Your Friendly Neighborhood Pharm. Tech.

"I thought it was free because of ObamaCare"

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When It’s Pay Day and Tax Return Day and Half the Techs Call Off...

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When no one wants to work and there's too much to do but you don't need them anyway because you do the work of 3 people

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Is there any material that you would suggest to someone studying for the PTCB? Or ant suggestions on how to study for it?

Only material I used to study was Mosby's Review. It's fantastic because it breaks down all the material in sections so it doesn't feel like you're getting a bunch of facts thrown at you at once. It comes with a pretest (which is great, because it shows you what you know and what you don't know, further directing you on what areas you need to focus on more than others), information, then practice tests. This was really all I needed.Only thing I would particularly recommend is studying up on hospital and compounding-specific areas. I did study them but didn't think it would be the majority of my exam (of course everyone's exam will be different, but I would just prepare for the worst).

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When You No Longer Have to Hustle and Convince Patients to Get Their Flu Shots

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When I Finally Get to Shop for Medical Scrubs

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I Survived Retail Pharmacy? And Didn’t Kill Anyone in the Process?!

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Sudden feeling that you work at a Kroger's pharmacy?

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…. You were correct!

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When the Newest New Hire Walks Out After ONE Day of Work

Not after a year. Not after a month.

Not even after a week.

ONE day. She walked out in the middle of day two.

I swear, my manager just hires anyone off the street.

Thank the pharmacy gods I’m almost out of here, because this place is becoming a HOT MESS.

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Leaving Retail: Part Three

As stated in my previous post, I have found the light at the end of the tunnel and am currently transitioning out of retail and into hospital pharmacy. In many cases that I’ve witnessed, I listen to retail pharmacy technicians say that they don’t want to do retail anymore, and are going to leave… 98% of them are still there in the same pharmacy, 10 to 20 years later (which I can understand; if you’ve already invested that much time, you may feel like you should just stick it out). I was beginning to be one of those people, but there was a great opportunity that I just knew was for me, and I couldn’t handle the thought of someone else having what I wanted. So I shot my shot, and it was so worth it. Shooters shoot. I’ve received a couple of questions asking about what really made me want to move on, where did I go, so on and so forth. Since I’m on staycation for a while (using up time before I go on to my new job), I figured I’d go ahead and answer those questions now.

What Made Me Leave: Business/Operational Reasoning

Being a lead technician really opened my eye and made me see that 1) the job title itself is not worth it, and 2) we are doing a little too much to just be a retail pharmacy.

I would not recommend becoming a lead technician in retail (chain, specifically) unless you are planning on being with your company long term, have already put in a lot of time with your company, or just really, REALLY love retail pharmacy. When I took the position, I had intentions on staying with the company I work for, but after four months of having the job I thought, “This is for the birds.”

I feel that retail technicians, in general, do not get paid enough for what the job entails, but lead technicians are no where near compensated enough. If the job ONLY consisted of writing schedules and doing initial new-hire training, then I’d say yes, it’s acceptable. But I, personally, deal with a little too much: manage inventory (especially when you come to a store that’s -$50k and you’ve spent the last year finding it all), write schedule, find coverage when you’re short or when someone calls off, train new hires on their jobs, train techs that have been there for 15 years on how to do their jobs correctly, put up with attitudes from techs when something doesn’t go their way, do all the drug orders every day, do supply orders, be a disciplinarian, DEA inventories at 4 AM, take all customer complaints, borderline force your staff to persuade people to get flu and non-flu vaccines, force your staff to raise money for health organizations (at least it’s for a good cause but sometimes it just doesn’t feel genuine), bill as many MTM/Mirixa claims as robotically possible, and work through reports (TIP report, overstock report, contact manager report, etc.) all while still doing your regular technician duties (customer service, data entry, product dispensing), having a manager that is a jerk (I’m trying to use nice words here) towards you but avoids confrontation like the plague and won’t back you up on major issues, and having a corporate office tell you every week that your pharmacy isn’t doing enough and that you need to do MORE, MORE, MORE with less tech hours.

As a retail pharmacy, we’re doing too much, in the sense that it feels more like a clinic than a pharmacy. We’re doing our regular pharmacy duties, but let’s tack on billing an astronomical dollar amount of OutcomesMTM (by harassing patients to get more prescriptions from their prescribers, do medication reviews, and hold their hands to make sure they take their medication every day... we’ll call it “adherence”) and Mirixa claims, Everyday Vaccines, and Flu Vaccines without casually walking by people and sticking them with needles. Running flu shot clinics, healthcare screenings... I could go on and on, but it’s just “extra”. Techs should be getting paid more just for dealing with all of that. I’m not saying that I don’t care about patients’ health by any means, but we’re just doing the most.

With all of this being put on the staff, the patient-provider interaction doesn’t feel as honest and intimate as it used to. In one transaction, this is how interaction with patients goes (this is during the busiest time of the year):

“Do you have any questions for the pharmacist?” “Are you up to date on your TDAP and pneumonia vaccines?” “So, you’re at the age of 50 (or older). Have you had your Zostavax vaccine?” “Have you had your flu shot this year?” “Since we’re at it, would you like to donate to the _____ Association?” “You haven't been getting your atorvastatin filled regularly, your insurance wants to know why?” “Do you have time to talk with the pharmacist and go over all your medications?”

tl;dr: There’s just way too much going on to function efficiently and to better serve our patients. There’s too much put on the staff with not enough help to do it all. There’s certainly too much put on lead technicians with not enough pay (granted, there are some techs that I have worked/do work with that get paid way too much to basically just show up, but they’ve been with the company for years). It doesn’t feel like pharmacy. The relationships I have with my patients doesn’t feel whole, and I don’t feel totally great about being stripped of being forthcoming and open with my patients.

This, in combination with the last two posts, made me realize that this is not where I want to spend the rest of my working life. I feel no regrets about throwing in the towel.

[hydroxychloroqueen]

Leaving Retail: Part Two

As stated in my previous post, I have found the light at the end of the tunnel and am currently transitioning out of retail and into hospital pharmacy. In many cases that I’ve witnessed, I listen to retail pharmacy technicians say that they don’t want to do retail anymore, and are going to leave… 98% of them are still there in the same pharmacy, 10 to 20 years later (which I can understand; if you’ve already invested that much time, you may feel like you should just stick it out). I was beginning to be one of those people, but there was a great opportunity that I just knew was for me, and I couldn’t handle the thought of someone else having what I wanted. So I shot my shot, and it was so worth it. Shooters shoot. I’ve received a couple of questions asking about what really made me want to move on, where did I go, so on and so forth. Since I’m on staycation for a while (using up time before I go on to my new job), I figured I’d go ahead and answer those questions now.

What Made Me Leave: Personal Reasoning

As y’all have gathered, the environment at my first location (was there for 3 years) made me feel like a mad woman by the end. At the beginning, it was fine and I loved it and the people I worked with. But, as time went on, I began to dislike it more and more. There was a tech that was so hateful to me, yet became obsessed with me, to the point that she would stalk me outside of work (wait for me to get off work, and stalked me online. Creepy). The favoritism my manager was showing to other technicians was so blatantly obvious, and I wasn’t okay with it, but I still treated them with respect and kindness. She knew I wasn’t, so she then began to target me. Any time I made a mistake (not threatening to the patient, but something silly like me making a spelling error), she would get loud and angry with me and put me on display in front of my coworkers. Or, she would give me a “project”, usually organizing an area of the pharmacy, but would be very vague with how she wanted it done. So I would reorganize things the most sensible way I could come up with, and she would wait until I’m done to complain about it. Then she’d have one of her favorites redo it, but she would give them specific instructions.

My manager was also going through some things with her family, and she felt some type of way (angry), so she came to work and took her anger out on me. I understand that everyone has a breaking point, and some people just cannot leave their problems at the door, but I couldn’t even say hi to her without her thinking I was being sarcastic for whatever reason. As a result, I was on the defense and walking on eggshells daily. Somehow, she turned it around and made it seem like I was the one making her feel like she was walking on eggshells. In a roundabout way, she told me that I was unstable by saying “You change your mood at the drop of a hat!” It all felt like one cluster of a mind game and I didn’t want to participate anymore, so when I told her I was looking for somewhere else to go, she was shocked and didn’t understand why.

When I applied for a lead tech position, there is a required portion that your current manager has to fill out stating why they think you’d be a good fit for the position. She was so petty that she didn’t fill it out (she claimed she would take care of it but instead decided to just not do it) just so that I wouldn’t get the job. When she got the notice that I was offered and accepted the position, she was pissed. Off I went!

I got to my new location in my new position, and most of techs were even more hateful than the first bunch. Two of which, the worst of them all, applied for the same position and they were turned down. Understandably, they weren't happy to see me, but I kept up with the “you catch more flies with honey” mentality until they either became more receptive or just left. One stayed and got a little better, the other went off and did something else with the company. Dealing with one was better than two. The one that stayed is a nightmare. She’s double my age, yet acts half my age, is practically half my height, and gets away with pulling the craziest shit. And my current manager, who has to be three times her height, is TERRIFIED of her. She blamed me for things that happened that I wasn’t even present for, she cussed out another technician (every other word was a derivative of “fuck”) so loudly that if a customer was around, they’d be mortified, and just terrorizes everyone by saying “I get along with everyone except _____ because they (insert something she claims they did even though they didn’t do anything).” And it’s always someone new. I’m thoroughly convinced she has a wheel with all of our names on it and spins it, and whatever name the needle lands on, that’s who she’s fucking with for the week. No matter how many times anyone has gone to my manager about her, he won’t do anything about it. She’s so selfish that she’ll go to that person and apologize, but she just apologize just for the sake of clearing her own conscience and doesn't even consider how the other person feels. When she cussed out the tech that hadn’t even worked there for two weeks and left her bawling at a computer, that’s when I knew that I couldn’t take dealing with crazy bitches and a scared-af manager, so when my manager came in about an hour after that girl pulled that stunt, I went to him and said “I cannot take it anymore. I’m moving on.”

Pay and crazy people were motivators for me to start job searching, but I’d say the number one thing that’s in jeopardy while working retail is my health. I have an autoimmune disease, and it flares when I’m exposed to different environments, whether it by physical or mental. I was stressed out at my old location, but this brought on more than what I bargained for. I can’t get out of bed most mornings because my joints lock up, and the stress has brought on so much anxiety that I itch. I break out in hives all over my spine, torso, and down my arms; I scratch so hard that I break skin. The stress keeps me up at night -- I’m up most nights until 1 AM because either my mind is going a mile a minute, or I’m crying (occasionally). I’m not much of a cryer unless I’m at my wit’s end and overwhelmed with stress. As you get older, you get more in touch with yourself and your emotions. I’ve learned that if I’m scratching until I bleed, and definitely if I’ve reached the point of tears, it’s time to eliminate the stress.

Part three, up next!

[hydroxychloroqueen]

Leaving Retail: Part One

As stated in my previous post, I have found the light at the end of the tunnel and am currently transitioning out of retail and into hospital pharmacy. In many cases that I’ve witnessed, I listen to retail pharmacy technicians say that they don’t want to do retail anymore, and are going to leave... 98% of them are still there in the same pharmacy, 10 to 20 years later (which I can understand; if you’ve already invested that much time, you may feel like you should just stick it out). I was beginning to be one of those people, but there was a great opportunity that I just knew was for me, and I couldn’t handle the thought of someone else having what I wanted. So I shot my shot, and it was so worth it. Shooters shoot. I’ve received a couple of questions asking about what really made me want to move on, where did I go, so on and so forth. Since I’m on staycation for a while (using up time before I go on to my new job), I figured I’d go ahead and answer those questions now.

What Made Me Leave: Financial Reasoning

Aside from “This is for the birds,” I had/have a lot of personal frustration with my workplace. I work for a pharmacy that is a part of a rather large retailing company -- third-largest retailer in the world. Now, with that being said, you’d think with its revenue and borderline-monopolistic characteristics, it'd be able to pay its employees a reasonable amount (especially in a department where we handle sensitive information and patients’ lives). Wrong. They spend money on unnecessary t-shirts and other obnoxious garb (festive chef hats and aprons for other departments to wear for not even a month), when they could be paying their employees better.

From what I’ve heard from my other retail pharmacy tech friends, the compensation here is a little better than what they’re working with. And when I started there over four years ago, it seemed okay: you started at $8.30/hr (in my state, at that time, it was 65 cents above minimum wage, and me being only a year into the work force and working at a shitty big-box pet store, I was like HELL YEAH), and once you pass your next two “phase” tests (which you have six months to complete or you’re terminated), you get a total raise of $1.75. So in 6 months, you’re making $10.05/hr. Which isn’t the worst.

As time goes on, you do get raises. Each year, you get a raise, based on your performance review. And there are two more “phase” training programs and tests you can do to make more money that are 50 cents each (which didn’t roll out until 2 years ago). Which, again, sounds great! If you have a PTCB certification, you will have an additional 75-cent raise, and if you don't have one when you are initially hired, you’ll get a 75-cent raise plus reimbursement for the testing fee if you pass the exam. And, if you find the opportunity to become a Lead Tech, you will earn a $1.00 raise. I know, some of you are probably thinking “Why are you complaining?” and you’re right for now, but here’s where it begins to kind of not be so great.

All these raises are fine and good, but there is a pay ceiling that will be reached very quickly. When I was not a lead tech, and at a different store, my pay topped out at $15 and some change per hour. A year ago, I said to myself “Oh, shit, if you don’t find a new position, you’re going to top out in the next 2 to 3 years.” With this knowledge, and dealing with one RPh making my life a living hell because she took her personal issues out on me and made me feel like I was unstable and another RPh getting physical with me when she was having a manic episode (HR would not have believed me had a customer not witnessed and called corporate), I needed an out. I applied to be an ASP in one of the offices, and that didn’t work out (which I knew it wouldn’t. I had no experience in that field and I knew it would bore me, but it got my face out there). I came across another opportunity for a lead tech position and just went for it and landed it. It’s considered a promotion, so the ceiling went up, and it was great... Over a year and some more phases later, I did some math and thought “Oh shit... I’m going to top out of this position in the next 3 to 4 years and I can’t go any further up unless I miraculously show up with a PharmD tomorrow.”

**Side note: There’s also a tech at my location that loves to tell me how much she makes (which you’d think it’d be common sense to not talk about how much you make), and it pissed me off that she makes way more than I do (many DOLLARS more) and does practically nothing while I run around like a chicken with my head cut off. I told my manager about it, and he wouldn’t fight for a merit raise for me. Figured I’d throw that in there, too.**

To add, insurance through this employer is not great; I have to get my own insurance plan in the near future and I definitely won’t have a paycheck if I get insurance through the company (the premium is so expensive but the benefits are garbage). Sure, none of this may be a problem if you live at home, are just starting out in the work force, are in school, are using the job for experience (if you’re going to pharmacy school or some sort of other medical field), or you have someone else that you live with that also has a job, but I’m a single person that can’t completely rely on someone else’s income. It was at that moment, I knew this wasn’t going to work out, financially, as a real adult.

Part two to follow.

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Congrats on leaving retail hell!! Here's to good things!! 🎉 👍👍

Thank you, kindly!

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GOODBYE RETAIL WORLD

Hard to believe, but you read that right. I am in current transition from retail to hospital pharmacy, after many nights of meltdowns, tears, wishes, and prayers. 2017 has been fruitful.

I’ll save the story on events leading up to the push for another post.

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It’s Hard Finding Good Help

Y’all. It is hard to find good help. When I say hard, I mean extremely difficult.

The last 3 technicians my manager hired have all struck out. Of course, they never let me sit in on the interviews and they pretty much hire anyone off the street, so I’m always given a surprise when they walk in the door for their first day.

Tech #1: Much older woman (which there is NOTHING wrong with that, it’s just a given that anyone older that’s never dabbled in a field will have a longer learning process ahead of them. Plenty of times for me, it’s been worth it, because I’ve had some kick-ass techs come out of it), never worked in pharmacy. Claims she was a bank teller previously, so I’m under the assumption that she is meticulous and won’t have problems counting, which is wonderful.

Wrong. Not meticulous. Doesn’t remember half of what I told her 5 minutes prior. Had a nervous breakdown counting tablets.

We’re counting prescriptions, and her next order was for #180 glipizide tablets. She starts counting, gets to about 45 and loses her shit. Leaves all the tablets on the tray, throws down her spatula and says “I CAN’T DO THIS! I need to get some fresh air, I’m so overwhelmed.” She storms off and goes outside, didn’t see her for about 20 minutes.

She comes back and the first question she asks me is, “How am I supposed to go about counting 180 tablets?!”

In order to prevent myself from giving a smart-ass answer (just count it?), I asked “Can you re-word the question so I can give you an appropriate answer?”

“How am I supposed to count to 180? Do I do 90 and 90, 60 60 and 60?”

“It doesn’t matter. Whatever you want.”

She lasted 2 months.

Tech #2: First day, my thought was “She looks... Off.” Her behavior was strange. To keep from saying too much, the short story is that she confides in me that she was once addicted to pain killers. Three days later, she comes in tripping and falling. Drug test was not clean by any means necessary. She lasted 3 months.

Tech #3: She was fantastic! Absorbed info like a sponge (and retained it), great with patients, all was great. One day, she says “I have to go to the bathroom” and it turned into an eternal bathroom break. Never to be heard of again. She lasted 10 days.

It’s hard to find good help.

[hydroxychloroqueen]

I need to see a photo ID for your controlled medication.

Our pharmacy chain's policy is that patients must show a photo ID (preferably a driver license or government-issued ID) in order to pick up a controlled medication. Really, it's for their benefit, in the event that someone else comes in to pick up their medication without his/her consent, we have all the information they would need for a police report. Most people don't complain. Only time a patient gets in a tizzy is when they fail to bring their ID with them and they've already been granted a one-time override for not bringing said ID. This policy has been in place for years... at least 10 years. Our company didn't start demanding us to put detailed information in transaction notes (FN, LN, DL#, state issuer, relationship) until about 2.5 years ago. No issues, no problems.

Not this woman.

Patient comes in to pick up her Estratest and all was going well until I said, "Okay, I just need to see your driver license for this one."

PT: That's just ridiculous that I have to show my ID. No one's ever asked me for my ID.

Me: I understand, but it's our company policy.

PT: No it's not.

Me: ???

PT: We didn't have to start showing our driver license until ObamaCare started.

Me: Umm..... I'm going to go with not true. We've always required patients to show an ID for controlled substances, our company didn't start enforcing us to document with each transaction up until 2.5 years ago. I apologize if it's an inconvenience for you, I'm just required to document.

PT: This is all Obama's fault with his ObamaCare or whatever! -starts 5 minute rant about how obscene our protocol is and how ObamaCare has ruined almost everything in her life-

Me: -staring, waiting for rant to be over-

PT: -still going- I mean, this is just the mo--

Me: MA'AM..... I just need to see your ID. Please

[hydroxychloroqueen]

Political Pharmacy... Bad Idea.

I could just be the only one out here that has heard of this, but don’t people know that discussing religion or politics in the workplace is a recipe for disaster?

We have a new staff pharmacist, and she’s been quite... interesting? to work with. I may save the irritating actions for another post, but the main issue that the pharmacy staff, as a vast majority has, is that she is very loud and opinionated on her political stance... to the point of taunting, mocking, radical statements, etc. There’s nothing wrong with having an opinion -- everyone is entitled to their opinion(s) -- but knowing that recent times have become rather tense, it simply does not seem like a great idea to discuss your views.

It’s known that if you state your opinion or stance on any issue, there is always going to be someone in opposition. And there certainly is in my pharmacy. I don’t share my views either way because it’s not going to help me count or type prescriptions any more efficiently. I’m here to do my job, so I just play “Switzerland”. But this particular pharmacist has made very extreme, unsolicited comments that have caused an extreme divide in our work place, which I wouldn’t expect anyone to react in a civil manner is. We work in very close quarters and we around each other often. We’re already having issues working as an efficient team with being short-staffed. How does this help us be any better? It just doesn’t.

There’s no written rule within the company I work for that states that this kind of thing is not allowed, so it’s challenging to rectify. My coworkers vent to me about their frustrations; some are upset with her comments because they perceive them as crude, while others just feel it’s not necessary. I brought it up to my pharmacy manager, and their resolution was “I'm just going to lead by example, and hope she catches on.” It’s been about two months, and nothing has changed. I feel like my hands are tied, as anytime I find a resolution when my pharmacist can’t come up with one, they think I’m stepping on their toes and then I find myself having a “sit-down” on why I went over their head.

Has anyone else experienced something like this, or experiencing something like this currently? What do you do to get through your workday?

[hydroxychloroqueen]

“My Wife Found this in my Son’s Pant Pocket. Can you Identify this Tablet?”

“Sir, this is oxycodone 30 mg.”

“.... Wow.”

bad ass kids