Pharmacy. Jim Plagakis. Pharmacist

Quality of Life! Quality of Life! Quality of Life!

Practitioners of almost every profession are chasing QUALITY OF LIFE. Once they have appropriate shelter, good food, safety and love (for some just companionship) they start cranking it up for Quality of Life.

Oh, I can hear you and the employers, “Stop with this, Plagakis. Don’t go there.”

The employers are saying, “You get enough, Miss Pharmacist. We are not giving you more. You have a nice house (shelter). Your family eats well, your neighborhood is gated and your husband is supportive.” What more do you want?

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Of course, they can’t give more in a system where the money comes from the selling of a commodity. They have all screwed the goose when they let the PBMs set the rules for reimbursement. Weak-spined pharmacists and middle managers signed the insulting contracts. They all need to be re-programmed by a weekend at a Holiday Inn.

You are saying, “I am afraid that I’ll lose my good thing if I ask for more.” That’s too bad. Go ahead and work 12 hours straight with a Big Grab of Fritos and a Mountain Dew gobbled between prescriptions.

Quality of life is, of course, a real vacation and all of the “high touch” you get from working as a pharmacist. For most professionals, Quality of life is, indeed, the prize they are chasing.

You can get more money to pay for Quality of Life if you provide specialized services, bill with your own NPI and put the money in your own bank. Basically, what you do is pay CVS a percentage for “rent”. After all, you are using their space and they bring in your patients. A good deal for both.

Talk about it.

I read an article recently that listed the “six things you can negotiate at work”.

They are:

TIME OFF
DRESS CODE
EDUCATION AND CAREER ENHANCEMENT
ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDLINESS

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FLEXIBLE SCHEDULES
WELLNESS

Do these apply to pharmacists at a job interview? Who ever heard of us negotiating? We pretty much take what they offer. In his bestseller, MEGATRENDS 1982, John Naisbitt coined the phrase HIGH TOUCH. This idiom refers to benefits that are outside of the normal. Like a company cafeteria where your lunch is at no charge. Like an in-house day care center at work. Like tickets to the theater or the NBA.

Let’s look at these six HIGH TOUCH benefits and see how they could apply to your job as a pharmacist.

TIME OFF.

Oh, hardy har har har. It is like bailing out a leaky boat. They promise you the Milky Way and you can’t even get one star. Three weeks of vacation and you end up taking most of it in long weekends.
A vacation in summer? Holy Batman, I had forgotten. You can’t take that three week August trip to Paris that you promised your wife 20 years ago. Getting three weeks strung together is hardy har har har. You want to go out of town with your son’s team for the state tournament? You get the drift. TIME OFF as a HIGH TOUCH benefit does not apply to you.

DRESS CODE.

What? What the …. is this? Dress code?

EDUCATION AND CAREER ADVANCEMENT

For us, we are talking CE. CAREER ADVANCEMENT? We start at top dollar. Your career advancement is PIC. Perhaps you want to become one of the suits. This is not a HIGH TOUCH benefit for us.

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HIGH TOUCH? Is biking to work a benefit? Who thought this list up?

FLEXIBLE SCHEDULES

Perhaps. Some want to work four tens. Three twelves. Overnights can work a week and get a week off. I still don’t see that this is a benefit that pharmacists negotiate at the interview.

WELLNESS

Now we have something. In Silicon Valley, there are health clubs right in the building. A gym, a sauna and a hot tub. A place to relax after twelve hours writing code. For the pharmacist, why not a paid membership at the local health club? Everyone gets a lunch/rest break long enough to allow for a brisk walk? Beijing Massage or yoga, paid for by the company? Why not? My shoulders are sometimes like a rock at the end of my work day. Why not a company paid massage. Yoga classes paid? Karate, Taekwondo or other martial art paid for by your employer? The healthier you are, the better for CVS.

After perusing this list, and giving it some thought, it is clear that we are taking a hosing. We work non-stop. We rarely get a chance to stand around and talk about the daughter of the technician and her junior prom.

Looking at this list, I can see that pharmacists are taking a good hosing. We are institutionalized so we just take what they give us.

WE WORK. We work hard. If would be wise of our companies to take very good care of us. Let’s make a list of HIGH TOUCH benefits that we can get.

You have it pretty damned good, so stop your whining.

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The Butterfly Effect 2 ipod You are not a south side of Chicago single mother with no food for her children, no money and no prospects. You are not an eighty year old widower whose breakfast every morning is the one egg that the manager of the Safeway store lets you steal.

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Your neighbor had his McMansion foreclosed. You watched the moving trucks. The family drove away before the first light of the day. The wife grim-faced. The two teenage girls crying. You have your house paid off. Your biggest expenses are insurances and taxes. You are a medical professional. You won’t lose your job. The wife wants to take that long weekend at the south shore of Lake Tahoe. You told her that you’d rather get a flight to Cabo. You want different things. Geez, guys, you have a problem.

You are not the poor kid who fought for his Ph.D. in Philosophy. You keep trying to publish, but work nights at Borders to supplement the income from days checking groceries. You are a medical professional.

You may bitch and complain about the long hours on your feet. The boredom is killing you. (Isn’t it amazing that you can have the education as big as a hippopotamus? You are as fast with numbers and facts and details as a cheetah, but you still get bored). You have always hated weekend work and vowed that you would end that nonsense as soon as ________ fill in the blank with A. I have enough money…B. I have enough money…C. I have enough money. Isn’t it interesting that most of us think alike?

You clinicians thought that it was always going to be rewarding, that each day would be an adventure. Can it be possible that specializing is just work too? None of us will get laid off, chances are. The paycheck will always be there every Friday. Most of us will always have the tip money for the valet parking at the dining club. It can’t be that bad. You are spoiled just like my grandson.

You are not an attorney. In tough times, they get put down at the bottom of the priorities list. You are not an electrical engineer. Shazam. That degree is outmoded in only 8 years. You aren’t working selling Barcaloungers because nobody wants Hummer and the dealership you sunk every penny of the wife’s inheritance into went bankrupt.

You are not a 19 year old American soldier, trudging down a close-in, dirt track between houses in a dark midnight neighborhood of Baghdad, scared to death of an explosion any second. You are a medical professional in the United States of America. Life is terrific. So, stop the goddamed whining for crissake.

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“Come on, asshole, do I look like a fuckin’ clerk? Where is the sign up front that says ‘Don’t look right, don’t look left, go straight back to the pharmacy and ask the guy in a white coat?’ You fuckin’ idiot.”

That is what I was aching to say. What I really said was, “I’m the pharmacist, sir. I don’t even think that this drug store sells 12 volt car batteries.” I was unlucky to be standing outside the pharmacy. My lunch break was just starting. I just wanted to eat my tuna and garbanzo bean salad in a pita bread and drink a bottle of water. The guy persisted.

“Every drug store sells 12 volt car batteries.” This asshole was drunk. The aldehyde stink coming from his mouth gagged me. He actually put his hand on my forearm and squeezed.

I spun and blasted this motherfucker on the side of the head. He went to his knees and looked up at me. There was a “what the fuck?” look on his face. I gave him a knee to the nose and had a thrill run up my body to see so much gushing, bright red blood. An ivory white tooth sat in the pool of red.

The store manager came back with a “what the fuck?” look on HIS face. I grabbed his throat. “If you don’t want some of the same, motherfucker, you’ll get your lousy ass back to your office.”

The battery guy was crawling away. I grabbed his right ankle and pulled him back. I had seen a cop show where the officer dropped his knee into a bad guy’s spine. So, I did it with a dramatic yell. There was a sickening crunch and I said, “Oh Oh”.

Madhouse download That is what I wanted to do. Instead I said, “It’s not my department. You’ll have to find someone else. This is the pharmacy. We fill prescriptions.”

He said, “How about I buy you lunch, Mister Pharmacist. We can talk business. Bring the Norcos.”

Enough is enough. This son of a bitch was going down. I swung at him, but had overestimated his state of drunkenness. He moved like a cat, but I dodged his girly girly fist. I assumed the position. Right foot back 6 inches, Fists at collarbone level. We eyed each other warily. I knew his weakness. He would throw a wild punch. I was ready. My daughter is a black belt in Taekwondo.

By now there was a crowd. Millie Cromby, the dentist’s wife eyes were lit up. She was breathing hard. Her nipples were hard underneath the filmy blous. She liked me and I liked her. I smiled. She smiled. With all this smiling, the battery guy had launched a lethal blow. I caught his wrist with my right hand, twisted to my left and, with a flat left hand, hit the rear of his right elbow of his straight arm. The strike made his arm bend in the wrong direction. There was a crunch and a yowl. I released the asshole and he fell like a wet rag to the floor. “Stay down, asshole.” He tried to roll over. “Stay down!” With a whimper, he embraced the floor.

I have wanted to do something like that for 44 years. It is so that when you vividly imagine something, the brain actually thinks it was real. A drug store fantasy. Ah, that felt good. Try it.

This is especially aimed at single pharmacists who have loose or easily broken or no ties here in the USA.

If you have thought about an extended vacation in Europe, why not even make it more extended and work in the UK?

The Locum Agency has sent me e-mails for a year or so. This time it noted long and short term positions. We are DESPERATELY looking to source more pharmacists and techs who are eligible to work in the UK.

I know that this fits many of you. You’ve been carrying a pound of “One of these days” and a basket of “Wish I could”. Well you can. It will take just a little courage.

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www.thelocumagency.co.uk The link is in the right hand column of this page.

Check out the wages. Translate Pounds Sterling to dollars. The RPh wage is really good, but the technician wage
is amazing.

Okay, okay… no more recruiter pieces for awhile.

The other day a guy called me about 8:30 PM. The technician had just left and I had to wing it until 10:00 PM. It was not at all busy. These were the days after Hurricane Ike. Regular patients were asking for emergency fillings on zero refill Rxs since their doctors were not available. Some observers speculate that 20,000 people have bolted. Before the storm, Galveston had a population of about 58,000. There are big gaps where homes once stood.

When the caller identified him as a recruiter, I did not rush him. I had the time. This could be a diversion, an entertainment. Goodness knows, people in Galveston are already in bed these days. He told me about the company, somewhere in west Texas, where the cattle don’t roam. He told me the wage. Average. Benefits and vacations and holidays. Average. Then he told me about the sign on bonus.

“$20,000.00? Am I expected to be impressed?”

“That’s a chunk of change, my friend.”

“For living out with the rattlesnakes and sagebrush, it is not enough … my friend.”

There was a moment of silence. Apparently, I had knocked his slick, well-rehearsed spiel off its tracks. “How much will you take?” he asked cautiously. Then he said, “They’ll pay for a hotel room and all meals until you get settled.”

So, I told him. To live way out there would take a sign on and wage that no one would be willing to pay.

“How much?”

Everybody has a price. I threw out, “A quarter of a million dollar wage, a $50,000 sign on and eight weeks of vacation a year.”

A chuckle. “Yeah sure.”

Then I added, “Even more important are the high touch benefits.”

“The what?”

“High touch,” I repeated. “Benefits like a guaranteed, in writing, lunch period every day. How about a paid membership to the local health club?” I went on and listed the advantages that I would need to move anywhere, even 30 miles down the road. Is a country club membership seeable? Probably not.

Recruiters just don’t understand that you can get a wage of $10,000.00 a month and a $20K sign on just about anywhere. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GIVE THEM UP TO GET HIGH TOUCH. Drive a hard bargain for the usual stuff and then make your demands or click on the first link on the right side of this page. This is FIND-A-PHARMACIST-RECRUITER. Take a look at find-a-pharmacist-recruiter.com

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This is a service that matches you up with the right recruiter. Check it out. Fill out the application. Make it your dream job. If not now, when? See what happens. Have some fun. This is reverse recruiting. You are the driver of the train.

By the way, this service is the only recruiting service that is JP approved. The Pharmacy Alliance has also taken a good look at FIND-A-PHARMACIST-RECRUITER and has officially sanctioned this service..

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One month after Hurricane Ike and we got electricity yesterday afternoon. In the evening, we got Comcast (Internet, land-line phone and cable TV) You could feel the stress and tension lift. V and I love Galveston. Let’s see if I can get poetic.

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Thirty six hours after the eye of Hurricane Ike passed over my home, I got a call on my cell from a pharmacist co-worker. “Jim,” he asked, “Are you and your family safe?”

“We are good,” I said. I explained to him that we were safely residing in the comfort of a guest house of a Texas Hill Country ranch owned by a woman with whom I share a great-grandfather.

“That’s good, Jim. So you were smart that you decided to get away from the island.”

“I may be dumb, my friend, but I am not stupid.”

My co-worker continued, “I just want to remind you, Jim, that we switched shifts on Tuesday. You work late.”

“Do you really expect the drug store to be open on Tuesday?”

I would have made a bet that either Walgreens or CVS would be the first one up and running and filling prescriptions after Ike. They had competing stores catty corner to each other. At the busiest intersection in Galveston. But, neither was the first.

It was Kroger. The grocery giant is right on Seawall Boulevard. The store is less than a football field from where the show hit. The seawall is 17 feet above sea level, but the surge was higher than that. How did they manage? Good engineering, the store manager told me. Dedicated employees from as far away as Dallas. And ..Humungous generators.

Wal-Mart, by the way, wasn’t even in the race. When Kroger, Walgreens and CVS were filling prescriptions, the Wal-Mart parking lot was jammed with trucks. I wonder if they are counting on the profits from the $4.00 prescription to get the pharmacy running again. Don’t hurt yourself laughing.

The last independent alive in Galveston took water. Lots of water. Brown, salty, E-Coli infested water. They are most likely done for. The Last Picture Show.

My pharmacist license got me onto the island. Essential personnel. I stopped by my store to help out, but no one was there, so I wound around down electrical wires, past burned out homes, close to huge mounds of debris and made it to our home. I called V. “We are okay,” I told her. The lower level (garage and storage) had five feet of filthy water for 12 hours. V lost her Scion with 8500 miles on it.

“How can you tell?” The anxiety in her voice was thick with worry. This was Hurricane Ike, for goodness sake. She had seen pictures of Crystal Beach. (A month gone and they are still not reporting the dead and missing from Bolivar)

“There is not one drop of water upstairs,” I explained. “Not a bit of mold in the refrigerator.”

Victoria and I are blessed with a townhome well built 3 years ago to modern hurricane code. 20,000 residents of Galveston have been displaced. Their homes gone. They will never be back. Retail stores have huge banners. “Now Hiring”.

I stopped in my store to get my schedule on 9/27. There was a terrified woman sitting in the pharmacy waiting area. The pharmacist on duty said that she had been there all day. They just let her be. She kept moaning, “I ain’t got nowhere to go.”