Pharmacy staff from Walgreens, CVS say they’re at a breaking point — here’s what their days look like
Pharmacy staff from Walgreens, CVS say they’re at a breaking point — here’s what their days look like
Workers are concerned that Walgreens and CVS are placing unreasonable demands on them, without providing enough resources to safely execute tasks.
The employees, all of whom requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, described ending their shifts exhausted after spending hours juggling dozens of tasks around the pharmacy without enough extra hands to support them.
Isn't it weird that companies say they can't hire anyone, but people also can't find any jobs that are hiring?
Almost like CEOs want to hire the absolute minimum amount of people they need to and are just pretending to have openings they'll never really try to fill.
The “no one wants to work” mantra is just simply a strategy to feed into conservative talking points on a wide variety of work policy issues. It’s just simply bullshit; somewhere there’s a meme that shows people using that quote for the last century and a half in American newspapers.
Personally, my theory is that the advent of "hiring algorithms" caused this. The widespread use of AI for weeding out candidates has gone way too far. These softwares are purging resumes of perfectly qualified candidates without the human hiring managers ever knowing about it.
That's why every company right now is bitching that they can't find anyone to hire while every unemployed person I know saying that jobs are impossible to get.
Anecdotally, that's also why you get ghosted by companies instead of rejected. They have no idea you ever applied.
Fuck resume scanners and the horse they rode in on. It is exhausting tailoring every resume to the job posting because you might get dinged if you don't use exactly the same words as what the job description says.
I get some of the issues (not talking about pharmacies here) because if you hire remotely you get swamped with resumes, if you don't you only get the nearest people, not the best people.
Everyone loves to shit on HR in comment threads but if they have a series of processes that are well thought out they can be a benefit to employer and employee.
These softwares are purging resumes of perfectly qualified candidates without the human hiring managers ever knowing about it.
I was watching an astronomer's channel the other day and she brought up how automated much of the initial processes are for telescopes now. She said a similar thing, wondering if there is good information in that filtering that is never seen by the humans who view the "sanitized" end product. Any tool is useful as long as you understand its limitations and don't have blind trust. I fear that somehow most people are using AI with a blind trust of the "intelligence" part, not understanding that it's hardly perfect and often times very bad if misused. Or overused for everything.
When I went to get my COVID booster at CVS, there was a huge wait. One Karen started yelling at one young pharmacist and my partner told the lady to stop yelling at the staff for something that wasn't their fault. The pharmacist later thanked us and explained the store's computer program will accept up to 100 appointments per day. It's a completely unreasonable pace to expect.
My friend works at Walgreens in the pharmacy and it's fucking nightmare. Unfortunately they can't walk out because we are at will state and if they protested they all just be fired.
Tell your friend I work for the same company in an at will state, me and my other techs stayed home for the strike ~two weeks ago and they didn't do anything.
If any more get planned (I heard about one at the end of this month but don't know if it's going to happen or not) I'd encourage them to participate!
The store manager said they are a salaried employee, so they are “essentially working in the pharmacy for free” to give their staff extra support.
Not sustainable. These managers are in an impossible position. On one hand, their staff needs the extra help, but when managers let themselves be exploited like this, the corporate decision makers have no incentive to change their policies.
Some here posted about outdated systems on Walgreens. But yes, CVS is in the same boat. We are talking zotac mini-pcs from 15yrs ago. Factor in craziness that has been escalating forever with schedule 2 drugs and how insurance is always an issue among other things. Everyone who has ever stood in line watching this shitshow knows.
I feel very sorry for the workers. I wouldn't last a day. I've wanted to just jump over and hug my pharmacist many times for putting up with everything and still going out of their way to help me.
Fuck both of those corps.. You can't even shop there. Everything needs a membership to get the 2 for 1 offer which is on everything and yeah I could go on.
Unfortunately not many options. Online stuff hasn't been working out too well either.
Local agencies for healthcare do “flu clinics” every fall. I’ve done this. It’s an easy money, relaxed gig that has no end of RNs and LPNs willing to participate. The agency supplies materials. Only requirement is space to set up. One of those 6ft tables is sufficient, 2 if you want four flu shot lines instead of two. Local businesses use this to supply employees with on site flu shots.
Walgreens and Walmart could do this too, at any time, to relieve their pharm staff of being stacked up with too many tasks. But they don’t.
It’s not a question of workers. More often, it’s a question of the billionaire employers being willing to pay more workers, temporary or otherwise.
Costco does these and I happened to schedule my COVID shot the same day. It made getting my shot really chill and easy since everyone who would normally be waiting at the pharmacy for a flu shot was at the other side of the store.
My dad was a pharmacist and spent the last 12 years of his career at Walgreens (before retiring at 80yo) and he worked a normal 40 hour work week, but he was basically on his feet for 8 hours a day, and barely took any breaks. Don’t know how he did it.
Family member works for Walgreens. Barely paid and hardly any other pharmacists.
I hate that they are overworked, but they are literally the only place in town to get COVID vaccines for kids around here.
Idk about CVS, but I know for a fact that the computer system used by Walgreens is abysmally outdated and unreliable. The company could solve a whole lot of their problems towards relieving employee stress and customer satisfaction just by updating the damn thing.
Yeah but that costs money, and relieving employee stress and customer satisfaction doesn't make measurable money, so it won't happen until it's forced
Employees are a cost center.