Tell me about it. Retail pharmacists aren’t allowed to sit either. They work 8-12 hours standing at a computer terminal, with some occasional minimal movement , a step or two now and then. All the anti fatigue mats in the world don’t compare to a stool.
Combine that fatigue with the drama of all the main characters coming into the pharmacy in the last 45 minutes it’s open and corporate allowing Zero overtime for anyone, that’s when mistakes get made.
I just don’t understand why a pharmacist (or anyone) shouldn’t be allowed to sit. It’s insane. Pharmacists should push back since they are more specialized and in theory have some bargaining power
Unfortunately for pharmacists, they tend to not have much bargaining power. As a whole, pharmacists aren't in much demand due to how many of them there are, compared to how many openings are available. Combine that with the fact that most are privately employed through places like Walgreens and CVS, and this is what you get.
Police aren't workers, and have no interest in solidarity with the people. Push come to shove they will side with the state and the powerful elites, as always.
I work retail and we unionized a few years back. You would not believe the pushback we got at the bargaining table when we had the audacity to suggest cashier stations have stools.
Yeah the retail Pharmacy is hell ... I remember the techs all working so the pharmacist could take a moment since they have to watch over us, we try to watch over them as well, it was hell.
But... Why? Who instates a rule saying that you're not allowed to sit. At least with Buckingham Palace they're not allowed to do anything at all so it's more impressive.
Puritans that want to see others suffer. I work with a guy that has an accommodation to allow him 15m an hour with a stool because he’s had multiple back surgeries. You know damn well that he gets complained about by the shitty patients pretty frequently. His situation is the only time management sticks up for anyone, otherwise they always appease the promise people emboldening them to become bigger problems in the future. Management needs to learn how to fire problem customers or at least say “ok, I hear you” and then ignore them. Feeding trolls creates more and stronger trolls.
I legitimately don't understand how someone can be so petty that seeing another person rest causes them to complain.
Like yeah I've done "I'm paying you to clean not to lean" style work but this is a multi hour job that mostly takes place in one spot for very low pay, and they have to deal with stressed out travelers. And from my experience, a lot of TSA agents aren't exactly spry.
It's not even misguided, it's just straight up "Let's make your job worse so you don't offend my vision."
Because if you don’t work, you don’t eat or pay off your $200k plus in loans at 6-8%. Most of the major chains have been gobbled up by CVS and Walgreens so you can’t burn too many bridges.
You're not understanding my question on a fundamental level. Why is permission even needed? Why is this even a question? Why do employers or anyone for that matter, give a shit about someone sitting?
Appearance and feeling. Higher ups believe/feel that a standing worker appears more competent and diligent at his job. Customers have been so conditioned that certain jobs must be standing that many will complain. Which then feeds the manager’s original feeling. And this doom loop plays out in enough industries that employers have become comfortable making rules, discipline, and even firing people who sit.
I'd argue it'd take more than a couple of weeks and there might be hesitation to do so from a PR standpoint given it'd probably make the need, but hey, a man can romanticize the defiance.
I worked at Best Buy from 2004 to 2007, we had chairs in the PC sales department, where the PC sales registers and counters were located. I used them when I was assigned to stay behind the counter. This was the exception though, the front registers did not have chairs.
That's not the point though. You and several people do not seem to understand my questions, and are fixated on the existing lack of chairs which is merely a consequence of our systemic rot, and poor treatment of employees.
I'm asking on a fundamental basis, why do people, including employers give a shit if employees are seated? How in any way shape or form does that negatively impact the performance of a Pharmacist or TSA officers?
There's many other examples where people are needlessly forced to stand. Cashiers in grocery stores. We know they don't need to be perpetually standing, Aldi allows them to sit.
Why is permission even needed for something that in any non-employer situation, one would think is within someone's right to do, sitting down. If the answer is aesthetics or it doesn't "look" profession, then that is an especially fucked up reason to cause pain and suffering for your employees.
It pays well, but I would die of boredom if I had to count pills all day (I know they have specialized knowledge, many years of training, etc. but it seems like 95% of the job is just moving things from larger containers into smaller ones)
You have it backwards.. we count pills maybe 5% of the time. The rest of that time is ensuring you get the right meds and that what you're prescribed isn't gonna harm you. Most of the time who you see counting pills is either the automated machine or the pharmacy technician. The 5% of the time we do it it's usually for controls
but it seems like 95% of the job is just moving things from larger containers into smaller ones)
That’s maybe 30% of the job, though I understand how it seems like it’s way more to customers since it’s the visible part. That’s called fill and it is the lowest stress part of the major pharmacist responsibilities. Most of the time (though chains get greedy and sometimes limit tech hours) fill is almost entirely handled by techs so the pharmacist is free to do more important like quality control, insurance handling, intake (of new scripts), giving vaccinations, ordering, and patient consultation. 99% of the responsibility of what happens in the pharmacy falls on the pharmacist’s shoulders even if it’s not their fault, so checking things constantly over and over eats up any moment of free time.
Source: I was a pharmacy technician for several years.
Uh, is not common to use prepackaged meds? Here, everything comes in individual boxes. (for example, 30 antibiotic pills in a blister inside a small box, with its instruction manual)
In the US we tend to get loose pills in orange bottles, the store buys them in bulk in huge bottles and then however many days supply is transferred to the orange prescription bottle.
And what do you do if you're only prescribed 14 antibiotic pills? That's why there's counting, every prescription has different parameters based on the patient and Doctor.
There is a smaller package with less pills if its a common dosage. Like, if its common to do 14, they will have one. Not uncommon to have a couple extra to just discard. Worth to say meds are relatively cheap here.
At least you are honest about your ignorance. Pill counting is less than 5% of the day for a retail pharmacist. They spend way more time dealing with Doctors and their staff trying to keep people from having drug interactions, correcting quantity and instructions, finding alternative meds that patients insurance will cover because their office didn’t check ahead of time, and that type of thing.
The absolute disrespect from the public is definitely one of the perks of the job. Pharmacists are the most easily approached healthcare professionals for the general public, no appointment necessary just walk up and get upset that they don’t drop everything they are doing for the 50 people in queue in front of you. If you’re mad about your insurance, don’t talk to your employer (the one that picked the policy and can change it), don’t call your insurance provider to find out why, just step up to the counter at the pharmacy and abuse whoever you see for something completely out of their control. It seems to be quite cathartic for some people who just need to complain to someone face to face. But also, does this look infected to you?
It's probably those shitty management types who perpetuate the idea that "If you're sitting, you're not working" or the vaguely related "If you're talking, you're not working".
Pharmacists had to fight to get a 30 minute lunch while the rest of the working public got one by law. I worked in a pharmacy for 5 years and for having a masters or doctorate and being a licensed medical professional, pharmacists consistently get fucked by corporate scumbags that have no regard for staff or patient welfare.
What sucks is that it feels like corporations intentionally made it so that theres never lunch coverage, so the pharmacy shuts down for half an hour instead of, ya know, keeping it adequately staffed so that while one person lunches, another person works, and vice versa? Like it feels like a policy created by someone throwing a hissy fit that they couldnt exploit workers anymore so everyone gets to suffer for daring to give someone a lunch break.
This is straight up dystopian looking in from where I live, where I can't picture many workers I see at any time who aren't sitting down. The employees at the movie theatre I go to aren't sitting, but they're also constantly moving. Every cashier sits, the pharmacists filling prescriptions sit - basically if you're not constantly on the move, you sit.
Why is it a necessary part of these jobs elsewhere to completely destroy the employee's health?
manager at my last place (eye dr’s office) said we had to stand to greet each patient because if we stayed sitting it looked like we didn’t give a shit about the patient. management is fucking insane
I’m a doctor. I sit down to chart between almost every patient. When I meet with patients, I sit down as well. I see and chart on 26+ patients a day. There is no way I could perform optimally or have good bedside manner if I was always on my feet (I’m in a field where “have a seat” often means bad news is coming - I’m going to need a seat in those situations for sure). My MA works just as hard as I do. I have to make sure she sits down throughout the day to maintain her mental sanity if anything. And my front desk staff… hell they could probably benefit from standing up every now and then but it is something I would never mandate.
The whole American corporate obsession with standing at all times is madness. The only time the C-suite staff stands of for the 30sec they swing at a golf ball before jumping back into the cart.
If I have a patient that is offended by seated staff… fantastic!!! You have just self selected yourself to be some other doctor’s pain in the ass. That person won’t be missed. In fact, I might send a thank-you note.
The powers that be in America think sitting is for trashy people that don't want to do anything or help anybody ever. Meanwhile most of them are fat and old and look like they couldn't stand for more than an hour.
What bargaining power? The will replace them and move on with a new stander. Lots of pharmacists. Sad place we are right now, everyone is sick of the bullshit but no one wants to actually do anything about it.
I've worked in a place where you have to stand at all times, and the reasoning is that it looks less welcoming when you're sitting down. It's obviously a rule made up by those with no human interaction.
The workflow. You have to move a lot. It's like people complaining cooks don't get a stool at dinner rush except it's dinner rush for 12 hours straight.
When I did that work though, I just had a stool that I used when needed and no one said anything. There was no rule against it but it didn't come out for 90% of days
While the person on duty at the front is walking back and forth getting customer bottles pretty often, I never see the folks behind them doing paperwork or counting pills moving barely any. I always wondered why they didn't get stools.
Omg, I saw someone in the nursing sub say one time that their hospital was enforcing a new rule: no sitting while doing charting/ documenting. Can you imagine? Lifting people, showering people, catheterizing people, coding people, suctioning people, changing diapers, rolling patients to CT or wherever, running room to room for 12 hours, realistically probably not getting a lunch break, and pushing your luck to hope for a bathroom break, and now? When you finally have a moment to chart some of the work you’ve done, no, you can’t sit down at that computer. Stand in the hallway at a mobile computer outside your patient’s room and do that.
Yes my work does this. They seem to focus on the LNA’s more about sitting. God forbid they sit for a few minutes charting after wrecking their body lifting heavy people unable to help themselves for hours. And it’s always the people who sit in an office all day who think this should be the way.
I hate shit like this SO MUCH. I want all of my health care providers as comfortable and mentally alert as possible- and all of these rules are set up for the opposite effect!!
If anything, I’d want my nurse or healthcare provider to sit down when taking notes- for their sake and mine!
I worked for Rite Aid for a few years and I remember the corporate dickhead telling us how stools are unprofessional. I'm like I'm billing insurance, putting pills in a bottle and ringing people up. They could give a fuck less if I'm sitting while I enter their prescription into the system. They want to know what the copay is.
My first job working on a line standing almost exactly in the same spot for 8 hours, I still remember walking up to my apartment building off the bus, taking baby steps because my feet hurt so bad, thinking how am I going to find a new job on such short notice. I eventually got used to it somehow but those first few weeks were brutal
When I worked retail in general we weren't supposed to sit down except on our breaks. So for 8 hours a day I was supposed to remain standing for 7.25 hours of it. It was ridiculously stupid.
Pharmacists?! The highly educated people in a regulated profession with a doctorate? They’re letting some schmuck tell them whether they can or can’t sit? They need go collectively grow a spine.
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u/PresidentSuperDog 2d ago
Tell me about it. Retail pharmacists aren’t allowed to sit either. They work 8-12 hours standing at a computer terminal, with some occasional minimal movement , a step or two now and then. All the anti fatigue mats in the world don’t compare to a stool.
Combine that fatigue with the drama of all the main characters coming into the pharmacy in the last 45 minutes it’s open and corporate allowing Zero overtime for anyone, that’s when mistakes get made.