Being under-staffed and over-worked

[EastonBlues22]

So, my pharmacy has really taken off recently...we're up something like 8% on the year and every single other store in the district is down. In the last six months we've climbed from middle of the pack to consistently top four in the district.

Unfortunately, we're really hurting for staff. We've always been a student heavy store (more students than certified techs), but all of our students have been on rotations for the last few weeks. That's about 120 quality man hours down the tubes. One of our three Senior Certified techs has been on disability for 3 months now. We fired a recent hire last week for stealing/no call no show. One part timer gave notice and is now gone, another just had a relative die and she's been out of commission for over a week. That's about 200 man hours we're scrambling to replace....or about three and a half full 8 hour shifts every day. All of those people worked afternoons/evenings.

So, we have one of our remaining Senior Certified Techs working mornings (off by 5:00pm) with the remains of our regulars, and I'm working evenings with whatever scrubs/managers we can scrape together...which isn't much. In the last five days I've worked, I've either been alone with the pharmacist after 4:30 or I've been working with an untrained trainee from another store. Assistant managers pop in and out to help ring when they can...which is a real blessing, even if they don't know jack squat about anything pharmacy related. Even then, we're getting killed. I essentially handle all the scanning, billing, filling, filing, insurance updates/problems, outgoing calls, ordering, restocking, troubleshooting, faxing, and incoming calls that don't require a pharmacist to counsel. Basically, that's the work of two to three people depending on how good they are and how busy we are. The pharmacist does all his duties (which are numerous), and helps at the counter and filling as he can. Whoever else is around just rings people up and has me fix whatever problems they encounter.

I'm literally doing more every single hour by myself between 4:30 and 7:30 than a few pharmacies in the area are doing in their entire work day. Once the rush quiets, I spend 7:30-9:00 catching the pharmacy back up to normal operations. Then I spend 9:00 until I'm done (today it was 10:45...45 minutes after I was scheduled to be off) frantically cleaning up as much of the day's mess as I can. It's not unusual for me to put in a 9 hour shift under those conditions with no breaks and no food. Freaking brutal.

I'm definitely an action junkie at work, but this last week has just been crushing. We need some warm bodies fast. I know there's more of you out there...make me feel better by sharing your pain.

[G. Keenan]

I think the lesson here is that your pharmacy was clearly carrying some dead weight prior to this labor "shortage." You should take this unexpected lesson in efficiency as a boon and restructure accordingly.

Question. Have you considered slaves?

[Radbird]

Under-staffed and over-worked is the norm in today's corporate world.

[lukethedrifter]

Folks, we're just gonna have to do more with less.

[EastonBlues22]

I think the lesson here is that your pharmacy was clearly carrying some dead weight prior to this labor "shortage." You should take this unexpected lesson in efficiency as a boon and restructure accordingly.

Question. Have you considered slaves?

Hah, I'm sure our store manager would love it if we could continue to operate at essentially 40% of our manpower budget. Although, she did come back to chew us out two days ago for how much time her managers were spending in the pharmacy...like it's something under our control. I wanted to hurt her.

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be much of a slave pipeline up here in Des Moines. I talked to the Oompa Loompa Union Rep, but he says they don't work for the type of candy that we have to offer.

[Arthur Dent]

I think the lesson here is that your pharmacy was clearly carrying some dead weight prior to this labor "shortage." You should take this unexpected lesson in efficiency as a boon and restructure accordingly.

Wow. That was spot on. You have a future in corporate communications.

[EastonBlues22]

Under-staffed and over-worked is the norm in today's corporate world.

I agree, but the typical corporate job is a lot different from the one I work. I'm basically in a real-time customer-service industry where screw-ups can kill people. If you're understaffed, your service is going to be a lot worse and you're going to make a lot more mistakes. That's not good for anyone involved. Corporations might be able to make under-staffing and over-working pay for them in the long run, but a pharmacy can't. If this keeps up, we're going to lose a lot of business and burn out the few good workers we have left. There's too much competition in the industry for a pharmacy to consistently have long waits during peak hours.

(Besides, I don't know of any corporate job where you don't get an hour lunch or breaks in a full day's shift. My shifts are routinely 8.5 hours or more, and I haven't had more than 30 minutes of total break time in one day since I started three years ago.)

[G. Keenan]

I think the lesson here is that your pharmacy was clearly carrying some dead weight prior to this labor "shortage." You should take this unexpected lesson in efficiency as a boon and restructure accordingly.

Wow. That was spot on. You have a future in corporate communications.

Don't we all?

[AdmiralKird]

Well Easton, how much of a risk taker are you?

Give management an ultimatum. Either you get at least one new worker/raise, or you quit and the store goes under. You're the only one holding it up, use that as leverage.

[Spider John]

My pharmacist works a street corner down by the pool hall, and he doesn't have all that stress.