Monday, September 23, 2013

Sick Days for the Pharmacist

I'm fresh out of school and just started working my first pharmacy job. I had only been with the company for a few weeks when one evening I start developing a kidney stone (shown at right... I know it's small, but it felt like a bowling ball). Technically it had been developing for awhile, it just decided to start making my life miserable that night. It was probably from Mountain Dew overload.

I suffered through the entire night desperately trying to fight off the pain and trying to figure out who I'm going to call. I can't work in this condition. Heck, I could barely stand up.

At 6am I decide to call my pharmacy partner. There's only one problem. He's out of state. I'm thinking he'll know what to do to get someone in the pharmacy to work. But I can't get a hold of him.

I call the corporate office after hours number and leave a message explaining my situation.

Another hour passes. I need to talk to a person to let them know what's going on.

I call my regional pharmacy manager:

"Jack, this is Crazy RxMan. I work at store #666. I'm in incredible pain. I can't work today. I've tried to call my partner but he's out of town. I've called the corporate number and left a message. I don't know who else to call."


Jack: "Are you sure you're sick?"

A Bill Engvall comment rolls through my head, but instead I say, "Yes, I'm very much in pain."

Jack: "Well, the protocol is that you go open the pharmacy and work until we can get someone there to replace you."

"Uh, no... I'm on my way to the hospital. I won't be going into the pharmacy anytime soon. I'm sorry."

Jack is quiet for a moment. I don't think he was expecting me to say no. Finally he says, "Ok, we'll get someone to work the pharmacy."

So no matter how sick you are, corporate policy is that if your partner can't work for you, you go to work until someone can come replace you. It doesn't matter if you have a kidney stone, a heart attack, or a gunshot wound, you better damn well open the pharmacy until someone comes and replaces you.

Nice.

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4 comments:

  1. pharmaciststeveSeptember 23, 2013 at 5:34 PM

    I thought that normal corporate policy about sick days.. is that they need three day notice :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 23, 2013 at 9:00 PM

    Or in labor. I did that. Granted, it was very early, and I wasn't really willing to admit that I WAS in labor, but a big portion of that was the fear of calling out when I could go to work. Ridiculous.

    ReplyDelete
  3. aminSeptember 24, 2013 at 10:22 AM

    working is the black wheel of life that carry the human to the next step in his life but sick is a needle that makes this wheel to be fissssssssssssssssss

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJune 30, 2018 at 5:45 AM

    What kills me is that a tech get the sniffles and calls out. The pharmacist can be sick as a dog and still shows up and works their entire shift.

    ReplyDelete

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