I've Had Enough

The Crazy RxMan has had enough of retail. It beat me. I'm done. Finished. Defeated. The fat lady is singing.

No matter how hard I tried, the upper management at Goofmart Pharmacy just kept knocking me down. Increased vaccine goals, other pharmacists stabbing each other in the back, good techs quitting, additional responsibilities with no extra help... you name it, it has happened. And it's all driving me away.

Goofmart Pharmacy is a company that won't exist in twenty years, maybe not even ten years. It will either be sold to a major chain (like Target did with CVS) or abandoned altogether (like my friends inside Walmart Pharmacies tell me they're considering). There's no money to be made in grocery store pharmacy unless you're GoodRx or a PBM or the guys that make the signage and buttons for flu shots. (Funny how management always seems to have money for promotional material but never any money for extra help... that would have made a good blog post, but I just don't care anymore).

The reduction in pay and/or hours was the first wave of "strategic management" and the first sign of a dying business. It wasn't the first red flag, but it was the biggest so far. When a business starts cutting the work force, reducing hours, closing stores... that's the beginning of the end. It happened with Blockbuster, Radio Shack, Montgomery Ward's, and Sears. When a business reaches that point it's in a death spiral.

So when they cut me back to 32 hours I knew what to do. That's when I started looking for other employment full time on my days off. There will be more cuts and more demands from upper management. Recently at Goofmart they've decided if you don't reach a certain number of vaccinations in a specific period, you get a write up on your record.

That's the smell of desperation, folks.

Can you believe it? What was once an honored professional medical position is nothing more than a sales position now. Don't meet the quota? You're out of here, just like the car salesman that didn't sell enough cars. We don't care if you're a doctor of pharmacy. If you're not selling enough flu shots you're not going to stay here.

I really and truly loved helping people... the ones that were appreciative and kind. As time when on, there were fewer and fewer of those people, replaced with entitled snobs who quickly learned they could get whatever they wanted by threatening to make a complaint.

I have become abrasive and short with the people giving me a constant barrage of nonsense. I'm physically tired from all the extra time I put in for free just to keep up with the queue. I would get physically ill on Monday mornings knowing I'll not only have to deal with Monday nonsense but also knowing that I'll be working with a pharmacy manager who is hell bent on seeing me fired.

Seeing Walmart and Walgreens squirm like a toad on the asphalt on a hot summer day in Phoenix is yet another big red flag. The days of retail pharmacy are coming to a close. CVS knows it and that's why they're copying Amazon's PillPack model. Walgreens might survive getting bought up by KKR, but one thing we know for sure is that grocery pharmacy is done.

The grocery store pharmacy model won't survive. There won't be enough business with just antibiotics and urgent eye medications to make it long term. And weak attempts to enter the medication delivery business won't match the logistics of Amazon. Oh, they're worried about the storm that Amazon is about to unleash, but they have no idea that it's the storm of the century. Amazon is about to bury you.

It's really over, my fellow pharmacist. If you work in a grocery store pharmacy or retail in general, consider your options, my friend. Consider your options.