PHARMACIST STEVE

Enough Said !

2 Responses

1. 

   Peon, on February 19, 2013 at 1:33 pm said:

   To Maggiepie, I am a pharmacist. I have been fortunate to have worked for a few pharmacy managers that did not care about the bonus. It certainly makes a huge difference to work for these type pharmacy managers. They don’t give a dip about all the corporate metrics. I had one that just threw all those metric printouts in the garbage. These corporations have lost sight of the single purpose of our job and that is to fill prescriptions and fill them correctly. They have wondered off into an “Alice in Wonderland’ fairy tale that is completely unrelated to real pharmacy operations. They keep expanding into more and more things that do not relate to the core job. They are having us phone customers and ‘pester’ them about refills. When did this ever become the responsibility of the pharmacy? If people want their prescriptions filled, they can call the pharmacy. We don’t have to phone them. The corporations are doing this under the ‘guise’ of patient compliance. We all know it has nothing to do with patient compliance. It is an effort to squeeze ever last dollar out of the customer.

   More to your situation…I once worked for a pharmacy manager that was a ‘skin flint’ and concerned about his bonus. I kept trying to get him to order me a smock. I mean something like $10. He would not order it, so I ordered it. He got so made at me that we began exchanging words and before the end of our argument, I told him to get himself another pharmacist. And, it was all over a $10 smock. When he first started talking to me about it, I thought he was joking. But, he was not. He was mad that I ordered it.

   These corporations have gone ‘stupid’. They are just plain ‘nuts’. I cannot imagine pharmacists making a lot of these decisions. It must be ‘bean counters’. I cannot imagine pharmacists thinking up all this crap. They think they can constantly measure and tweak pharmacy. They are so removed from the real world of pharmacy where we work that they might as well be from another planet. I think that in the long run they are ‘shooting themselves in the foot’ and all this crap will come back to haunt them. But, for now, they think this metrics and crap is the greatest thing in the world and I see no current end in sight. It makes our jobs a lot more difficult than they should be. Instead of helping us to do our job, these corporations throw up problems and barriers for us at every turn. At the rate they are going, I am wondering if we will be able to practice pharmacy in the future because of all this crap. Some of these chains are throwing so much crap at the pharmacists/techs that it is becoming more and more difficult to have time to fill prescriptions and take care of customers. Will we reach a point where we don’t have time to fill prescriptions?

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2. 

   Maggiepie, on February 17, 2013 at 7:09 pm said:

   As an experienced technician, when I first started working for a large drug chain, I was stunned by the amount of bullshit I had to wade through. (After 5+ years, I am still numbed by the corporate BS.) My first corporate pharmacist constantly chastised me, always saying that it was going to affect his bonus. (Never mind this was a new state and new rx processing system for me) I finally told him that unless he was sharing his bonus with me….I didn’t give a rat’s ass. My goal is and always has been to deliver the rx correctly.
   PS: Management is a joke.

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