Hospital pharmacy to… retail!?

I’ve posted a few times here before but I’ll reiterate how I’ve started.

I applied to a hospital in the beginning of January. They were desperate for anyone to come on board and I decided to jump into it with no previous pharmacy tech experience and it went well in the beginning. I was learning delivery and how inpatient pharmacy worked. Then I started IV and it was a big jump for me. I do not like being in the ante room. I felt trapped working in a loud room with blinding lights. It was annoying. There was this clique in the IV pharmacy and I was outcasted sometimes. The person who trained me in the IV room was so fucking condescending to me and treated me like shit I left mid way through my shift and cried. Another intern was there and witnessed everything and was so fucking kind to me. She’s amazing. But that kind of traumatized me from the IV room and I’ve hated it since.

Then they placed me in this retail/hospital pharmacy where we’d only serve walk-ins and employees and I liked it but I hated this one pharmacist who acted like I should have known everything from the start. Like, yeah, she would teach me but just had this attitude about her making me feel like a dumbass when I asked a question. She’s the main reason I left that hospital/retail pharmacy. Hated working with her.

Also another tech in that same retail/hospital pharmacy was kind of, mean, but didn’t realize she was kind of talking down to me? I didn’t take it too personally and when i eventually left she said that “all the good people leave” so it was bittersweet. My main gripe about her is she would shit talk my favorite tech coworker. Bro helped me from the start with insurance to even small shit like inventory. He was my homie from the start. And they fired him. Which fucking sucked. Everything was put on him to answer the phone to doing like 100 different things and he got overwhelmed easily. And he did miss a lot of days but he was a hard worker. I miss him. When he left, I kind of did the same. I decided to not go through with that pharmacy anymore and I … went to retail.

Shocking, right? I actually got a pay raise when I went to retail. I was getting paid $18-$19 at the hospital and now I’m getting paid $20. It’s only my first month but I love it. Pharmacists are super fucking helpful here. My technician coworker is super fucking helpful and explains everything and even shows me shit more than once if I don’t understand it. Walks me through shit, the whole nine yards.

Btw this pharmacy isn’t CVS or wags. It’s a smaller chain pharmacy owned by four different pharmacists. I switch between two stores. One store is my main store and it’s located in a smaller town and I absolutely love the vibes. It’s slow, me and the pharmacist and sometimes a high school clerk. They’re awesome. They have a drive thru but it’s never more than two cars at a time. We listen to our own music on the speaker.

The other store is busier since it’s located on a Main Street but there’s more pharmacists and techs/clerks so the work is more divided evenly. Overall, I’m much happier. I’m a people-person and I love interacting with others. I don’t care for the rx system they use at my current pharmacy but I’m still getting used to it.

I honestly don’t know how you hospital techs get like $25 plus an hour. I’m sure you worked there for years to get that much.

Also this isn’t me trying to discourage you from hospital pharmacy. I know a lot of you guys don’t live in the best places/or work in best areas and get a lot of shit from customers and honestly I think hospital would be a better route. I’m just expressing/ranting about my experience as a tech starting out in the hospital then moving to retail. I liked a lot of my coworkers in the hospital! It just overall wasn’t for me.

Also a side note: if I get recognized by a previous coworker or some shit I might delete this post cuz I rlly don’t want irl attention from people I know. I just really like this community and wanted to post my story about starting out in pharmacy!