"You're Fired"
Recently a pharmacist friend of mine told me that he got fired from his job. This is quite rare for us young(ish) people as I don't know anyone else who has gotten fired. People tend to leave their jobs or made redundant due to that position no longer being required. This friend is doing a second degree at uni and it's only one of his two part time jobs, but still, it's pretty bad to get fired.
My friend said that this particular pharmacy that he works at is quite bad in terms of how they treat staff. Out of all the people who started there with him, only one other person is still there. He has been there for two years and the fact that he was willing to work there on weekends even, getting fired made him quite mad.
He works there on Saturday and its extremely busy. Customers get really aggrevated and abuse him and things and tell him to hurry up. Well he didn't want to stand for abuse and general nastiness, so he told them that he'll work as fast as he can and they can just wait. Some customers then proceeded to complain about him, which coupled with some other co-workers complaints, got him fired.
Some of his co-workers had put the boot in when they saw an opportunity. He said that they are a very conniving bunch and I believe him. This friend is one of the most honest, conscientious, gentle and hard working people I know. He thinks that the problem is that the staff cop a lot of abuse from the store owner during weekdays and tend to take it out on him during weekends. Another young pharmacy friend has also said that since she is in charge of the sales girls, some don't take well to being managed by a young person. As this friend was relaying the story, she was getting so upset that she was actually crying so I totally believe her story. I'm going to sound like a sexist (can you actually say anything controversial these days without being called a sexist, racist, ageist etc) but in working environments with lots of women, such as a pharmacy where all the floor staff are women, things can get a bit nasty. I worked at a supermarket for about 2 years during uni and the 95% female to male ratio made for some very nasty gossiping and in-fighting over very trivial things. So many fights and arguments broke out in the cold room just over how to do things a certain way and who was boss. I just did my work and got out of there.
So this friend is now out of a job for just standing up for himself. It seems unfair that he should cop abuse for just doing his job and yet when he stands up for himself, the owners decide to fire him. He's proud of what he did and I also think he did the right things. No use in staying in such a job if the boss isn't going to stand up for you.
posted by thanh7580 @ 9:46 PM
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9 Comments:
I worked somewhere like that it was in a hotel I only managed to last 2 months the way they spoke and dealt with their staff was unbelivable and now I know why they were always advertising for people.
Not all environments where its mainly women is nasty but a lot of places are. I've worked in a few places and it only takes one person to take a dislike to someone else and thats when a full scale war starts out, there is a little situation where I work that can be a little like that but I just let it go over my head and get on with what I need to do.
Finally, a forum where people can bear their grievances in a semi-anonymous fashion via second-hand information.
The customer is always right??? Not in this post-Internet age...
- the aggrieved one
Poor lammie... (i'm guessing) i've been fired once... my first job, was a petrol station attendant and took 5 cents less than what was due to be paid for fuel purchase. I was there fore 4.5 days in first month of uni... long 'n short of the story is i cursed the bastards running the store and it closed down within a year and is now a derelict building.... muhahaha
anonymous
Karen, I agree that when a couple of workers don't get along, things can get nasty. At Coles, two particular workers really didn't get along and ended up fighting over who would do the scanning at the registers and who would pack the groceries. How silly is that.
Anonymous, I guess you got the last laugh eh. Muhahahaha.
Quoting Thanh:
(can you actually say anything controversial these days without being called a sexist, racist, ageist etc)
Nope. Its all political correctness these days, big props to the nineties for that. I do think it has its merits, but yeah, everything u say is like tip toeing thru a floor covered in nails
Sorry to hear about your friend's unfortunate incident :( In such circumstances, you can only be grateful that you don't have to work with such unappreciative people again.
My boyf has had to endure a similar situation - he was the only male staff in a pharmacy of five or so girls and the cattiness was just beyond comprehensible. He was pretty much bullied into doing things faster, more accurate, and stuff that was clearly beyond the call of his duty. Being the righteous and subborn individual that he is, he stood up to them yet he didn't get fired (most probably because it was only a 11-week rotation).
Fortunately I've never experienced something similar in all my years of pharmacy retail, however I firmly believe that you shouldn't take cwrap from anyone in a pharmacy environment - whether it be from a customer or a fellow workmate. If a customer tells me to hurry up with their script, I tell them to wait. You can speed up the dispensing but you can't guarantee that you're not going to kill them in the process. You're doing them a favour and as long as you're doing the best you can, they can either wait or take their script somewhere else. Your duty of care lies in dispensing the right dose, the right medication and the correct strength; not in dispensing it as fast as you can.
That is something that customers and workmates fail to recognise.
You're absolutely correct Michelle. If a pharmacist rushes, its very easy to make mistakes and you might end up killing someone. Some people are just so impatients and b**stards in general. No matter how good a job you do, they will still find something to complain about.
My impression is Pharmacy jobs are really hard to keep due to these issues. But the fact remains is Pharmacists are in very high demand and they are very hard to replace. It's hard to tell who has more bargaining power. The boss/owner or the head Pharmacist. Most boss/owners ain't Pharmacists and think drugs should be dispensed as quick as Big Macs or Thanh Do's MP4 players. I really hope one day they allow shotguns in Chemists shops to allow quick SHUT UP solutions to over demanding customers.
Women can't work together in these sort on environments together, unless well...they do SCISSORS to each other.
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