I received this email today from a former PIC with GUESS WHO !

Document everything – but 1 person’s word against a company ?

As a former  PIC, I had to have back surgery in xxxxx. I returned to work in xxxxxx with some restrictions  (no lifting of >20 lbs., a chair to allow me to sit down for 10-15 minutes every 2 hours). After 2 months, I was working full time, but still needed to sit down occasionally (on a stool that I had to provide). Six months after surgery, my back pain began to increase, and I asked to step down as PIC and reduce my hours to 30 hours per week. Five days later I was discharged without any verbal or written reason other than I was an “at will employee, and could be discharged for any reason or no reason at all”. Two months after my firing (ie, “discharge”), I was diagnosed with kidney cancer (the cause of the increased back pain), and 6 months later had my left kidney removed.

Why am I telling you this? Because the stool that I brought into the pharmacy had become a major point of contention between the store manager (non-RPh), the pharmacy district manager,and my Doctor and myself. The store manager became so irritated that I was “sitting down on the job” that my staffing was cut (“because I had time to sit around”) and I was monitored and timed as to my use of the stool, and told such sitting constituted break time, even though I was always at the final rx check station working when I did sit down.

After 30 years as a pharmacist, I am tired of fighting to be treated as a health care professional. Between Boards of pharmacy “protecting the public” and not supporting the profession, and drug chains squeezing the marrow out of our bones, it has become impossible to practice pharmacy as it was intended, at least in the chain store setting. The impossibility of satisfying the BOP and the Employer at the same time has become a vise, squeezing us from above and below. Do as your employer tells you or lose your job, but the BOP fines you or reprimands you for not practicing as a pharmacist as they require, in direct conflict with your employer’s demands. It has become impossible to navigate between these two forces.

While it may be one person’s word against a corporation.. it is when those in  “the village”  have collected and share documentation.. that shows a pattern of something.. legal .. illegal.. questionable… unethical… unprofessional… that it becomes impossible to refute by the corporation in a court of law.

In this particular situation.. you will notice that the corporation seemingly IGNORED the requirements of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA).. but was more than willing to fully take advantage of the law of  “employment at will”… and hopes that the former employee is ignorant, naive of the laws on the books that protects them… or too “beaten down” to take action against the illegal actions of his/her former employer.

You may never need the documentation that you amass… but odds are someone working for your employer will.. and that someone may be YOU !

Filed under: General Problems