Friday, June 20, 2014

Schedule! If you are in charge of one, you know what I'm talking about.

Anyone that in charge of the schedule for a business will tell you it is one of the hardest jobs or aspects of their job. Everyone has their own schedule that they have to deal with in life. You have to run these errands today, pay these bills tomorrow, and when am I going to meet up with friends or family. Longer term schedules like when are we going to take a vacation, graduate or look for a new job. Schedules are all around us. We are constantly looking at our schedules.

When you are in charge of the schedule for your company or business, it is really difficult to schedule everyone around their schedules. You don't want to be mean about the schedule, and you want to be fair. Some people have tenure or seniority, and you have to take that into account. Also, if you don't have a regular work schedule 9-5 or 8-5 or 9-530 with weekends off, it is harder to schedule. I am mainly talking to retail pharmacy and retail in general. 

Dealing with vacations mostly in the summer is difficult. Trying to find coverage for your pharmacy or business is a pain in the neck and all consuming. This past week I did not even have the schedule ready for the next day! Calling everyone I knew frantically. I bet you are asking, "why not just hire someone." The answer is definitely more complicated than that!

NO PAYROLL! Did I write that loud enough!?! Your boss says you cannot hire anyone else because you are already over on payroll. Talk about frustrating. We, all pharmacists, tell our boss we need more payroll to do all of extra programs efficiently and also not make mistakes. Their response, there is nothing we can do. Yes, there is! Tell your boss and tell him to tell his boss! 

Trying to get someone from another store  to fill in is a few and far between. They have to be good enough to fit in to my busy store. Most of our stores do not have enough help as it is. We have explored all options. By the way, no overtime for my excellent employees either. I just wanted to blog about this to let everyone, pharmacy and patients, know that we are doing our best. Be patient, and we will be with you as quick as we can!