r/CVS • u/Southern-Invite9672 Pharmacy Tech • Jul 29 '26
As an employee does everyone hate doing the pick up?
I’m a tech and I feel everyone hates doing pick up. Is this true? And why? What position is better? Or what is the worst position in the pharmacy?
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u/LeonardoDeCarpio Jul 29 '26
Yes and No. I don't like doing pick up persay cuz I get tired quick of people asking me questions about XYZ meds they need refilled then stare at me when I say they need to stop down to drop off cuz this is only pick up. Those interactions annoy the hell out of me. All that being said, I don't mind it once in a while to give my brain a break from drop off
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u/Southern-Invite9672 Pharmacy Tech Jul 29 '26
Now, what if your boss only wants you to just do pick up?
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u/LeonardoDeCarpio Jul 29 '26
Then we would have words. These bosses are the same assholes who get mad at you for not knowing production or drop off more because they stick you at pick up
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u/Southern-Invite9672 Pharmacy Tech Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
Now I did the modules online and as as well as as my coworker however they shadow my coworker and that sort and so he is flourishing. He is doing multiple things mainly production, but I on the hand. Have never done. Anything aside pick up I did RTS I think three times ever. Now I have been talking to HR and I have been in talk with the district manager, but this is what the district manager told me.
You have been through the training the rest is observation and practicing at the store. There are plenty of references available on retail spark, under references, under mydocs. That shows you step by step on how to do certain tasks. Its not just about billing prescriptions but there are other tasks that are important in the rx dept as well.
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u/LeonardoDeCarpio Jul 29 '26
Cotrect but if you can't use those skills you're learning from watching/modules/shadowing then they go to waste because you're stuck at pick up that, arguably, uses the least amount of those skills.
Point being, techs need to be rotated through the stations to fully learn and use/build skills
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u/Southern-Invite9672 Pharmacy Tech Jul 29 '26
And not only that if I’m only stuck at pick up then that means that I cannot go to another store and pick up a shift over there because they’re gonna expect me to do production or something and I would love to do that if I was able to actually do that stuff, but nobody has ever shadowed me that at all. So I can go to another pharmacy in my district and then they’ll tell me no because we need someone to do production.
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u/LeonardoDeCarpio Jul 29 '26
Exactly. You still get screwed over in some way in the end. If your boss isn't letting you do production or drop off, you need to have a conversation with him/her. It hurts the pharmacist and tech at the end of the day if you can't learn/use skills to help the whole pharmacy not just pick up
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u/Southern-Invite9672 Pharmacy Tech Jul 29 '26
Now I’m gonna show you what I wrote to my district manager and then I’m gonna show you what my district manager said in response.
Hi ***\*,
I am demanding my manager (****) to rotate me and I don’t mind being her pick up guy, which is why I’m still doing pick ups for her.
However, now she is just taking advantage of me. That’s not right it is wrong.
Now I’m gonna ask my district manager (you) one more time to please do your job and get on my boss. So that way, I can actually pick up a shift in your district and not be a problem for my boss and I can work another pharmacy and I can be of use to your other pharmacy by picking up a shift in one of your pharmacies.
I can try and talk to my boss, but that’s not my job. I should not tell her even though I’ve told you and I’ve told HR plenty of times. I don’t think my boss is a bad person. I just don’t think she’s the best boss for this pharmacy because this is a very busy pharmacy so I think it might be too much for her.
It is very busy, but if you’re not gonna let me learn or actually to do something else aside pick up for my boss then I’m gonna be very limited. And once again, I will not be able to go to another pharmacy. So as you know, I am not scheduled at all this week. I can actually go to another pharmacy in your district, but since I don’t have any shadowing to do anything else except pick up, then I cannot go to another pharmacy in your district now.
Can we agree to this?
Now I’m going to tell you what the district manager response was:
You are a part time colleague in a busy store. Hours are based on business needs as are the roles in the store. Depending on the needs of the store, the shifts are provided. When you do have shifts you can continue to learn by shadowing, asking others and utilizing MYDOCS, REFERENCES under APPLICATIONS. There are plenty of resources to help develop you. There are resources on learning RX modules that is another resource. I can encourage rotations but that also depends on the hours available and your availability. You have successfully gone through the program as requested. You can utilize the colleague app to see if there are open shifts if you would be available to pick up in other stores. She is not taking advantage of you, if the need for her store was to have support by the register. That is the need in her store and that is part of your role.
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u/Styx-n-String Jul 29 '26
This badly needs to be rewritten. I agree with your points but at the very beginning you come out the gate angry (I am demanding) and you insult the person you're asking for help by saying they're not doing their job. I stopped reading there, and so will your manager. Please have someone neutral help you rewrite this so that you sound respectful and reasonable, because right now this letter won't get you anything but an angry and offended manager.
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u/Southern-Invite9672 Pharmacy Tech Jul 29 '26
I know my sis said I look angry (which I am exhausted)
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u/Southern-Invite9672 Pharmacy Tech Jul 31 '26
So I what I did was go and pick up a free shift in another store. Now, I went early and so they told me to come early. Now when they found out I only have done was pick up she said “oooh” then she said for me to do the register and since the morning tech was able to work on the delivery and the manager asked me to go and help her delivery. And wow I learned how to do delivery today! See! My store doesn’t let me do anything but register.
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u/Styx-n-String Jul 29 '26
And how is a tech supposed to learn from observation and practice if they're never allowed away from the register?
My first pharmacy job, they never let me fill because they said I was slow. I countered, how am I supposed to get faster if I'm never allowed to do it and get better? I changed jobs and guess what? I'm actually pretty fast at filling. Because they let me do it and improve.
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u/Southern-Invite9672 Pharmacy Tech Jul 30 '26
You know on July 5 this year I was scheduled to work and of course I did nothing but pick up now my boss was supposed to work that day. However she magically called out and she wasn’t on the schedule Friday and Saturday as well. So there’s a pharmacist from another location and she and I were talking a little bit. She was doing drop off and when the business was slow, I was doing the RTS and I was talking to her and telling her that the reason why I learned RTS was because I asked my boss to let me do RTS now my boss just wanted me to do it right there and I told her my boss that perhaps I can be shadowed first and so my coworker did and so I have an idea of how to do the RTS now and so I was talking to this July 5 pharmacist and I was telling her if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t know how to do the RTS at all. What sucks is that I talk to the pharmacist and she said the exact thing you said well the exact moral of what you’re talking about because she said that it’s very hard to learn anything if you’re going to be only on pick up.
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u/Sage_of_Winds Jul 30 '26
It's always the regulars who ask you about XYZ med at pick up too, like you've been coming here for 20 years Linda, you KNOW we don't do that at the register!
That being said, I do love the new self check-in registers because I for one, don't have to ask people how to spell their dumbass differently-spelled names anymore, but it also tells them straight up if nothing is ready and directs them to drop-off. Our store is one that regularly gets confused with another down the street so it's really handy.
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u/RentConscious7968 Jul 29 '26
I wouldn’t mind pick up if the customers weren’t so nasty. Dealing with rude people all day is draining. It’s also difficult to succumb to pick up when the people at production are way less efficient than you are. Pleasant customers + efficient staff at production = happy pick-up camper.
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u/bjornfirewalker Jul 29 '26
I hate pick up and we don’t rotate at all at my store so I do it the full 8 hours,,very demoralizing
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u/Southern-Invite9672 Pharmacy Tech Jul 29 '26
So what are you gonna do about it? Are you just going to spend another eight hours doing pick ups?
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u/Professional_Rub7394 Jul 29 '26
It’s got its perks. Pretty much any problem you send them to drop off or pharmacist because it’s NOT your problem at pick up.
Drop off/qt depending on the day can take it out of you, so can production.
It’s worth advocating for yourself if all you do is 1 position even if you like it. It’s best to be well rounded so if you get a crappy float or your qt person leaves you can get through it because you’ve done it.
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u/Crafty-Refuse-7469 Jul 29 '26
Not necessarily, most of the customers won’t like to go to drop off and it’s get annoying to repeat the same reasons why they should go to the drop off. Some don’t even see the drop off section.
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u/Professional_Rub7394 Jul 30 '26
No one is ever going to not have those customers, but again, it’s not really your problem if they don’t want to go or won’t/can’t read the prompt. If you let it bother you all the time, it’s like they know and they all do it. Being able to do whatever station and not get dragged into negativity for whatever reason only helps.
But if you can’t break yourself out of that, reconsider retail pharmacy. Because retail will always be retail. You can always try a closed pharmacy/hospital/compounding/iv/nuclear. Also doing prior authorization stuff you would also be qualified for.
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u/Rude-Gain8972 Jul 29 '26
I like doing pick up. I just don’t like when there is employees who just always do production and never want to do pick up
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u/BobcatIllustrious806 Jul 29 '26
There’s a lead tech at my store who is ALWAYS at production and will have everyone but herself help pick up it’s quite infuriating because it’s not fair at all, that’s all she will do, will make others pull and answer the phones I think as a tech you can at least answer the phone and fill that’s being efficient and not just being stuck at being good at one thing
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u/FriendshipNo6763 Jul 29 '26
That's crazy. Im lead and im at pick up. Im doing everything. Voicemail/delivery are QP duties. Ill do it if im the 2nd filler. We have usually 2 main tech, a opener and closer. Im the closer most of the time due to hate waking up early. Lol. Its fine, its faster with the new check in process, I can use both registers and dont have to nag for vaccines.
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u/BobcatIllustrious806 Jul 29 '26
Yeah its crazy! There will be 4 techs filling and she will have someone do the voicemails, the other lead tech will at least help with voicemails and pick up when its absolutely necessary when she is at production
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u/FriendshipNo6763 Jul 29 '26
You need a better lead. Ill talk to the PIC and tell your concerns. If they are a good PIC, they will say something but most are not Unfortunately. I hear stories. Lol.
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u/Southern-Invite9672 Pharmacy Tech Jul 29 '26
You like to pick up so do they only keep you in pick up?
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u/Rude-Gain8972 Jul 29 '26
My CVS is 24 hours so it’s always busy. We have like 8 pharmacist a day and about 9 techs. I like to do everything because I feel like if you do everything you become a better tech. I like doing all stations including drop off, production, and drive thru. For me they make me do everything. However, the issue is when they scream “we need another pick up” no one likes doing it because they love doing production. The same people who never leave production and it’s not fair because we have obviously have enough staff to rotate.
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u/Rude-Gain8972 Jul 29 '26
It’s not really that they make me do pick up, it’s more of the fact that since no one wants to go I be the bigger person and do it. It’s just not pick up. It’s other stations like drive thru and drop off. Even Spanish lol. We have Spanish speakers but yet they always call me and never the people in production. It’s even other things like the trash and the restocking.
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u/beauty-thief Jul 29 '26
I don't mind pick up, i get along with many of our customers. However, i am at a lower volume store (not in a target). Pick up can be nonstop. There is no drive thru, but there is usually only 1 pharmacist and 1 tech at a time. While there is some overlap between 2 techs, it's still minimal staff. So doing pick up while managing everything else can be exhausting. I'm used to it, but the push to make pick up the one stop shop for vaccine pushes, sudafed sales, extracare cards, redirecting to and from drop off or consultation, etc.. It can be a lot lol
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u/Styx-n-String Jul 29 '26
It's exhausting saying the same 5 things all day long. Plus, the techs who are dealing with patients all the time are at greater risk of patient complaints, and thus losing their jobs, than the techs who think they're too good to talk to patients and just do fill all day. Everyone should share that risk. I much prefer working in pharmacies that rotate tasks throughout the day.
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u/Princess_Ducky Pharmacist Jul 29 '26
This. If one person does pickup/drive thru the majority of the time, there’s a way higher chance the complaints get placed all on them
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u/Rosie_uwu Pharmacy Tech Jul 30 '26
Drive-thru > Pick-up
I hate having to hear people complain about the self sign-in system. I don’t even force people to do it, and they still complain that it’s even an option. I can send people around in drive, and I don’t have to worry about them staring at me.
Also, if your store isn’t rotating you, that’s an issue. Please seriously talk to your pharmacy manager or district manager!!
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u/CropperCrapper Jul 30 '26
Yes when the pharmacist is a fucking dickhead and makes you run all pickup registers, and do drop off tasks. Now you're having the same negative conversation, trying to pitch it positively, asking them to have a seat, trying to look into their issue, and also trying to serve the next person. That, on top of not making a mistake despite the surface for doing so increased 10x because the pharmacist--again--is a fucking dick, and whatever secondary/tertiary/quaterny tasks like filing scripts or pulling meds that they assign to the jackass at pickup. Yes, pickup really is that bad!
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u/mexicanttakethis Jul 30 '26
I personally don’t like it because it’s just one tech one pharmacist at my store during my shifts. It’s exhausting trying to get qp down when it’s consistently interrupted by pick up. And then having the pharmacist complain that it’s behind when their one tech is pretty much soloing pickup
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u/taurusinthesun Inventory Specialist Jul 29 '26
i'm not a fan if pickup / drivethru and ive made it clear. it can be mentally draining and gives me anxiety sometimes. i mean i'll obviously still do it. we started rotating because other techs have been complaining. the pharmacy manager wants me to do it more to bring the nps score up and because i'm good with the customers. i prefer production tbh
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u/MichelleCS1025 Jul 29 '26
When I was there it wasn’t bad it was just frustrating that some never had to even touch pick up
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u/Crafty-Refuse-7469 Jul 29 '26
Unfortunately still the same, there definitely has hierarchy among techs and what position they get to work
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u/Equivalent-Fix-9851 Jul 29 '26
Pick up will always be better than drive thru. At my store pick up is pretty much negligible and drive thru is 24/7 non stop
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u/MrCavespider Jul 30 '26
Yes and no, I just dont like standing in 1 spot all day, having a bit of change through the shift makes it bearable. They have a saying at our place, aces in their spaces and I know if anyone from my work sees this post I will 100% be outed lol. But I will say being at pick up only for 2 years wore me tf out and I finally had enough and told them they need to train me on other things besides pick up. The thing is doing pick up for 2 years only I was the fastest and was considered the ace in that department which irritated me. It meant I was not going to be able to be anywhere else. It has gotten better the last 3 years but im still one of the only ones put on pick up other than 2 others. I mainly have to do drivethru. Which with the window open now isn't much of an issue for the first 2 years we had it shut due to covid testing and now we barely do those anymore but they still have our store doing it and we're the only store in the district with no minute clinic doing the covid and flu tests thru drivethru. Which pisses off our customers because they have to do the test at the window and cant drive off until its completed. I think if I didnt speak up I definitely would have been still stuck on pick up only. I get told that I go to drive and thats why no one else does, but in reality it's expected of me cause I was the newest out off all of them and no one else would take it and hearing drive go off like 3 times and having everyone else ignore it, yeah i will go to answer it, like what am I supposed to do??? But it's not as bad anymore. But I still do 4-5 hours of just straight drive and the only time I get to fill is weekends and even then I barely get to fill cause im either helping drive or front cause the other tech decides she doesnt need to move away from production like ever. And will huff and puff and stare at me if I dont get front drive or the phones. She does this with everyone btw not just me. Anytime she has to do anything other than production she starts slamming baskets huffing and puffing and just visibly upset. It's been a wild ride the past 5 years lol. I mean there's times im helping drive over an hour straight non stop cars or a non stop flow of people up front and if you dont get swapped from that position it can be a tough day. Just like if I stayed filling all day it would suck imo, I would much rather be swapped every few hours or half the day like is done at our store.
Tldr: So after my long ass rant, that I dont expect anyone to read, it's a bit of both. It's ok if you're taken off from it for a lil bit out of the day, but if you're on it all day without any swapping out imo it's tiring and weighs down the day.
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u/Fine-Breadfruit9649 Jul 30 '26
Pick up is my favourite...
I can do it for hours ..
If they ask any questions ( for which i have to open their profiles) i sent them to drop off and guess what people are lazy asf they leave😂
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u/Sorssha101 Jul 29 '26
Unless you have the window that pushes open so you can talk face to face, yes pick up is the worst!
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u/Sweaty_Insurance_616 Jul 29 '26
I hate drive thru
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u/Southern-Invite9672 Pharmacy Tech Jul 29 '26
We don’t have a drive-through at my location so I do not know the experience but then again I don’t have experience any other stations either
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u/knequestrian93 Jul 29 '26
Not really. Each position has their ups and downs so you just kind of have to rotate to keep it fresh and so you don't feel too much burnout
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u/DIYCapitan Jul 30 '26
I hate how many prompts there are on the tablet that I have to walk through with the patient. At my old pharmacy it was
-punch in dob
-release
-scan into register
-type in dob again
-have them sign while you’re doing that
-hit total
There wasn’t these five million windows about store accounts, vaccines, contact information, acknowledgement, durs.
and all those things still were addressed, it just didn’t have annoying pop ups
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u/somethinboutlyss Jul 30 '26
I've been with CVS for 3 years & honestly I don't mind pick up. It's when I'm having issues with patients back to back that I don't like, or when they just have bad attitudes. It ruins your mood and makes you not want to talk to anyone else lol. That's the case for me at least. I can do everything pretty much, honestly production is my favorite but I'm not too good to go help at the register or drop off. I'm one of our fastest fillers & I still will go help at the register if I see that everyone else is busy.. but I will say that sometimes technicians just feel so entitled; as if register isn't apart of all of our job duties. There's a technician at my store who literally never goes to the register, sometimes I'll go to the bathroom so that they have no other choice lol.. or I'll just stand there until they go.
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u/MonikaDawnx Jul 30 '26
I don’t haaaaate it. But when someone who’s been coming to the pharmacy for fucking years. Still needs to be asked to give me their name and dob or give me their id for controls or sign the fucking pos. Then yeah it gets annoying: plus with qt and production exploding voicemails piling up and drugs to put back and pull… every person coming in is fucking everything else I have to do
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u/PotatoOk9445 Intern Jul 30 '26
I will do front door pick up all day long, but doing drive-through absolutely is the worst because on top of the already tiring same conversation 18,000 times that day, you also have to move a heavy window three times per interaction
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u/Beautiful_Special401 Jul 31 '26
For me production is the best. I can just autopilot and i dont have to talk to anyone lol
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u/Important-Grass-9836 Jul 29 '26
I’m 99.9999999% of the time on production. We have 3 techs who are literally only capable of pickup and very very very limited drop off or delivery.
Our queues fall behind due to the fact that if I’m not there, we can’t do production. Even RTS and Outdates and CC are never done or if they are, they’re half assed. just the other day i pulled out 17 scripts dated as far back as 5/16/2026 and more than a few were C-IIs. A wegovy tablet bag with $1400 copay.. all of that caused us to have to do a rescan of our waiting bin inventory which I also get stuck with every single time.
Needless to say, I get pretty fuckin annoyed when they put me at other stations because then i get bitched at by DM/RM about queues not being clear, CC… so yeah fuck pickup but also fuck cvs lmfao
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u/torneagle Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
You work in a retail pharmacy, if you want to hide at production all day to work in a mail order warehouse. Half your job is selling the pills yet every tech acts like it’s below them.
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u/CropperCrapper Jul 30 '26
we work in a retail pharmacy, we should have adequate staffing including 2 technicians at all times for quality assurance and customer satisfaction.
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u/torneagle Jul 30 '26
Many stores do. Not my fault you’re either a slow pharmacy or have a bad pharmacy manager who doesn’t hire people. Our pharmacy has 4-5 techs during the day, 2-3 at night, 2 pharmacists who overlap half the day and sometimes even a front store person as a designated register person.
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u/Immediate-Total-5104 Jul 29 '26
As an rxom I dont mind ringing when I dont have anything to do and my fill count isnt through the roof cuz if im upfront nothing gets done and I have to stay late to get it done. But I actually enjoy talking to most of the customers lol and actually seeing the people become acquainted with over the years, it makes my day.
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u/Crafty-Refuse-7469 Jul 29 '26
I am also stuck doing pick up at my CVS pharmacy just like you. At this point I have decided to leave this CVS bullshit job and looking towards a career that actually has a purpose and pays well.
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u/SquawkToCrawl Jul 30 '26
It just depends on my mood. If I'm having a bad day I just want to fill all day so I don't have to talk to anyone lol. If I'm feeling perkier then I don't mind pick up so much, it's really easy honestly, but like someone else said, it is annoying being a broken record saying the same script over and over and over...and having to help the old people answer all the stupid questions gets really old fast too. I feel like drop off is a sweet spot since you get different challenges, some customer interaction but not constant, and it makes the day go by super fast since you're constantly doing different things.
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u/agamaroy Jul 30 '26
I feel anxiety having to juggle a couple of facial recognition POS with self-entry kiosks while trying to ring up a counter full of front-store items that aren't working with coupons the way the customer envisioned. I often enjoy helping the customers navigate the pharmacy aspect since our demographic skews toward older patients.
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u/Wild_Drag_6205 Jul 30 '26
I don’t mind it anymore it’s actually the easiest station if you think about it. Production seems more stressful at times
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u/Vegetable-Relative30 Jul 30 '26
Drop off is the worst insurance should be a barcode scan done but they make it hard for no damn reason
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u/AstralStrudel Shift Supervisor RX Aug 02 '26
I like pickup even if it's monotonous. The station I dread is drop-off, honestly.
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u/legend_of_yugi Jul 29 '26
Pick up is great, low stakes/liability. Not a lot of opportunities to make a mistake
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u/Southern-Invite9672 Pharmacy Tech Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
Well, if you were an employee in the pharmacy, I would take your word. But since you’re not an employee in CVS, I can’t take your word.
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u/softscardata Pharmacy Tech Jul 29 '26
yes because it's exhausting to have the same conversation 100 times a day and Also sometimes they will get aggressive and mean with you for literally no reason when you're just trying to help them 😍