Theres some talk about how bad pharmacists that work for chains have it.  Be it under staffing to bad working conditions to a store manager that only dealings with a pharmacy is buying extra small condoms.

There is one aspect and benefit that Chain Pukes have that us Independents don’t, and I think that its something huge that they take for granted and really shut their mouths when its brought up.

Job Security

Thats right, Job Security.  You see, with an independent, we don’t have a multi-billion dollar company backing us up.  We don’t have a corporate office that we can just defer shit to.  We don’t have a guarantee that our paychecks will cash every two weeks.  When huge Medicare/Medicaid cuts happen and the reimbursement goes down to shit, we don’t have the luxury of over productive stores to help float us during the bad times.  Our bank accounts are not tied to a place where people in suits crunch numbers and fancy lawyers give us advice.  We’re out there on our fucking own doing it the old fashioned way, the “old school” way.  The way our grandfathers did it.  Our “corporate office” is the owner of the store trying to get the fucking payroll done in the back room while handling calls from doctors office so we don’t die up there in front.

You know what we get when the shit turns sour? Walking papers and a chance to search for a new job.  Thanks for fucking playing.

Furthermore (to make you all look like a larger big whiny sandy vagina), we are just as overworked as you, and we still have to deal with the same shit that you do.  Same patients who want and demand everything, same insurance companies that fuck us over (only WE have to do our OWN recon sheets and we don’t have the “power” to negotiate), and we shafted by the same expensive drugs (which is coming out of the OWNERS pocket, not a corporation pocket).  We watch reimbursements and what we order so we don’t put the business under.  We can’t hire more help not because “corporate office says that we need to hit x/day” but because we cant fucking afford another pharmacist.  Do we get to hide behind “corporate policy” or “well the corporate office says we HAVE to do this”? No.  Our “corporate office ” is usually the guy working next to you who has owned the store for 30 years and has his whole livelihood invested in not only his staff and store, but in his patients as well.

However you go to bed every night after bitching to everyone about how overworked you are knowing that your store is going to be open in the morning, while we sometimes have to wonder if our wholesaler bills will get paid, payroll will be made, and if Humana/WHP/Argus/etc will be on time with their payments.  We have to deal with the stress of not only running the pharmacy, but running a business as well; down to payroll, taxes, workman’s comp, everything.  Even buying the fucking bags that we put the drugs in with our names on them.

New graduates don’t want to deal with the shit of running a business.  They want to work in their nice chain store jobs with their stock options, vacation times, sign-on bonuses and the satisfaction of knowing that the business aspect will be taken care of someone whom they will never meet, and their paycheck will magically get direct deposited on the 1st and 15th.  On top of that they have the balls to sit there and bitch about how working for the chains is so fucking hard.  Hear that? Thats me playing the smallest violin for you.

So quit bitching.  I’m tired of it.