking I'ma GTFO soon anyway (if they were smart and saved enough) and new grads or younger pharmacists just taking what they offer

I don't even assume working in retail for 15 years in my retirement calculations
 
Sine Cura said:
I have techs so butthurt about not getting 25 cents/hr raise for a performance raise but I wonder if pharmacists care all that much. Those rare old pharmacists in chain retail thinking I'ma GTFO soon anyway (if they were smart and saved enough) and new grads or younger pharmacists just taking what they offer

I don't even assume working in retail for 15 years in my retirement calculations
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I mean I care a lot because it means that you will flat-line for the rest of your career...which is really sad...but we have no more bargaining power. I have friends working in banking and comp sci and they have literally all surpassed me.
 
wagrxm2000 said:
Not sure if this is nationwide but it sounds like Walgreens is freezing salaries this year. No raise no matter how high your review is. Guess there's no point in giving raises even if it upsets people especially if you can just hireg a new grad. Should be official on Monday.
Click to expand...

This probably has more to do with Amazon than new grads
 
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CetiAlphaFive said:
This probably has to do with Amazon than new grads
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The more I talk to long term customers, the more I believe Amazon will probably take chains down. I've had some customers in their 60s and 70s that I haven't seen in awhile and when I ask where they went, they say unfortunately mail order is just too much cheaper not to switch. Even these customers are leaving for mail order, what's going to happen when they find out Amazon is cheaper then that?

Luckily I'll be retired before all that happens. May even go part time if Amazon has part time at home jobs where they pay pennies for every script you verify.
 
wagrxm2000 said:
The more I talk to long term customers, the more I believe Amazon will probably take chains down. I've had some customers in their 60s and 70s that I haven't seen in awhile and when I ask where they went, they say unfortunately mail order is just too much cheaper not to switch. Even these customers are leaving for mail order, what's going to happen when they find out Amazon is cheaper then that?
Luckily I'll be retired before all that happens. May even go part time if Amazon has part time at home jobs where they pay pennies for every script you verify.
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I agree 100%.

Well, depending on how they do it, I think Independents might benefit.

McKesson and ABC basically have Indies by the nuts and they know it.

Amazon as a whole saler would be incredible.
 
Lnsean said:
I mean I care a lot because it means that you will flat-line for the rest of your career...which is really sad...but we have no more bargaining power. I have friends working in banking and comp sci and they have literally all surpassed me.
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Yet people wonder why I keep telling pre-pharms over and over again to pursue these professions instead.
 
I graduated in 2011 and have been with Walgreens for 6 years now, but I don't ever remember getting a significant raise. I know getting into the field we knew we would start off high and basically flat-line, but no raise at all, even a very small one like a .25cents is pretty sad.
 
wagrxm2000 said:
The more I talk to long term customers, the more I believe Amazon will probably take chains down. I've had some customers in their 60s and 70s that I haven't seen in awhile and when I ask where they went, they say unfortunately mail order is just too much cheaper not to switch. Even these customers are leaving for mail order, what's going to happen when they find out Amazon is cheaper then that?

Luckily I'll be retired before all that happens. May even go part time if Amazon has part time at home jobs where they pay pennies for every script you verify.
Click to expand...
Will Amazon be cheaper though? My insurance is covering the majority of my cost on scripts. It's the same for most of my patients. I think it depends on the insurance copay for scripts filled by Amazon.

I use my insurance company's mail order pharmacy because of price, but I wouldn't use mail order if there wasn't that cost savings. Even with the cost savings, I know a lot of patients that prefer in person fills. I think pharmacists underestimated how intimidating a call to a mail order pharmacy seems to some patients. Even working retail, I sometimes had patients call or come to the counter to ask if I could call their mail order pharmacy for them.
 
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Abby Atwood said:
Will Amazon be cheaper though? My insurance is covering the majority of my cost on scripts. It's the same for most of my patients. I think it depends on the insurance copay for scripts filled by Amazon.

I use my insurance company's mail order pharmacy because of price, but I wouldn't use mail order if there wasn't that cost savings. Even with the cost savings, I know a lot of patients that prefer in person fills. I think pharmacists underestimated how intimidating a call to a mail order pharmacy seems to some patients. Even working retail, I sometimes had patients call or come to the counter to ask if I could call their mail order pharmacy for them.
Click to expand...

I can't imagine how bad calling a mail order pharmacy must be for the patients! Shoot, even when we try to get a hold of a person it seems to be phone tree after phone tree...

But I'm surprised a pharmacist would opt for mail order. I'm fortunate that the cost difference for myself is primarily the convenience factor (birth control and then prn things), even when mail order is cheaper I continue to fill my (admittedly very few) Rx's at a local independent. I can't speak to what I would do if my medication costs were significant.

I want there to still be a pharmacy around the corner when my patients leave the ED with a prescription. I want my friends and classmates to still have jobs at brick & mortar pharmacies.
 
njac said:
I can't imagine how bad calling a mail order pharmacy must be for the patients! Shoot, even when we try to get a hold of a person it seems to be phone tree after phone tree...

But I'm surprised a pharmacist would opt for mail order. I'm fortunate that the cost difference for myself is primarily the convenience factor (birth control and then prn things), even when mail order is cheaper I continue to fill my (admittedly very few) Rx's at a local independent. I can't speak to what I would do if my medication costs were significant.

I want there to still be a pharmacy around the corner when my patients leave the ED with a prescription. I want my friends and classmates to still have jobs at brick & mortar pharmacies.
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Unfortunately, I'm filling insulins. The price difference is pretty substantial 🙂. I'm not sure I could afford the extra cost. I'll probably switch to retail once some of my student loans are paid and I have more disposable income.
 
Abby Atwood said:
Will Amazon be cheaper though? My insurance is covering the majority of my cost on scripts. It's the same for most of my patients. I think it depends on the insurance copay for scripts filled by Amazon.

I use my insurance company's mail order pharmacy because of price, but I wouldn't use mail order if there wasn't that cost savings. Even with the cost savings, I know a lot of patients that prefer in person fills. I think pharmacists underestimated how intimidating a call to a mail order pharmacy seems to some patients. Even working retail, I sometimes had patients call or come to the counter to ask if I could call their mail order pharmacy for them.
Click to expand...

Amazon is going to be the PBM
 
drakegrad2011 said:
I graduated in 2011 and have been with Walgreens for 6 years now, but I don't ever remember getting a significant raise. I know getting into the field we knew we would start off high and basically flat-line, but no raise at all, even a very small one like a .25cents is pretty sad.
Click to expand...

starting high is relative. I would say it's not really that high. a lot of people have residencies, that's 9 to 10 years of non work school/training to start and stay at low 6 figure salary ish is rather low. Dentistry starts same or higher and medicine starts way higher and both of these have so many opportunities throughout career to advance and get higher pay, unlike pharmacy where youre pretty much at a dead end in terms of salary and possibly job since it's so hard to find another one. It's sad.
 
Amazon reimbursement is going to make Humana and Medco look like Santa Claus. The wonderful power that Amazon will have in the pharmacy world is lower salaries for pharmacists. Basically you can either work for Amazon as a retail pharmacist for $60,000 or you can keep working for Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart at your high salary until Amazon drives you into the ground and right into the unemployment line.
 
BenJammin said:
Amazon reimbursement is going to make Humana and Medco look like Santa Claus. The wonderful power that Amazon will have in the pharmacy world is lower salaries for pharmacists. Basically you can either work for Amazon as a retail pharmacist for $60,000 or you can keep working for Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart at your high salary until Amazon drives you into the ground and right into the unemployment line.
Click to expand...

You probably won't even be an Amazon employee, just some 1099 schlub that makes $90,000 a year and has to pay for his own social security and health care.
 
Gombrich12 said:
You probably won't even be an Amazon employee, just some 1099 schlub that makes $90,000 a year and has to pay for his own social security and health care.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

Amazon has two payscales:
1. 98% of the workforce - "Minion" pay. As little as possible with expected turnover. In fact, they actually do cut salaries at an individual level to get rid of personnel (the way that works is that everyone makes a base but almost no one makes exactly that base as they meet performance targets).

2. 2% - "Master" pay. Since everyone in this position absolutely knows that Amazon will make them minions when possible, the ask for for exorbitant rates. Basically a 64 Microsoft employee (more or less equivalent to a busy pharmacy manager) would be placed at $160-180k in Microsoft after bonuses and will demand no less than $220k from Amazon due to the outrageous work culture in Amazon and the promise of no support from your colleagues and the company.

They aren't going to save you, they're going to save the customer, whoever it is going to be. If they do remote employee, they have chosen the lowest localities possible for their pay unless it is impossible to source them. West Virginia, North Dakota, and Montana are probably in their future.
 
npage148 said:
While insulin is pretty stable, denatured/degraded is more immunogenicity and can break native immunity resulting in anti-insulin antibodies
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This is just my memory from back in my P1 year of pharmacy school, but I don't think production of insulin antibodies is strongly associated with insulin resistance. To my knowledge, it's more of a theoretical concern that isn't really borne out by current data. Insulin is shipped from mail order pharmacies in an insulated box with cool packs. Additionally, insulin is good for 28 days at room temperature (per package insert). I don't think anything bad will happen if it warms to room temperature for a few hours. Take what I say with a grain of salt though. In the past, I've used insulin bottles that were opened >6 months ago. I'm not as "per the label" when it comes to my own treatment 🙂
 
It's threads and news announcements like this that make me realize what a smart decision I made to GTFO when I did. I can't believe so many other pharmacy students don't have what it takes to make the same decision, purely on the basis of of various "isms" -- e.g., It's Always Best To Finish What You Started, Think About What Quitting In The Face Of Adversity Says About Your Work Ethic, Imagine How Bad It Would Look To Other Graduate Schools If You Dropped Out, etc. If the best decision to make is sometimes simply the most obvious one, then why do so many people worry about all the other crap? I'll never understand it (well, kinda)
 
PAtoPharm said:
It's threads and news announcements like this that make me realize what a smart decision I made to GTFO when I did. I can't believe so many other pharmacy students don't have what it takes to make the same decision, purely on the basis of of various "isms" -- e.g., It's Always Best To Finish What You Started, Think About What Quitting In The Face Of Adversity Says About Your Work Ethic, Imagine How Bad It Would Look To Other Graduate Schools If You Dropped Out, etc. If the best decision to make is sometimes simply the most obvious one, then why do so many people worry about all the other crap? I'll never understand it (well, kinda)
Click to expand...

Don't you dare come into my thread and take over.
 
PAtoPharm said:
It's threads and news announcements like this that make me realize what a smart decision I made to GTFO when I did. I can't believe so many other pharmacy students don't have what it takes to make the same decision, purely on the basis of of various "isms" -- e.g., It's Always Best To Finish What You Started, Think About What Quitting In The Face Of Adversity Says About Your Work Ethic, Imagine How Bad It Would Look To Other Graduate Schools If You Dropped Out, etc. If the best decision to make is sometimes simply the most obvious one, then why do so many people worry about all the other crap? I'll never understand it (well, kinda)
Click to expand...

I was wondering how long itd take for you to come queefing all over this thread.
 
Express scripts CEO has already said he'd be willing to work with Amazon instead of against them. Sounds like someone doesn't want to go out of business.
 
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wagrxm2000 said:
Express scripts CEO has already said he'd be willing to work with Amazon instead of against them. Sounds like someone doesn't want to go out of business.
Click to expand...

Like ToysRUs, right? Remember when Amazon had the old toy store co-branded with them?

Amazon settles long-standing legal dispute with Toys R Us

Amazon historically never cooperated with competitors in their view of emerging markets. They strictly stick to the three B's of zero-sum competition (Build, Buy, and Burn). If you're not in it for the stockholders (and Amazon seems to not on the same timescales as others), they'll arbitrage the hell of the competitors (buy off the Board and C-suite), then dismantle the company.

That said, for the number of zeroes in what their contracts pay, I love Big Brother? Sometimes, the motivation to work for the competition is to undermine your old workplace.
 
PAtoPharm said:
It's threads and news announcements like this that make me realize what a smart decision I made to GTFO when I did. I can't believe so many other pharmacy students don't have what it takes to make the same decision, purely on the basis of of various "isms" -- e.g., It's Always Best To Finish What You Started, Think About What Quitting In The Face Of Adversity Says About Your Work Ethic, Imagine How Bad It Would Look To Other Graduate Schools If You Dropped Out, etc. If the best decision to make is sometimes simply the most obvious one, then why do so many people worry about all the other crap? I'll never understand it (well, kinda)
Click to expand...

Get off our thread.
 
PharmtoCS said:
Get off our thread.
Click to expand...

Actually, how about while you post the same word-for-word response recommending pre-pharm students to pursue careers other than pharmacy in literally every thread they start, I'll actually take your advice while I still have the opportunity to do so. (sounds like you've already committed too much time/money to pharmacy to be in a position to take your own advice)
 
It'll be interesting to see what happens when Amazon really gets going. I wonder if they will offer competitive / better than market rates to attract pharmacists at first? I could almost see them doing that to poach experienced pharmacists from the big chains, but even in that scenario you will see a race to the bottom. We may get a few years of fierce competition but I think we all know how this ends.

One more reason to enjoy hospital work. You feel slightly more valued for your individual knowledge and skills, and slightly less like a replaceable cog in the machine. Obviously YMMV depending on who you are and the culture of where you work. Personally, I feel more valuable and less easy to replace with every passing year. If nothing else, you need to find someone with similar experience instead of some poor chump fresh out of school with 200k in student loans.
 
PAtoPharm said:
Actually, how about while you post the same word-for-word response recommending pre-pharm students to pursue careers other than pharmacy in literally every thread they start, I'll actually take your advice while I still have the opportunity to do so. (sounds like you've already committed too much time/money to pharmacy to be in a position to take your own advice)
Click to expand...

Then get off the thread?
 
Here we go again with the derailment...

Curious to see how this trend affects starting salaries. Any news there? Wonder when we'll be pushed into PA/NP territory...
 
PAtoPharm said:
Actually, how about while you post the same word-for-word response recommending pre-pharm students to pursue careers other than pharmacy in literally every thread they start, I'll actually take your advice while I still have the opportunity to do so. (sounds like you've already committed too much time/money to pharmacy to be in a position to take your own advice)
Click to expand...

I'll say this again.

get-off-my-thread.jpg
 
@stoichiometrist @Sine Cura Just keep the discussion going. At this point, watching the pharmacy profession continue to spiral downward is simply a form of passive entertainment for me to engage in. I'm just here to follow along and see where the eventual end point will be. Carry on.
 
owlegrad said:
The thread is about salaries freezing. How is it derailing to talk about perusing another field? If someone is bothering you, use the ignore function. And don't reply to them.
Click to expand...

Or just ban him because he provides no value to the forum. I didn't realize this guy's 50th self masturbatory post about how glad he is to leave the pharmacy field has any fruitful bearing on the pharmacy threads and its discussions amongst current practitioners. In his post above he freely admits he is simply trolling for his own entertainment.
 
Wickett said:
Or just ban him because he provides no value to the forum. I didn't realize this guy's 50th self masturbatory post about how glad he is to leave the pharmacy field has any fruitful bearing on the pharmacy threads and its discussions amongst current practitioners. In his post above he freely admits he is simply trolling for his own entertainment.
Click to expand...
I agree that his posts don't add anything, but ignoring may be a better option than banning. To be fair, my last post on this thread was more off topic than his post. Also, he has definitely toned it down. I can't help but appreciate that. I don't want someone to be banned just when they're showing growth.
 
Abby Atwood said:
I agree that his posts don't add anything, but ignoring may be a better option than banning. To be fair, my last post on this thread was more off topic than his post. Also, he has definitely toned it down. I can't help but appreciate that. I don't want someone to be banned just when they're showing growth.
Click to expand...

The guy is no longer in pharmacy...there's no point in him popping up on the pharmacy forums to chime in anymore. And I'm not saying you have to always post exactly on topic, but at this point he is the equivalent to a spam bot blasting a link to a random website....it's the same crap over and over.

There's no point to it here and it isn't productive at all. I also don't see how openly mocking another poster on here and freely stating he is here simply to troll as his own personal entertainment shows growth.
 
His comments, while annoying, are no more repetitive than others here. We all get it. Pa to pharm is super pumped that he got out of pharmacy and stoichiometrist thinks you should choose another career, perhaps accounting or computer programming where you don't have to waste 4 more years and $200,000.
 
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Regardless of what happens, I'm very interested to see what happens to pharmacy as a profession.

Maybe I'll finally be forced to become a chef before I get too old to do crazy things

Wickett said:
Or just ban him because he provides no value to the forum. I didn't realize this guy's 50th self masturbatory post about how glad he is to leave the pharmacy field has any fruitful bearing on the pharmacy threads and its discussions amongst current practitioners. In his post above he freely admits he is simply trolling for his own entertainment.
Click to expand...

I don't know...
I get a bit of schadenfreude watching PAtoPharm continually bounce to his next big thing.

It's like that guy in high school who swore he'd be the next rock star.
15 years later and he's still doing Monday night gigs at a bar, but posting on Facebook about how he's in talks with record labels.
 
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wagrxm2000 said:
Not sure if this is nationwide but it sounds like Walgreens is freezing salaries this year. No raise no matter how high your review is. Guess there's no point in giving raises even if it upsets people especially if you can just hire a new grad. Should be official on Monday.
Click to expand...

what % raise has WG been doing previous? WM ranges from 2-6 on performance.....

Sine Cura said:
I don't even assume working in retail for 15 years in my retirement calculations
Click to expand...

how much $ and rate of return are you expecting
 
quickpic007 said:
what % raise has WG been doing previous? WM ranges from 2-6 on performance.....



how much $ and rate of return are you expecting
Click to expand...

I think the two ranges were suppose to be 1% and 1.7% this year but I honestly don't remember the exact numbers.

Most advisors will quote 7 to 8% however I wouldn't go higher then 5% return just to be on the safe side plus you will most likely go through at least two crashes during retirement.
 
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