Some of the players on our side.  I believe that David Balto, Esq. (and his firm) is leading the charge in California.  The Robbins Geller Law firm is a national law firm consistently ranked among one of the best plaintiff’s law firms.  Of course, the entire pharmacy industry is the plaintiff sorta.  I have also been told that the Office of the Inspector General of the United States of America is squeezing its broad shoulders into this game.  The Feds.  When The Feds come after you, it is over.  The Feds don’t even come into the court room unless they know that CVS’s ass is grass.  The Feds don’t lose.  If  CVS executives dare to lie to The Feds, the can end up like Martin Grass. (The ex-CEO at Big Stupid).  Ten years of hard time in a Federal Prison.

I really hope we can seque off this into a:

Some background:

David Balto has filed the lawsuit against CVS-Caremark for a variety of unfair conduct, focusing on a great deal on its maintenance choice  program.  The suit was filed on December 28 on behalf of all California pharmacies under the California unfair trade practice act in the Northern District of California.  The suit alleges violations of the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act., Violations of the California Unfair Competition Law, as well as interference with prospective economic advantage by California pharmacies.

There are more details, but I do not have the time to type them out right now.  Mrs. Jay Pee is giving me a look.  I made a promise to her and I gotta keep it.  Later on the details.

The above law suit is just what is happening out on the coast.  There are two more shoes to drop.  We do not know yet what the Robbins Geller law firm anticipates.  Who will the plaintiff’s be?  Will this suit be nationwide in Federal Court?

Then, why is the Office of Inspector General snooping around? They are asking for all documents pertaining to the Ready Fill program for inspection.  They are interested in examining the refilling of Medicare patient’s prescriptions without permission from the patient.

This should not shock you.  We saw it coming years ago. The CVS model seemed to say, “If we make $100 million and have to pay a $50 million fine, what’s not to like about that?”

When you get to the point where you cheat for the sake of beauty, you’re an artist.   Max Jacob -1875  to 1965

When you cheat for the sake of greed, you are a criminal.  JayPee – 1941 – long time.

This comes from a Technician.  Can any of you confirm this “Acute” Bullshit and comment on the possibility/probability of insurance fraud?

CVS has now rolled out “We Care” in many of its stores in the Northeast.

It essentially takes the eRx’s once they are confirmed with a few keystrokes and based on the type of medication (and maybe other indicators) feeds them into the production queue as “acute” so they are filled rapidly before the customer arrives.

This is hell for the techs/pharmacists to keep up with, but I never had thought about the impact to insurance fraud with this new system. I would like to see a story on the new CVS “we care” program and its impacts to insurance/customer relations.

I am a soon to be ex CVS employee pharmacy tech. Moving to a competitor in a few weeks who may also follow this practice…..but I bet CVS sets the standard!

I have received a number of emails at my private email address (the one published here) from pharmacists (at least they claim to be pharmacists) who want to know why I allow pharmacists to camp out in the “Comments” and whine and complain.  They tell me that the whiners and complainers should be doing something about it rather than just visiting sites where they can basically spend too much time metaphorically digitally jerking off .  

I had one woman tell me that she would commit suicide rather than humiliate herself in such a manner.  I asked and she told… She is the PIC of a pharmacy in a very small grocery chain in the middle of nowhere.  The map shows that her town is almost 200 miles from the closest town with a chain drug store.  I accused her of being insensitive.  I told her that she needed to spend just one Monday morning, from 8:00 AM to 12:Noon, with the Lead Technician out sick, in your shoes.  She wrote back that she had been a pharmacist for 12 years and, from experience, she knows that it cannot possibly be what you guys describe.  I asked her why she did not express her feelings with a response in a comment here.  She told me that she would not lower herself.  She is a dignified woman who is professional in her work.

Poor girl.  She just might commit suicide if she had to make her living at Big Evil or Big Stupid.

My knee-jerk was to just tell her to “Eat Me”, but I behaved.  What I told her was this.

The pharmacists who write comments here are strong and decent people who see injustice and want to change it.  They can’t help it that, right now, they are swimming in the rapids and barely know which end is up.  Working conditions are one thing, but now they are seeing their brothers and sisters being killed off.  They are being taken out back and being shot in the head.  Damn good, veteran pharmacists are being fired simply because they are veterans.  They are being fired because they are women.  They are being let go because they have earned too much vacation, because the metrics suffer while they are counseling.

These pharmacists are good men and women who did absolutely nothing wrong.  They are being treated like galley slaves, factory-floor piece-work workers.  They are decent human beings who want to help people, but all the MBA Masters of the Universe see are “The numbers”.   

So, I ended up advising that she Eat Me.  I suggested that if she pay attention to the comments that some of you may want to explain further.

Guild anyone?

“Whistleblower” continues to offer his help with employment law.  Why aren’t you contacting him if you have been terminated unfairly?  Is it because you do not know how to contact him?

I found this message in the comments.  Paul Garbarini is a Boston Lawyer on the faculty at Northeastern College of Pharmacy.  (I believe that is current) He has been Legal Counsel for The Pharmacy Alliance since the beginning.

The Truth-

Contact me at 413-727-8191 regarding your desire to file a complaint with a BOP.

Paul Garbarini, R.Ph, Esq.

It is all out there, you guys.  What was the quote from revolutionary times?  We either all hang together or we will certainly hang separately.  Jay Pee

Pharmacy Class Reunion “A good time was had by all.”

Jim “Goose” Rawlins departs from the usual “Whiny-Ass” offerings we read in the comments here and tells the truth.  At least, I believe it is close to the truth.  Basically, Goose asks “What the fuck are you whining about?”   His language is less colorful, but the point…. well, take a look and aim your slings and arrows at “Goose”.  Send him your worst, right here, he can take it.  Take the gloves off.  Adult language encouraged.

Take the time to read his essay in the December 15th edition of Drug Topics.  Click below. Scroll down.

The Reunion: A Time to Reminisce about the Good Times or Not.

From Pharmacist Steve.  Pay attention, you guys.  You hold the cards, remember?  Jay Pee PS: You do not have to be screwed by Wal-Mart to take advantage of Steve’s experience, detail, expertise and research.

@Another one .. there is a forming lawsuit with a handful of RPH’s for being fired from Walmart.. because Walmart fired them because they decided that they did not want anyone on staff that had any BOP action against their license – EVER ! They fired RPH’s who they had hired 5+ yrs ago .. that they knew they had previously had BOP actions… no further problem with these RPH.. just a change in company policy.
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Last week a female RPH.. was fired from Walmart because they believed that they saw her on video praying with a customer.. she has filed a lawsuit…
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There is a RPH that is has sued CVS over not allowing him to follow the practice act and keep errors to a minimum.
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If you were fired because you refused to break a rule/law .. including the practice act… it is called wrongful termination… and employer who have tried this crap have paid dearly when taken to court…
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I have names and phone numbers somewhere of these on going cases.. if interested in this information… drop me a line steve@steveariens.com

An article in The New York Times today speculates that the Affordable Care Act  (Obamacare) can ease the medical care crisis by calling on Pharmacists, as well as others such as Nurses.  the following, copied and pasted directly from the text:

There is plenty of evidence that well-trained health workers can provide routine service that is every bit as good or even better than what patients would receive from a doctor. And because they are paid less than the doctors, they can save the patient and the health care system money.

Here are some initiatives that use non-doctors to provide medical care, with very promising results:

PHARMACISTS A report by the chief pharmacist of the United States Public Health Service a year ago argued persuasively that pharmacists are “remarkably underutilized” given their education, training and closeness to the community. The chief exceptions are pharmacists who work in federal agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense and the Indian Health Service, where they deliver a lot of health care with minimal supervision. After an initial diagnosis is made by a doctor, federal pharmacists manage the care of patients when medications are the primary treatment, as is very often the case.

They can start, stop or adjust medications, order and interpret laboratory tests, and coordinate follow-up care. But various state and federal laws make it hard for pharmacists in private practice to perform such services without a doctor’s supervision, even though patients often like dealing with a pharmacist, especially for routine matters.

For all of you out there who just cannot get over Obamacare… get over it.  You remind me of the people who had to be dragged, kicking and screaming to the medical paradise for older Americans called Medicare.  The United States is joining the civilized world.

You can read the entire article by clicking on here

Comments from Pharmacist Steve

Now is the time for you to find your place in “the system” outside of holding down the counter.
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there are ways for a RPH to work in a MD practice and be self-funding..
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Some of you will be pioneers and seize the opportunity to practice MTM in the MD’s office environment. The rest of you who elect to wait for these jobs to seek you out.. you will be left behind “holding down the counter” and be not much more than supervising a automated Rx filling process… and your salary will fall to a level to compensate the services that you are providing… and given the fact that there may be 2 or more RPH’s after each job slot.. if the chain’s haven’t successfully lobbied that the RPH can be replaced by a computer .. I can assure you that it won’t be in the six digit arena.
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Those of us who are Senior Pharmacists can see the end of our professional working lives… we don’t necessarily have to reinvent ourselves or make any drastic change in where/how we work.

That is what I am talking about Steve.  Pharmaceutical Care such as that mentioned in the article will NOT be provided at Wal-Mart, Kroger or Rite-Aid prescription counters.  Pharmacy Slave, expand your view.  Look beyond the business of “selling pills” to the POSSIBILITIES.  Life (or pharmacy practice or work) without POSSIBILITIES is fucking dismal, indeed.  Remember pharmacy school, man, when you saw an endless horizon of possibilities.  Now, you see no possibilities.  They have beaten your ass down and you have laid down and are letting them beat your butt.   I really like you, Pharmacy Slave.  Your comments have always been welcome.  I have observed you for a long time.  Something bad has happened.  What have they done to you?  You hold all of the Trump Cards and you are afraid to show them.   You have the law, the Ace of Spades.  There are State Regulations, the King of Spades.  OSHA regulates the work space, the Queen of Spades.  Then, if you are deemed a regular, hourly worker, the Jack of Spades lists all of the rest breaks and meal breaks you are entitled to in a days work.  14 hour day?   That is probably 2 paid half hour meals and four 15 minute rest periods.  The Joker is the public and the media.  Once the dam breaks and the media flood publicizes the conditions you work under, the public will start watching.  The idea that a pharmacist comes to work at 8:00 AM and is still filling, checking, verifying and completing prescription orders at a rate of  one every 2.8 minutes (That is average) with constant telephone interruptions, immunizations, emptying the trash and vacuuming the floors .   You know the actual rate is one every 30 seconds at busy times) WITH NO BREAKS AT ALL, they will stop trusting you.  They will search out pharmacists who are fresh and mentally agile.  You have the trump cards, Pharmacy Slave.  Pharmacist Steve and I have been urging you to fucking Show those cards, and Play those cards for years now.   I know pharmacists who have thrown out that trump card.  I know because they have told me.  Pharmacy Slave, they are living large behind the pharmacy counter.  Nobody bothers them.   A young guy in Oregon has a friend in HR at Rite-Aid in Pennsylvania.  Frequent calls.  ”Is everything okay?”  All they have to do is their job professionally and to NOT be stupid.  They are actually very good team players.  The artificial, MBA created productivity standards are just gnats,  irritations.  Practicing pharmacy, professionally and LEGALLY is what runs the ship.  What a pleasure.  Fuck the gnats.  Take good care of the needs of your patients.  The supposed powers, like Jimmy at northern the Mississippi CVS District office, are afraid of those pharmacists now.  That is why they are left alone.  Jay Pee

Dave Marley, R.Ph., C.E.O of P.U.T.T.

There is just something about the position of C.E.O.  Along with the unbridled arrogance, they believe that they are bullet-proof.

A few of you have complained that your comment has gotten caught in the “Mediator Delay”.  The first time I approve a comment by a particular User Name, all comments from that User Name will automatically go right on through and will be posted.  I check comments maybe three times a week.  So, please do not change your User Name.  If  it is your first comment, I will get to it.. Promise.  Jay Pee

From: Jay Pee 12-13-2012.  I am disappointed in Dave Marley.  Most of us share P.U.T.T.s position on Mail Order, but we can separate Mail Order and Pharmacists as not even being on the same page.   I would never tell any pharmacist not to take a job that provided a good living for her family, with good benefits and a bonus of being actually encouraged to practice pharmacy every day.  Marley’s damning of this pharmacist is so inappropriate that I question the motives of the entire P.U.T.T. organization.  

I have shared emails with this young woman in the past.  My impression of her is that she is the quintessential “good pharmacist”.  She does not identify herself as a Mail Order Pharmacist”, but rather as a “Pharmacist” with all of the responsibilities and rights that you and I have.

Shame on you, Marley.  Gloating over a fellow pharmacist’s misfortune.  Your comments are like saying, “I am not talented enough, not a good enough businessman, not committed enough to do it myself, so I want you to do it for me.”  Bull Shit.  There are plenty of independents out there who are good enough business heads that they are doing well.   Gawd, Marley.. what were you thinking?  Drinking or smoking?  I am stunned by your heartless comments.  And P.U.T.T. is the organization that I sent a hundred bucks to and, more than once, enouraged other pharmacists to send P.U.T.T. money.  That is all on hold now until you explain how you can act like such a fuck.  P.U.T.T. gets nothing from me and I urge other pharmacists to give a second thought before writing a check.  A simple apology, actually an abject recognition of shame, to this pharmacist could do a little  something to begin healing this wound you created.

By the way, Marley, where were you when the Wal-Mart pharmacists in Florida rolled over and started filling prescriptions for $4.00?  Why was this not worthy of your profound, public criticism?  Why weren’t you encouraging Rite-Aid pharmacists to rot-in-hell when they rolled and didn’t rebel when RAD promoted “Prescriptions in 15 minutes”?   I don’t see you jumping up and down to label Safeway (and its companies) as unprofessional when they give a $20.00 grocery coupon to everyone who buys a flu shot?   I could go on listing examples of your hypocrisy.  You screwed the goose on this one, Man.  You failed your responsibility.  Perhaps, the job is too big for you.   You get no free passes when pharmacists from all corners of the country are sending you money.  You don’t get to be an average, normal mean shit.  You are not above it.   Actually, you are right down in it, up to your nostrils.   Dave Marley, You should be ashamed of yourself.

Hi Jim, 

I am forwarding this email to you in the hope that it will provide a little food for thought. I received the email below as a response to a complaint I made regarding what I consider a heartless post to the PUTT Facebook page. I gotta say I’m very disappointed. I have thought highly of this group ever since I saw you mention them in your blog. Am I to be condemned as a worthless sell out because I took a great job that wound up being eliminated after the acquisition?

 While I hated losing my job I understand it was just business. For the record, I actually took a pay cut when I left the hospital pharmacy for Medco. I worked in two separate clinical departments, first in MTM and then in Cardiovascular. I’m very proud of the work that I did. I’ve done everything from save a patient $8000/ month in medication costs that they could not afford, to helping patients get better control of their disease states, and sometimes just lend an ear to someone broken by personal tragedies. These are things that every good pharmacist aspires to, and I’m very proud that Medco provided me a real opportunity to do it. While I freely admit that I don’t agree with all of their policies and practices, the same could be said for almost any employer. Are they going to condemn every CVS/RA/WAGS pharmacist as a sell out because of their employer? Not that I’ve seen so far.

 I firmly believe that if my employer had been CVS I wold have gotten a response more along the lines of ‘That’s terrible, let’s all join together and fight the good fight. Hope things work out for you.’ Instead I get a response of ‘You suck and I hope you and your license rot in a deep dark hole somewhere.’ Both companies are poorly regarded, with equally good reasons. Why the double standard? I no longer support that organization. While their goal is a good one , their attitude towards their fellow pharmacists is horrifying.

 Sincerely,  RPh PharmD (Ohio)

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Dave Marley <rxdisclosure@gmail.com>
 
The heartless dirtbags are those who sell their profession down the road for a paycheck. Put simply, if you get in bed with a snake you will get bit.  Mail order pharmacy exists only because pharmacists like yourself have sold out their responcibility (spelling Marley’s) to protect your profession.
No, I have no pity those who have sold out and then got burned.

Sent from my iPhone,

Dave Marley, PharmD
President/CEO
(c) 336-978-8107

On Dec 12, 2012, at 5:05 PM, PharmD, Ohio wrote:

Currently Practice Pharmacy Today (12-12-12) at about 2pm EST an article was posted to Facebook about the most recent layoffs at the Medco site in Willingboro. The comment attached was a smiley face.  When I questioned why the PUTT poster was happy about people losing their jobs, their reply was that it was karma. As a pharmacist who was laid off from Medco (2 months unemployed and counting) I find it incredibly distasteful that you are finding amusement in my lack of work. I have been following your work closely because I believe it is a message that needs to be shared. Not anymore. I’m telling everyone from now on that while your aim is a good one, you’re heartless dirtbags that take delight in the misfortune of others and they should send their support elsewhere.

12-14-12 Jay Pee.  This one is moving relatively with speed and incisive comments.  My comment above was designed to get pharmacists to think and question: Is our primary responsibility to practice pharmacy, make an adequate living to support our family in all ways?  Add to Maslov’s fundamental needs and you get private schools, soccer camps, rock ‘n roll weekends.  All of the things that a “professional” can afford to nurture her family.  Or is our responsibility to protect the independents from the PBM Mail Order Outlets?  A No-Brainer.  

You will want to read the “Comments”.  Mister Marley wrote a comment that “blistered” just like the first one,

I want to personally apologize to Dave Marley for my “colorful” criticism of his attack on PharmD Ohio.  I could have done it differently.  However, for me, the individual pharmacist and the practice of pharmacy are the Aces of Trump.  This girl and her needs, anxiety, personal bank account and constant worry supersede the supposed needs of any pharmacy that is ostensibly “Fighting” Mail order.  Mister Marley’s unwillingness or inability to say, “I am sorry.  I was out-of-line” to a member of his family whom he has wronged is not going to get him what he wants.  JayPee

Big Stupid is stupid again!

My unemployment compensation was denied. I appealed, went to the hearing, had an anxiety attack, and it was denied again.  I plan to appeal again… as much as I cannot bear another second of reliving this nightmare that has ruined me.

I am unemployed. I have applied to more than 20 positions and contacted more than 15 employers.  I have $60 in my bank account and no presents under the tree for my 3 little children.

I had told my PDM the day before I had my nervous breakdown at work: I don’t think I can work tomorrow. I am under too much stress. I’ve had 2 hours of sleep.

He said, “I don’t think I can find anyone to cover on a Sunday. Ask your partner.”

Said partner had been doing flu clinics on every day she had off. She was tired, over-worked. I felt horrible. Her mother had recently passed away. She has 3 children, as well. I asked her, she said she would, but I felt so bad that I decided I could do it, I should do it. I was strong enough to do it. Oh hell was I wrong.

I did it, and you know how that turned out. I had a nervous breakdown, an emotional outburst over my stressful situation when it became more stressful that Sunday morning. It resulted in my termination.

If I had known that a company, that profited on a false product, they call “Wellness”, cared so little about my well-being, I would have never worried for one second about keeping their pharmacy open for them. I was terminated and Unemployment Compensation was denied, because I “behaved in a manner that was not aligned to the interests of my employer”.

Well, FUCK them. I am not a robotic pill dispenser, I am a human being damn it! I feel pain and stress and don’t always make the best decisions when I am afflicted by situations beyond my control.

So I beg every pharmacist out there, when Rite-Aid begs and pleads with you, tells you that you have an obligation to keep their pharmacy open, feel absolutely no guilt in saying, “NO!” They will not lose one second of sleep worrying about you or your “wellness”.

I think I am already blacklisted. I am a dangerous pharmacist, because I am not a mindless robot.

Some of us went to Pharmacy School Dreaming of Independent Pharmacy where we did so well that we opened up five more pharmacies scattered around town.   I would make a really good living, take care of my wife and send my two kids to private schools and good colleges.  There would be regular European vacation at a time when the exchange rate got you a 5 star hotel on The Riviera for twenty bucks a night.  You get the idea.  It was 1964, for crissake.  That kind of dream looked to be attainable.

I dreamed that my practice of pharmacy would 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM five days a week,  a different store each day.  9:00 AM to noon, I would do what every pharmacist did in that era.  Fill prescriptions and compound.  Noon to 3:00 PM, I would manage my chain.  It was a great dream.   I believed that I could do it.  The timing for that dream was horrible.

I got my California RPh license and moved there on my first honeymoon.  Double tragedy for the dream.  The population in California was mushrooming and the chains mushroomed with it.  No one stole my dream.  No one took it away from me.  I just gave it up when I realized how much they were paying me at Thrifty Drug Store to work 48 hours a week.   $312.00 a week.  In Ohio, I was making $139.00 a week for a 44 hour week.  No brainer huh?  I lived 25 minutes from the hottest place on the planet in the mid-60s.  Haight-Asbury.  I was having such a time that there was no room for a middle-class Ohio dream.  You know what happened to me.  My career was 90% chain.  It allowed me to quit my manager’s job in November, 1976, head for Europe and a $4.80 hotel room in Athens, with a bathroom with a shower.  I could even see the Acropolis (a small view) from the window.  I did not go back to work full-time until March, 1981.

Keep out of debt and you can still do this.  It will be your experience of a lifetime.

Now, very few students have a dream of owning anything, other than a car and a house.  The dreams are simple.  You go to school for 6 years, come out a doctor and your dream is to make good money practicing pharmacy.  You know: Counseling, MTM, INR stuff.  Don’t laugh so hard that you break something.  Your employer did not just steal your dream with demand to attend to the Prescription Mill, your employer ripped your dream from your psyche with Rx Triple S Scores and KPM.   Does anyone watching you care that it will take 5 whole minutes for you to explain to the young high-school drop out mother how she give a graduated dose of liquid prednisolone to her 18 month old.  You know the answer to that.  Fuck the kid.  Do it once and You will expect to be allowed to do even more duties that smell like pharmacy practice.

You are a pay check generator, a robo-dispenser.  You have pharmacy muscles that you have not exercised for years.  You can’t expect your pharmacy self to keep on doing push ups waiting for you to get some courage.

Many of you are conservative and the idea of Obamacare (for some inexplicable reason) makes you crazy.  Listen to this if you want to actually practice pharmacy.

The United States government (Dept. of HHS) buys all drugs.  You (or your company) gets a fair and reasonable dispensing and counseling fee for every prescription dispensed.

The benefits:

You get to practice pharmacy.

No investment in inventory whatsoever.

Of course there will be a formulary.  No more multiples like:  Nexium, Aciphex, etc.  Just one, the one that makes the deal with the formulary committee.

After many dry years (Like 30) there will actually be an incentive for Pharma to invest in really new, unique drugs.  If they want to satisfy the shareholders, they will have to come up with new, patentable molecules.  This is the way it was 40 years ago.

No more one hundred package sizes with Rx for $28.  Only Unit dose of 20s.  They prescribe #20, #40, #60 etc.

If you want to practice pharmacy, what could be better?  Patients will go where they get the best service, with counseling being the #1 service.

Know what?  I can see the re-birth of my original dream, just a different form.  With no need to buy the inventory, you could do 100 Rx a day and make a living.  You, a tech, a cashier/stocker and a kid to clean up.  Half day on Saturday and Sundays off.  Patients will call you “Doc”.  They will invite you to weddings.  Again..NO NEED TO BUY INVENTORY.  No PBMs.  You can do a better job monitoring over-utilization, conflicting therapies and the rest better than a Medco Computer.  Get paid for it.

Get over it.  It IS socialized pharmacy.  To me, it IS smart.  Either this or you guys get some testosterone (girls too) flowing and go full-frontal to UNIONIZATION.  I see no other choice.

Within Minutes, Slave and Steve show up.  Jay Pee the dreamer, still dreaming.  So, that leaves what?

Unionization?  Tell me, what else is there?

This union won in battles with Sav-On and Kaiser Permanente 30+ years ago.  Pharmacists only.

Young Gun.  Which one is he?  Here is what Jay Pee has to say. Document, document, document everything!

Now, from Young Gun.

I’m very disappointed in myself for choosing this “profession”. If I had read even one of these blog entries it would have been clear to me that the big corporations that own the B.O.P.s and thus the “profession” have no regard for patient safety, much less the health and well being of those who work for them. They only know short term profit and total obedience of the Peons who most ungratefully ask for basic human rights like 15 uninterrupted minutes to eat a nutritious meal so they can better serve their patients and safely perform their duties, which ironically would increase their profits.
I’ve done some pretty ugly jobs in my time on this planet. I’ve cleaned up after the butchers in a meat shop, dug ditches, been a pipe fitters apprentice in a refinery, collected shopping carts during winters in North Dakota; but I have never worked a job that is worse than my current position as PIC of a retail corporate pharmacy. Here is a list if my reasoning for this:

1. Complete disregard for my human need for adequate, uninterrupted, rest and food/water/bathroom breaks which is UNFATHOMABLE given that our job requires enormous concentration and makes one prone to physical/mental fatigue and the consequences of even a single error can cause a patient’s death! How is this legal and how can you take a company’s P&amp;P seriously when you would have to violate said P&amp;P to take proper care of yourself and your patients. HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE TO DIE BEFORE WE MAKE THIS AN ISSUE? For instance, my company’s P&amp;P says that we are incouraged (i.e. not required) to take only a rest break of 10 minutes for every 4 hours worked. How many of you can warm up, not to mention eat, food properly in ten minutes; especially with multiple interruptions? Too bad, deal with it or you’re gone!

2. Expectations of perfection in an environment that is littered with a hundred different things to do and a hundred different distractions. Did I mention you’re being timed? Hurry up

3. Chronic understaffing to the point that I often end up doing both the Q.A. and menial labor such as running the cash register, because there is nobody else to do it. The single most debilitating thing an employer can do is give an employee more work than can physically be accomplished and not only expect that it be done on time, but be done flawlessly.

4. A massive disconnect between what the public thinks we do and what we actually end up doing. Anybody’s blood pressure rise when you hear, “Howhard is it to put pills in a bottle and slap a label on it?”.

5. An unbelievable number of useless, repetitive, cumbersome, burdensome laws and regulations that mostly haven’t been updated in the last 30 years to accompany the sea-change that has occurred in retail pharmacy practice. Do you know how legally exposed you are, especially you PICs? You are responsible even in cases where you aren’t physically present. Don’t worry though, the permit holder will be there to support you when shit hits the fan… I just pissed myself laughing.

6. A atmosphere of big brother spying and micromanagement that would make the novel 1984 seem a bastion of freedom by comparison. Techs actively encouraged to spy on pharmacists in an environment where we are guilty until proven guiltier. Rampant age discrimination is present and CVS is considered “the leader in pharmacy”. Now I’m soaked in piss!

7. A completely unsupportive joke of a pharmacy association that is more preoccupied with getting financial support from the very corporations that are ruining pharmacy than making pharmacy a great “profession”. Then they have the gall to wonder why retail pharmacist support is at an all time low percentage.

8. A culture where other pharmacists do nothing to advance the profession and instead point to a company’s bogus P&amp;P as if it were a legitimate reason why a seasoned, veteran pharmacist was fired for the equivalent of jay-walking. Someone explain to me how an agreement between two merchants to replace a borrowed product constitutes theft. If you accept that this is theft than you also accept that we have no discretion to practice pharmacy as we see fit and we are no more than sharecroppers renting a living from a slave master. Not health professionals renting our services to an employer.

Typing this has made me realize how much I hate this joke of a “profession”. I feel for the kids applying to the whore monger schools who have no idea what they are getting into. Six wasted years and 200k later I hope they can find a way out like I am trying to.

Good luck and Godspeed colleagues. Try not to kill anybody making your slave master happy.