My wife and I went to the pharmacy this morning, we had an appointment to get our flu shots.
Got to the large chain grocery store with the pharmacy in the back. Walk up to the place and there is a line of half a dozen people standing there to pick up medication. Usually at the other end of the pharmacy is a second window to check in for vaccinations. But today it was gated shut.
So we went and stood in line for 20 minutes as the ONE pharmacist busted her ass taking care of everything with zero help.
When she got to us we asked if it would be better to come another time. She insisted she could get us vaccinated. As she was preparing the shots, we asked if she was flying solo.
She said, yes all morning. We offered or sympathy and she said someone was coming in around 2:00.
Why don't you have any help we asked? She replied “no one wants to work here anymore.”
Then the big one slipped out, “And after next week I'm not going to work here either!”
Don't blame her one bit.
I asked if we could bring her a coffee from Starbucks but she declined.
One reason, at least locally, the pharmacy's around the area are swamped is that BiMart recently closed all their pharmacies. Probably a couple dozen stores around state and four in town. All those customers had to go elsewhere. This is on top of all the extra shit going on with Covid.
Every store is swamped, the tech are rushing as fast as possible and they can't hire help because Corporations don't want the overhead.
The local Fred Meyer store used to be a great place for medication, service was wonderful. Once Kroger took over instead of 6 or 7 people behind the counter, now there is never more than 3.
I don't blame any one of them for jumping ship and doing something a lot less stressful.
Thanks for helping us all these years, we will figure something out.
I guess mail order is going to be the future of medicine.