I did not know about the arbitrary and execution-style, bullet-in-the-back-of-the-head firing of The Drug Monkey (David Stanley) by Rite-Aid until yesterday when I read an e-mail from Julianne Stein.
She said, “The suits got David”. Julianne is the editor at Drug Topics who rides herd on the stable of writers that includes myself, David Stanley, Ned Milenkovich and others who write columns in Drug Topics magazine. Without Julianne, we could be undisciplined hacks.
I have received a bunch of e-mails from pharmacists who have asked, “Why don’t you write something about The Drug Monkey getting fired at Rite-Aid?” I wanted to see what David had to say first. I asked him. He sent me an e-mail, telling me the story. David can tell you what he wants to tell you. David has never been a chicken-shit so I will include SOME of what he said right here.
Here is Jay Pee’s take. The Monkey was indelicate in his view of Rite-Aid and the coming strike in Southern California. (Go to his blog. There is a link to your right) He threw in some man-talk that Rite-Aid jumped on. They said that David was inciting violence. What the fuck? We are all adults. This is the 21st Century. It is the Age of Aquarius.
The Internet. There is nothing that Rite-Aid can do to prevent pharmacists from figuring out that Rite-Aid certainly appears to be a company in a death spiral. My opinion is that Rite-Aid doesn’t even have fingernails to hold on with. Would you keep shipping $$Millions a week if you were Cardinal and death-spiral company missed a payment? Marginal companies are in business only because the suppliers like the sales. If they do not get the money, they will not ship. Period. Nada.
With a Rite-Aid closing stock price of $1.17 per share on Friday 8/10/2012, David can cash out all his stock for a weekend at the Travel Lodge in Encino, the one by the highway, with the hookers hanging out by the algae-filled pool at midnight.
Violence! Rite-Aid declared that this was such an egregious inflammatory move by The Monkey that Rite-Aid sent the Loss Prevention Rooster to fire him, all the way from Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, I believe. Imagine this: A little pudgy peacock, guinea cock strutting little man. I would bet that he could get so excited at the execution of a prominent pharmacist that white spittle formed on the corners of his mouth. And why would a man in an executive position use “Da” instead of “The” in a conversation with an intelligent, well educated medical professional?
Oh, by the way, wake the fuck up, Rite-Aid. Your pharmacists are intelligent, well-educated medical professionals. All they have to do is start acting like it and you Masters of the Universe are doomed.
More on this, I am sure.
From David’s e-mail. I asked him if he was in a union.
Hi Jim,
The first step to getting the union to do something would be for them to return my calls, which hasn’t happened yet. I’m in the UFCW, a grocery workers union that happens to include some pharmacists. As an organization, they sadly leave a lot to be desired. They are complacent and comfortable and on the edge of getting their clock cleaned. In the last contract for Northern California, they agreed, for whatever reason, that any pharmacist hired after ratification would not be unionized. Now Rite-Aid is going in for the kill in Southern California. The company has forced the union to take a stand, betting that they can finish the union off.
The official reason I was let go was a comment I wrote on the blog about Rite Aid’s plan to bring in scabs should a strike happen. Specifically, that they “run the risk of me driving down there and kicking their ass so hard their rectum ends up past their incisors.” According to the suits, that violated RAD’s policy against workplace violence. They flew the head of Loss Prevention out here, which I suppose should be some sort of compliment.
This is so sad to hear. I wish these big companies would start to fail so real pharmacists could rebuild this profession for the common good.
They must have had a lot of “emergency” conferences in order to come up with that pitiful excuse to fire him.
Don’t be tooo hard on the little suit person; he’s a victim just like the rest of us. He just hasn’t realized it yet.
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Hi, Marguerite, long time. That was my “generic cartoon” little suit person
IMO .. this demonstrates how broad Rite Aid believes their hostile work environment & hostile work environment really is?
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When I had my own store.. we had a P&P and I seldom had to use it.. because we treated our employees fairly… but ..when an employee wanted to force a issue about what was in the P&P… I could agree with them… the next time that they wanted something that was AGAINST P&P.. it was a FIRM NO… if you want to live by the book.. you will die by the book…
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IMO.. Rite Aid has set a precedent about how broad their policy is on this issue… If the employees of Rite Aid are smart… they will FLOOD HR/CCO/Legal with emails on every mis-step my management that hints of work place violent, harassment or even intimidation…
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What a EGO.. traveling all the way from corporate to do this… IMO .. this is all about posturing with the union and the employees..
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it is going to be interesting if the employees “man-up” or “wimp-out”
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IMO… if they “wimp-out” the work environment that they experience today.. will soon be viewed as the “good old days”
@ Burning bridges I agree with you 100%!!!!!!!
When I first became involved in pharmacy in the early 70′s it was a wonderful “profession” run by profesionals who worked in a professional setting. We need chains to fall flat so the independent can make a come back. I personally won’t reopen a store but would love to work for an independent!!!!!!
If he was “on the clock” while writing, I can understand the violation … but what if he was at home? How does private communication violate corporate policy? Isn’t THAT a violation of Mr. Stanley’s FREEDOM OF SPEECH????
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I trust that David was at home. Freedom of speech is not what you think. In the 1990s, I worked for Pay n’ Save, which got sold and sold and sold again. When Thrifty Drug Stores owned Pay n’ Ave, I was told by my Pharmacy DM that he had bragged up my column in Drug Topics to his boss. His boss said, “That violates company policy against contact with the media.” He said I had to stop. My first reaction was to write to Kurt Vonnegut with my problem. I had been corresponding with Vonnegut since the early 1970s. He basically told me, “Sorry, Brother, but that First Amendment stuff applies only when the government (any government, state. local, federal) tries to shut you up.” I clearly remember his adding, “Your employer is a prick, what can I say?” By the way, Thrifty was bought by PayLess (The Oregon one) and then Rite-Aid bought them all. A huge mistake. Big stores. You could fit four normal size Rite-Aids in one. They couldn’t come close to filling them up using the normal Rite-Aid model. I visited my now wife in the huge Rite-Aid in Blaine, Washington. One entire wall of $2.99 foam ice chests.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/man-fired-using-button-facebook-204016325.html
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Here is something where SIX EMPLOYEES FIRED for “liking” their boss’ political opponent on Face book.
I have a lot of respect for Jaypee and David but I think David’s blog post was a little over the top. I grew up in a union town and even worked for the UAW for a summer and I remember back in the 60 and 70′s NOBODY would cross a picket line in my town. The unions were that powerful.
I write for Drug Topics also and I’m grateful to have Julianne editing what I write. That’s also the reason I don’t have a blog- no editor to reel me in when needed.
I remember a store manager at CVS back in the day who got fired for just telling an employee “he oughta kick their ass”. The employee took it as a threat and was gonna sue. CVS had no choice but to let him go. Words are powerful, especially when anybody can hear or see them. (ask Mitt Romney)
I know David will land on his feet and keep bloging. I hope he can find a job he enjoys. Prayers to ya’ brother. Jaypee, keep spreading the word about what is going on. I talked to Kelly Hoots the other night and there is a lot more to that story that I was able to pick up on as a former CVS employee. Most people in the pharmacy biz don’t know these stories, it’s our job to tell them.
Peace,
Goose
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If the UFCW really wasn’t interested in having pharmacists as members, why recruit them? Back in the day 1960s, I was a member of the Retail Clerks International Association. At the time, I had no idea what I got from being in a union. A lot. The Guild of Professional Pharmacists is all pharmacists. Pay n’ Save pharmacists in Seattle asked for the Guild to represent them. It did not work because they wanted too much too fast. By definition the relationship between company and union will be adversarial. Why make it worse by going for the moon. An intransigent union negotiating with a financially weak company could just get a bunch of Rite-Aids closed. There are no Kroger stores in North East Ohio just because of that.
In my last post a line got deleted in the first paragraph. I said that the union that David belonged to had not seemed to help him very much. If we are looking at the idea of a union for pharmacists, if it is as poor as David’s, it won’t help much
Goose
In a sense, I agree with ‘Burning bridges’ that it would be nice if the big companies failed. But, the world and pharmacy has changed a lot since the 1970′s(which I would call the Golden Age of pharmacy). Our society and our civilisation has changed and in doing so it has changed pharmacy. We can argue that it is worse, or we can even argue that it is better. In some respects, my job is better today than it was in the ’70s when I worked for independent pharmacists. I can remember being the only pharmacist in a store and with one clerk and being swamped with customers and working frantically to get rx’s filled. I can remember searching for drugs in these independent pharmacies and finding them in odd places because the owner just simply found a convenient place to put them…not a logical place. I did relief pharmacy work for 20 years and I worked all over the northern part of my state for independent pharmacies. I can tell you that there were a lot of problems. There would be stores where the owners wife was the cashier. Sometimes they would be lazy, even stealing from the owner(their husband). I kid you not! A lot of these independent pharmacists were poor managers. I saw some of them squander their pharmacy profits on personal ventures. Some of them were extremely skimpy on accessories in the pharmacy. They might have a big, fancy house, but they were like Scrooge when it came to the pharmacy. I saw some of them let their charge accounts get totally out of hand. I saw some of them being forced to send the drug wholesaler a check each time they got a drug order because they were terrible managers. I can remember loading hospital beds in the back of pickup trucks and even delivering them. Yes, I was a pharmacist! I would come back hot and sweaty. There were lots of times that I would tote those beds, and mattresses out of a basement to load them on a truck. So, everything was not great and wonderful in that Golden Age. It is easier to look back in glowing praise than it is to dig a little deeper and remember all the hard times and all the problems we faced.
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I hate hearing about David losing his job. Hope he can find another job with a better company. Don’t think he will have to look very far to find a better company than Rite-Aid, since they seem to be at the very bottom of barrel.
I think your question about anonymous bloggers you posted a while back has just been answered. This is why some bloggers make the decision to remain anonymous.
But this kind of event in the blog world does raise some valid questions about employee rights. Should employers be able to dictate what an employee says or writes on their own time? Don’t we still have freedom of speech?
The only issue I can see with an employee writing about their employer off the clock would be if trade secrets or insider information were shared. I’m sure Ford wouldn’t want new car designs leaked out to the public from an employee. Microsoft wouldn’t want Windows 8 details to become public knowledge while it is still in development. Those are valid proprietary intellectual property issues.
In the case of David Stanley, he was giving his opinion on a very public strike within the Rite Aid company. Hardly insider info or anything that could be considered trade secrets or intellectual property.
But it is becoming more common for employers to have media and social media policies that are very restrictive for their employees. It is as if we aren’t even allowed to say who we work for anymore online. Forget saying anything to the media unless you are the media consultant of your company.
I think if you are not using a work computer and you are off the clock then anything short of company secrets or insider info should be fair game. Employers don’t own their employees. Outside of work we are not bound by their rules. At least that is how I would think things should work.
David Stanley will be better off in the end. He can’t possibly find a worse company to work for than the one that just fired him. It is an unfortunate story but one that highlights some problems with employer/employee relationships in modern society. Loyalty is a two-way street. I think some companies have forgotten that rule.
Though I didn’t agree with alot of the Drumonkey’s political commentary or his liberal views, I greatly enjoyed his blog and his entertaining anecdotes on life in retail pharmacy. More importantly though, I’m very concerned over the far-reaching abilities of the corporation to terminate someone for opinions and disguise it as “concern” over workplace violence. I’m sure the majority of us have read his blog and are familiar with the rhetoric and the Drugmonkey character. He goes as far as discussing this in his most recent post. So where does this end? If I recall, the literature we received that discussed what was appropriate and inappropriate online and social media behavior never mentioned anything about blog posts or opinions. The company was concerned with pictures/discussions of inappropriate behavior while on company property or while wearing company clothing and release of trade secrets. I’m sure there was something vague in there about not trashing the company online but I don’t remember. This was simply an excuse for RAD to fire David because he was dangerous to the company as someone who was stimulating thought and change.
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While I don’t have my own blog, I will keep reading and commenting. Blogs like this one and David’s keep us as professionals moving in the right direction and obviously the corporations are taking notice. I feel sorry for David because he lost is job but I’m also happy that he now has the freedom to express himself without hiding and he can truly make a difference.
I am so sorry “Drug Monkey” that you had to go through this. During the bad period of my employment we were also investigated for “violence in the workplace”. Fortunately we all stuck together and the person making the charge was moved (the one sleeping with the younger tech) to another store. We were informed that the next PIC would be even more by the book. We could only hope! It was a horrible experience. I wish you well and good luck in finding another job. If you find one, maybe there will be hope for me when I come home. I miss pharmacy.
To Redheaded’s question about freedom of speech, here’s an excerpt from a post entitled “Fired for Blogging.” (http://workrights.us/?portfolio=fired-for-blogging) in which a flight attendant and a Google employee get the axe:
… Annalee Newitz, a policy analyst at the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said employees often “don’t realize the First Amendment doesn’t protect their job.”
The First Amendment only restricts government control of speech. So private employers are free to fire at will in most states, as long as it’s not discriminatory or in retaliation for whistle-blowing or union organizing, labor experts say…
The plot thickens in our Monkey’s case. I think I might be parroting something from PharmacistSteve’s blog here, but how could this NOT look like some kind of anti-union retaliation from RAD? Especially when you look at their timing. Yea, David’s rant may have gone a little over the top, but moment sure seemed ripe for suits to pounce.