The Pharmacy Alliance ( www.thepharmacyalliance.com) got this email today.. you be the judge.. if you are a student, early in your Pharmacy studies or someone in high school thinking about going to pharmacy school.. BEST ADVICE… turn your educational goals 180 degrees and RUN LIKE HELL ! If you don’t .. your 40 year working career… could probably be A LIVING HELL !
I am not a pharmacist, but have been married to one for 40 years. I read your emails that come to a shared In-box with my husband. My husband has worked in many retail pharmacies (chain and independent), hospitals and nursing homes. He changed jobs many times searching for an employee who would trade hard work, perfect attendance and exemplary conduct towards customers and coworkers for a fair salary, health benefits, vacation/sick time, a retirement program, and fair work conditions.
Thank you for FINALLY pointing out what I have been saying for more than 35 years! My father, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins and more worked for General Motors. As my husband points out to me, I was raised on the GM “teat”. They had a union. In an 8 hour work day, they got 2 breaks, a lunch HOUR, and if they worked over 40 hours a week, they received overtime pay. Most had assembly line jobs. If they got tired of standing, they got a stool to sit on. In later years, these were even required to be ergonomic! When they would complain about having to pay a $2 co-pay for a prescription, I pointed out to them that they ALL made more money than my husband did, who went to college for 5 years AND is required to stay current on his education by completing continuing education hours on his own time. NO on-the-job training that he gets PAID to complete like they did. His first employer after college carried a $1 million dollar malpractice insurance policy on him in case he gave someone the wrong medicine. (I’m sure he would have been fired if the policy had been used and his license revoked.) Did they have to worry about making a mistake that might cause death, illness, unwanted pregnancies. Even if they did, they were not held PERSONALLY accountable. Family members and friends who served time in military service were also allowed to count the time serving our country toward their seniority and retirement from GM. Many of our high school classmates who worked for GM or had spouses who did are already retired and have had the resources to travel extensively 2-3 times a year. Most live in nice homes that are already paid for. I know many stories about GM employees who would clock-in, work an hour, walk out of the plant to the bar(s) located close by and spend the rest of the shift playing cards, drinking beer, then walking back into the plant to clock out and go home.
You already know the conditions my husband has been working in for almost 37 years. I don’t need to give you a laundry list of complaints. I don’t think it would be fair to let professional pharmacists get by with the ridiculous work ethics of most (not all) UAW members of not-so-distant past, but I also don’t think ANYONE should be required to work in the conditions our PROFESSIONALLY TRAINED health care providers (this includes pharmacists, doctors, nurses, lab techs, etc.) have to work under now. Hospital staff has been cut to less than minimum due to budget cuts. My husband’s schedule is so random that I gave up on having a regular meal time to sit down together years ago. His salary is good, but gone are the days when we can stay ahead or work towards having enough extra to have vacations like our contemporaries do. They go on cruises in the Bahamas. We drive to East Coast to visit our grand-baby there. My husband turns 60 this year. He walks with a limp. His right leg is numb and he needs a knee replacement. (Years of standing behind the script counter.) He has high blood pressure. He gets a half hour lunch break during an 8.5 hour shift (no pay for lunch breaks). He trains pharmacy student ex-terns (or is it interns now) and DOES NOT receive a penny from the university that these students pay FULL tuition to. We have lived a good life, but at a time when others our age are enjoying their “golden years”, he still has to work like a mule. We are saving more than ever now to try to keep our children from having to take us in when we’re older.
I could keep going, but won’t. Thank you Pharmacy Alliance for finally getting a voice and doing something about the unfair AND DANGEROUS job conditions our pharmacists work under.
Filed under: General Problems
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