I started working as a technician for a small pharmacy the last week of December 2021. The pay is $15 an hour which was fine since I have no prior experience and the job is close to home and sadly that’s the highest hourly wage I’ve been paid in my working history thus far.
There are only 4 of us who work there, two pharmacists, another technician who has nearly two decades of experience and myself. Now the way it’s structured I’m basically a gopher who does literally everything and everyone is considered my supervisor.
One pharmacist is lead, then there’s the secondary pharmacist and the other tech is considered a lead technician who is charge of my scheduled hours and delegating my down time with mindless tasks while everyone else sits around on the internet and eats all day every day.
Things started out fine but as both I and they figured out I am very good at the position I have continually been given more and more tasks. It started with me filling half the scripts and doing half the deliveries to filling 90% of scripts and doing most deliveries to doing the 12 months worth of returns that were backed up which I completed in 3 months to now literally doing anything and everything the other 3 people don’t feel like doing including the housekeeping duties and any bullshit task you could possibly imagine. The bulk of the workload is continually given to me and I swear it is being done in spite.
Well back in late January my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer at 59 years old that has spread to 10 tumors in her brain and her prognosis appears like she won’t make it through the end of the year. Because of the lack of adequate staff I haven’t even been able to really have a single day off to help her at all or even get my mental health in check and it’s creating a huge burden on me. I haven’t been lacking in performance but my head has been in a bad place and it shows and the job has become growing more toxic.
Now the lead pharmacist is a real asshole and has been verbally abusive towards me from day one. He’s said to me in order of occurrence “I didn’t want to hire you because your tattoos and you look like a hippie asshole with your beard and long hair.” “You’re gonna do what I fucking tell you to do when I fucking tell you to do it.” “Are you just being lazy or are you fucking stupid?” “You’re a real piece of shit and if I could replace you I would.” All of this has been said to me because I have voiced my concerns about being given so much work when everyone else does literally jack shit.
Now that same pharmacist has been doing tons of illegal things within the business that I have been taking note of and accounting as well as documenting his verbal abuse to his superiors from cooperate but nothing changes. I want to start the process of reporting these things to the proper channels but I have a month before I can take a 3 month paid leave to help care for and spend what little remaining time is left with my mother.
Now the real kicker was today where I was forced to work an hour late and had asked a few times when the work would be done because staying late is not common for us at all. He made a remark that “working late comes with the territory and asking when it will be done is pissing him the fuck off.” He then asked what my rush to leave was and I told him it’s because I only eat outside of work because I literally can’t afford anything else, I am already maxed out on my credit cards and my bills are late because groceries and gas have gone up so much in the past few months. He then said “well I can tell you are definitely losing weight and maybe you should just eat more because I look sickly and it makes him and the pharmacy look bad.”
I then proceed to ask him if I could maybe get a dollar or so raise since I have done so much back work for them which would only equate to an extra $40-$80 a week. His reply was I could pick up an extra 5-6 hours of overtime a week to get an extra $100 or so but he can’t raise my wage because the business isn’t making enough money for it. I couldn’t believe that response because he knows I need more time to help my mother right now. How does that shit even make sense to him?
I plan on notifying him and cooperate of my intention to take my paid leave starting in June tomorrow which from that point protects me from retaliation give me legal grounds to sue and if they try and do me dirty I will drag them the fuck down with me. They wanna keep fucking me over so they can have fun without my help for 3 months while I look for a better job and spend whatever little time my mom has left with at least some money coming in and without the constant stress of this current position.
This country is one evil place to fucking live in and all these cock sucking bosses and employers deserve to rot in pits of shit.