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Flu vaccine - yay or nay

Baboontyme

By Baboontyme
in Can You Help Me With This?

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Baboontyme

Baboontyme 2810

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I'm going to get it as an experiment after reading the replies to this thread. I'll probably go to CVS Tuesday, my calendar is pretty booked up Monday. If it takes me less than 15 minutes and I don't die or get autism or the flu from getting the shot I'm going to make the kids draw straws and the short one is experiment #2. Then if that kid doesn't die or get autism or the flu I'll make the other one get it. 

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Gen. Applewhite

Gen. Applewhite 226

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My 3 yo had a fever and barfed twice on Saturday night but felt fine on Sunday during the day. His fever spiked again Sunday night before breaking early Monday morning. By the time we got him into the pediatrician on Monday afternoon, there was no indication he was sick, but he did test positive for the flu. Nobody else in the house has come down with it, despite being pretty lax about germs. This includes a 1 yo and a 66 yo grandmother with a compromised immune system. I credit that, and the 3 yo's relatively mild symptoms, to the fact that we all got the vaccine. 

So, yay.

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Digdogger

Digdogger 1344

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I’ve never had the flu shot or the flu.  Luckily my parents and their parents and their parents before them practiced eugenics and my gene pool is pure and unblemished with whatever retard gene you people have that makes you get the flu and whatever retard gene you have that makes you think the flu shot is so awesome

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Baboontyme

Baboontyme 2810

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We went to Walgreens. I took the boy because you have to be 7 or older and my daughter is 6. It was about a 50 minute ordeal round trip, it's probably a half mile from home. 1 pharmacist and 1 assistant. Lots of people coming and going. Drive thru. We had to wait quite a bit after we got to the counter and got rang up. And damn, people visiting the pharmacy and by and large impatient as fuck and rude as fuck. Now I just need to cross my fingers for 2 weeks. 

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Wally Fairway

Wally Fairway 5543

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19 hours ago, Baboontyme said:

We went to Walgreens. I took the boy because you have to be 7 or older and my daughter is 6. It was about a 50 minute ordeal round trip, it's probably a half mile from home. 1 pharmacist and 1 assistant. Lots of people coming and going. Drive thru. We had to wait quite a bit after we got to the counter and got rang up. And damn, people visiting the pharmacy and by and large impatient as fuck and rude as fuck. Now I just need to cross my fingers for 2 weeks. 

Dude - never hang around the pharmacy; it's like being in the ER. Tons of sick people are there waiting to get their scrips filled.
You might as well go on an ebola tour, or a norovirus cruise.
Hope you didn't kill those kids

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bluto

bluto 4918

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Retail Pharmacist is easily among the worst jobs a highly educated professional could choose... shit schedule/hours, no lunch breaks, sick ppl, druggies, rude + sick/druggies, olds, dealing with nurses on the phone, dealing with insurance companies, stuck indoors, on your feet almost all day, same damn thing every day, seemingly minimal room for promotion 

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Baboontyme

Baboontyme 2810

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1 hour ago, Wally Fairway said:

Dude - never hang around the pharmacy; it's like being in the ER. Tons of sick people are there waiting to get their scrips filled.
You might as well go on an ebola tour, or a norovirus cruise.
Hope you didn't kill those kids

I only took the one with me. If I had to only keep one it would be the girl anyway. Plus he's covered, he got the shot, as well. 

lol he started to freak out and had last minute ragrets, mini panic I don't want to do this anymore, no no no etc and I got him to turn his head and he's still freaking out about how he doesn't want to get the shot while the needle is in him and he doesn't even realize it. 

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GottaB

GottaB 594

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Retail Pharmacist is easily among the worst jobs a highly educated professional could choose... shit schedule/hours, no lunch breaks, sick ppl, druggies, rude + sick/druggies, olds, dealing with nurses on the phone, dealing with insurance companies, stuck indoors, on your feet almost all day, same damn thing every day, seemingly minimal room for promotion 


Nailed it almost. You forgot rare bathroom breaks and understaffed.

But we do it because we “just want to help people”.

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XYZ

XYZ 2154

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4 hours ago, bluto said:

Retail Pharmacist is easily among the worst jobs a highly educated professional could choose... shit schedule/hours, no lunch breaks, sick ppl, druggies, rude + sick/druggies, olds, dealing with nurses on the phone, dealing with insurance companies, stuck indoors, on your feet almost all day, same damn thing every day, seemingly minimal room for promotion 

But do they make good money?

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bluto

bluto 4918

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10 minutes ago, XYZ said:

But do they make good money?

I think 120k-ish... so, yes if you're a teacher or govt worker but if I'm going to school for that long, taking on that liability (Forgot that shit aspect), and the other factors, no way in hell is that good money

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Nice Guy Eddie

Nice Guy Eddie 13511

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If you graduate with a pharmacy degree, aren't your options basically limited to retail pharmacy, hospitals, or teaching?  seemed like it used to be that pharmacists could also own their own pharmacy but I would assume that has practically disappeared in the age of walmart/grocery stores and CVS/Walgreens taking over the business.

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 45903

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8 hours ago, bluto said:

I think 120k-ish... so, yes if you're a teacher or govt worker but if I'm going to school for that long, taking on that liability (Forgot that shit aspect), and the other factors, no way in hell is that good money

I'm curious . . . does the pharmacy carry the insurance, or is that up to the individual?  How much is that per year?

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GottaB

GottaB 594

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If you graduate with a pharmacy degree, aren't your options basically limited to retail pharmacy, hospitals, or teaching?  seemed like it used to be that pharmacists could also own their own pharmacy but I would assume that has practically disappeared in the age of walmart/grocery stores and CVS/Walgreens taking over the business.



There are other areas but largely yes. Retail. Hospital. Independents still exist but the numbers are dropping. Most successful independents are compounding pharmacies that prepare things the chains aren’t equipped or trained to make.

Nuclear pharmacy. Military. Drug study monitoring. Long term care facilities. Anticoagulation clinic staffing. Drug development. Oncology centers. Health system administration. All avenues for pharmacists.
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HRSchenker

HRSchenker 2268

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I do not miss corporate pharmacy one bit. I got hired out of school for $130k and usually that fact alone causes people to not show you any sympathy but being a pharmacist is one of the most emotionally draining jobs I've ever worked. You don't get lunch breaks, you don't get bathroom breaks, you're assigned 10-14 hour shifts at a time, corporate measures you at every possible avenue (they grade you on how fast you answer the phone, how fast you answer the doctors line, how long you take to finish a call on the doctors line, how fast you verify prescriptions, how many patients fill out satisfaction surveys, how they grade you, etc), you're understaffed so the expectation is for you to fill 600 prescriptions with 1 technician, and you have to deal with members of the general public who really don't want to be at the pharmacy but they have to because they're either sick or treating a chronic condition. Our benefits are pretty bad too. No sick days and 3 days of flexible PTO. We get 2 weeks of vacation but it has to be used a week at a time from sunday to saturday and scheduled a year in advance. Wanna go see Texas play Iowa State on a Thursday this fall? Hope you scheduled it last year! Not only that, you burn the other days so most of the time you're just sitting around not exactly enjoying your vacation. Hospital pharmacy isn't a walk in the park either. 99% of hospitals won't hire you out of school. They make you do a "residency" which is 1 year of you working at a hospital as a regular pharmacist but you have weekly projects AND did I mention that you get paid $30k a year? Yep if you want to avoid retail pharmacy you are going to take a 6 figure pay cut and then hope to god that another hospital hires you at a salary somewhere in between residency pay and normal pharmacist pay.

Now that I'm out of that business I feel so much better about myself and life in general. Took a paycut but it was absolutely worth it. 

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bluto

bluto 4918

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I've learned my intel from a pharmacist chick I dated... never got the nerve to ask her "were you not aware of the work conditions when signing up for that career path?" So I'm gonna ask you, wtf were y'all thinking? It's a multi year path, not like getting a real estate license and then realizing it blows. 

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4HE

4HE 156

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22 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

If you graduate with a pharmacy degree, aren't your options basically limited to retail pharmacy, hospitals, or teaching?  seemed like it used to be that pharmacists could also own their own pharmacy but I would assume that has practically disappeared in the age of walmart/grocery stores and CVS/Walgreens taking over the business.

There are still independent pharmacy owners out there. I’m one. And I apprporiately staff all my stores with techs and RPh’s. I feel sorry for those poor bastards working for the chains... 

All my folks get hour lunch breaks and don’t deal with the corporate “big brother” bullshit. 

Margins are shrinking every year and I figure I’ve got about 10 years left (if I’m lucky) before they squeeze me out. I refuse to practice pharmacy like the chains do. It’ll  be a sad fucking day to be stuck with the likes of Walgreens and CVS as your only options for pharmacy services. Those MF’ers can eat a bag of dicks and die in a fucking fire. 

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4HE

4HE 156

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25 minutes ago, bluto said:

I've learned my intel from a pharmacist chick I dated... never got the nerve to ask her "were you not aware of the work conditions when signing up for that career path?" So I'm gonna ask you, wtf were y'all thinking? It's a multi year path, not like getting a real estate license and then realizing it blows. 

That’s a good question. I think most don’t know. By the time they get out they have so much debt that they are trapped into whatever job they can find—usually chain pharmacy. I worked at an Indy before getting into school and then for some chains during school. Night and day difference...

Serious advice: seek out an Indepemdemt pharmacy and give them a shot. I think you’ll walk away impressed. And if you don’t have insurance, that’s often one of the cheapest options. Ask to speak to the owner and he/she will work with you to get best price. It’s a myth that chains are cheaper every time. We can’t always beat them, but we do more often then not despite their enormous buying advantage. 

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bluto

bluto 4918

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I haven't even considered the aspect of how the hell a pharmacy actually makes money. I don't mean that in a "mom and pops are dying" way but just how they profit. I've always just lumped it into the blackhole of medical insurance and requesting generics when getting a scrip filled

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DaysOff

DaysOff 7947

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I do not miss corporate pharmacy one bit. I got hired out of school for $130k and usually that fact alone causes people to not show you any sympathy but being a pharmacist is one of the most emotionally draining jobs I've ever worked. You don't get lunch breaks, you don't get bathroom breaks, you're assigned 10-14 hour shifts at a time, corporate measures you at every possible avenue (they grade you on how fast you answer the phone, how fast you answer the doctors line, how long you take to finish a call on the doctors line, how fast you verify prescriptions, how many patients fill out satisfaction surveys, how they grade you, etc), you're understaffed so the expectation is for you to fill 600 prescriptions with 1 technician, and you have to deal with members of the general public who really don't want to be at the pharmacy but they have to because they're either sick or treating a chronic condition. Our benefits are pretty bad too. No sick days and 3 days of flexible PTO. We get 2 weeks of vacation but it has to be used a week at a time from sunday to saturday and scheduled a year in advance. Wanna go see Texas play Iowa State on a Thursday this fall? Hope you scheduled it last year! Not only that, you burn the other days so most of the time you're just sitting around not exactly enjoying your vacation. Hospital pharmacy isn't a walk in the park either. 99% of hospitals won't hire you out of school. They make you do a "residency" which is 1 year of you working at a hospital as a regular pharmacist but you have weekly projects AND did I mention that you get paid $30k a year? Yep if you want to avoid retail pharmacy you are going to take a 6 figure pay cut and then hope to god that another hospital hires you at a salary somewhere in between residency pay and normal pharmacist pay.
Now that I'm out of that business I feel so much better about myself and life in general. Took a paycut but it was absolutely worth it. 
Jesus you guys need a better union. You rushing is not in my best interests. I don't make any sudden decisions in the cockpit, and the more I feel I'm being rushed by someone, the slower and more deliberate I operate.
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4HE

4HE 156

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21 minutes ago, DaysOff said:
3 hours ago, HRSchenker said:
I do not miss corporate pharmacy one bit. I got hired out of school for $130k and usually that fact alone causes people to not show you any sympathy but being a pharmacist is one of the most emotionally draining jobs I've ever worked. You don't get lunch breaks, you don't get bathroom breaks, you're assigned 10-14 hour shifts at a time, corporate measures you at every possible avenue (they grade you on how fast you answer the phone, how fast you answer the doctors line, how long you take to finish a call on the doctors line, how fast you verify prescriptions, how many patients fill out satisfaction surveys, how they grade you, etc), you're understaffed so the expectation is for you to fill 600 prescriptions with 1 technician, and you have to deal with members of the general public who really don't want to be at the pharmacy but they have to because they're either sick or treating a chronic condition. Our benefits are pretty bad too. No sick days and 3 days of flexible PTO. We get 2 weeks of vacation but it has to be used a week at a time from sunday to saturday and scheduled a year in advance. Wanna go see Texas play Iowa State on a Thursday this fall? Hope you scheduled it last year! Not only that, you burn the other days so most of the time you're just sitting around not exactly enjoying your vacation. Hospital pharmacy isn't a walk in the park either. 99% of hospitals won't hire you out of school. They make you do a "residency" which is 1 year of you working at a hospital as a regular pharmacist but you have weekly projects AND did I mention that you get paid $30k a year? Yep if you want to avoid retail pharmacy you are going to take a 6 figure pay cut and then hope to god that another hospital hires you at a salary somewhere in between residency pay and normal pharmacist pay.
Now that I'm out of that business I feel so much better about myself and life in general. Took a paycut but it was absolutely worth it. 

Read more  

Jesus you guys need a better union. You rushing is not in my best interests. I don't make any sudden decisions in the cockpit, and the more I feel I'm being rushed by someone, the slower and more deliberate I operate.

Yes we do. And if you want an overworked, worn out, beat down RPh filling your scripts then by all means go to the chains.

I’m not saying they are bad RPh’s. Quite the contrary. They are just put in a shitty position by the corporate bean counter they work for. 

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Hate

Hate 20108

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Jesus you guys need a better union. You rushing is not in my best interests. I don't make any sudden decisions in the cockpit, and the more I feel I'm being rushed by someone, the slower and more deliberate I operate.


Shouldn’t at least some of your decisions be made rather quickly?
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HRSchenker

HRSchenker 2268

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4 hours ago, bluto said:

I've learned my intel from a pharmacist chick I dated... never got the nerve to ask her "were you not aware of the work conditions when signing up for that career path?" So I'm gonna ask you, wtf were y'all thinking? It's a multi year path, not like getting a real estate license and then realizing it blows. 

Pharmacy has changed drastically over the last 20 years on many levels.  At the turn of the century you had UT, Houston, TSU, and Texas Tech all with pharmacy programs. Today that total now includes Incarnate Word, North Texas, UT Tyler, UTEP, Texas A&M, and 2 additional Texas Tech campuses. Pharmacy was going through a huge shortage of pharmacists. You could have thrown a dart at the map with your eyes closed and landed on a job. Chains treated you great (well, great compared to how it is today) and jobs were everywhere. I am not kidding when I say that the people who graduated school without a job offer were the students who didn't show up to the yearly job fair. Today the market is flooded with pharmacists. Pharmacies used to be paid fairly until Pharmacy Benefit Managers came along and began to steal money from pharmacies. Chains are cutting benefits and hours, so much that new grads who are lucky to get a job get maxed out at 30 hours a week. 

Trust me when I tell you that if I had known pharmacy would be what it is today I would have done something else. 

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EE2B

EE2B 1565

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Both can. The pharmacy definitely does but the individual can. Very few of my peers do.

We carry a separate umbrella policy for my wife just in case something happens at work. It doesn’t cost a lot per year for the extra protection.

On the subject of work conditions, she did work for a big retail chain and the hours were beyond shitty. She would not get home until after 9pm during the week and it was after 8 on Saturday and Sunday. They were extremely busy and it was constantly a complete clusterfuck. The best thing that ever happened was when I convinced her to look for another job. She ended up at a much smaller (regional) chain with only two pharmacists. They close at 4 on Saturdays and are closed on Sundays. She has a commute now, but she only works every other week. At the first it wasn’t anything for them to do 800-1000 per day. Now it’s a big day if they hit 125-150. I don’t have the words to describe the change in her.
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GottaB

GottaB 594

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I haven't even considered the aspect of how the hell a pharmacy actually makes money. I don't mean that in a "mom and pops are dying" way but just how they profit. I've always just lumped it into the blackhole of medical insurance and requesting generics when getting a scrip filled


Billing (if I remember correctly) with insurances you bill for a dispensing fee + percentage of average wholesale price.

Example: levothyroxine $2 dispensing fee plus 80% of $17 awp. $19 is what you bill. But you may have bought that on contract for $15.

Drug prices go up and the insurance companies renegotiate to bring their costs down. You may take a loss on some to satisfy a contract with an insurance company to get access to more profitable prescriptions.

There is a difference between average wholesale price and actual acquisition cost so there is a margin. Profits come from volume and OTC sales which is why the corps track metrics so hard. Contract negations over years worked the margins down to bare bones where independents find it hard to support their business. Generics are cheaper for the insurance company but typically carry a larger margin for pharmacies because there is competition amongst generic companies.
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GottaB

GottaB 594

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I've learned my intel from a pharmacist chick I dated... never got the nerve to ask her "were you not aware of the work conditions when signing up for that career path?" So I'm gonna ask you, wtf were y'all thinking? It's a multi year path, not like getting a real estate license and then realizing it blows. 



It was different when I started. Between when I started pre-pharmacy curriculum and when I graduated, starting salaries jumped 30% and staffing was acceptable.

I didn’t even get to enjoy the good ole days because my first gig was military earning half of what my classmates did. By the time I got out of the military, the market was getting tight.

The market shifted in the last 10 years and the marketplace is much more
miserable. If I started now, I would have chosen a different path.

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GottaB

GottaB 594

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I do not miss corporate pharmacy one bit. I got hired out of school for $130k and usually that fact alone causes people to not show you any sympathy but being a pharmacist is one of the most emotionally draining jobs I've ever worked. You don't get lunch breaks, you don't get bathroom breaks, you're assigned 10-14 hour shifts at a time, corporate measures you at every possible avenue (they grade you on how fast you answer the phone, how fast you answer the doctors line, how long you take to finish a call on the doctors line, how fast you verify prescriptions, how many patients fill out satisfaction surveys, how they grade you, etc), you're understaffed so the expectation is for you to fill 600 prescriptions with 1 technician, and you have to deal with members of the general public who really don't want to be at the pharmacy but they have to because they're either sick or treating a chronic condition. Our benefits are pretty bad too. No sick days and 3 days of flexible PTO. We get 2 weeks of vacation but it has to be used a week at a time from sunday to saturday and scheduled a year in advance. Wanna go see Texas play Iowa State on a Thursday this fall? Hope you scheduled it last year! Not only that, you burn the other days so most of the time you're just sitting around not exactly enjoying your vacation. Hospital pharmacy isn't a walk in the park either. 99% of hospitals won't hire you out of school. They make you do a "residency" which is 1 year of you working at a hospital as a regular pharmacist but you have weekly projects AND did I mention that you get paid $30k a year? Yep if you want to avoid retail pharmacy you are going to take a 6 figure pay cut and then hope to god that another hospital hires you at a salary somewhere in between residency pay and normal pharmacist pay.
Now that I'm out of that business I feel so much better about myself and life in general. Took a paycut but it was absolutely worth it. 

This guy has the truth. Every word.

Horror story: I had a pharmacist friend that had a colonoscopy planned. She asked off for the day before and day of the procedure so that she could do the bowel prep the day before. They refused to cover the prep. So she followed the doctors advice and started he prep on shift. She spent the last 4 hours on the toilet and wasn’t able to verify a thing. She directed her tech to call the district manager to come cover the pharmacy as her pharmacist was decidedly unavailable.
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XYZ

XYZ 2154

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9 hours ago, HRSchenker said:

I do not miss corporate pharmacy one bit. I got hired out of school for $130k and usually that fact alone causes people to not show you any sympathy but being a pharmacist is one of the most emotionally draining jobs I've ever worked. You don't get lunch breaks, you don't get bathroom breaks, you're assigned 10-14 hour shifts at a time, corporate measures you at every possible avenue (they grade you on how fast you answer the phone, how fast you answer the doctors line, how long you take to finish a call on the doctors line, how fast you verify prescriptions, how many patients fill out satisfaction surveys, how they grade you, etc), you're understaffed so the expectation is for you to fill 600 prescriptions with 1 technician, and you have to deal with members of the general public who really don't want to be at the pharmacy but they have to because they're either sick or treating a chronic condition. Our benefits are pretty bad too. No sick days and 3 days of flexible PTO. We get 2 weeks of vacation but it has to be used a week at a time from sunday to saturday and scheduled a year in advance. Wanna go see Texas play Iowa State on a Thursday this fall? Hope you scheduled it last year! Not only that, you burn the other days so most of the time you're just sitting around not exactly enjoying your vacation. Hospital pharmacy isn't a walk in the park either. 99% of hospitals won't hire you out of school. They make you do a "residency" which is 1 year of you working at a hospital as a regular pharmacist but you have weekly projects AND did I mention that you get paid $30k a year? Yep if you want to avoid retail pharmacy you are going to take a 6 figure pay cut and then hope to god that another hospital hires you at a salary somewhere in between residency pay and normal pharmacist pay.

Now that I'm out of that business I feel so much better about myself and life in general. Took a paycut but it was absolutely worth it. 

What do you do for a living now?

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