Before I get too far into this, no, I'm not leaving Signature Health, nor did I get a new job. I know some will see something about my job and think that's what's happening, particularly since those who work in the Willoughby office may have noticed new faces in the pharmacy.
For those who don't like to read, I'll get right to the announcement as this may be a lengthy post depending on how much of a roll I get on and I know some of you may not want to read much. The gist of what I have to announce is that as of tomorrow, Monday, May 6th, I'll no longer be working exclusively out of the Willoughby pharmacy.
Rather, I've agreed to take on the role of inventory specialist across all Signature Health Pharmacy locations. This is a rather large change and will involve more working out of the corporate office (where I've been working out of most Fridays since last summer anyway) and traveling to all the locations we have. So yes, you'll still occasionally see me pop my head into the Willoughby location from time to time, but it won't be as often and you may not even see me at all since I'll be in to mostly work on inventory related tasks.
Now that the actually announcement is out of the way, for those who don't mind reading the rambling thoughts of someone who's been in a pharmacy for over 20 years at this point, I'm going to go back to the beginning.
Before I do that though, I need to make it clear how much I had to actually think about this decision. I've been with Signature Health for nearly 9 years. I helped start the pharmacy and was there when the doors opened for the first time on June 1st, 2010. I've watched the pharmacy grow from 30 a day, to 100 a day, to easily eclipsing 500 on Monday alone. We've hit milestone after milestone and have grown from a single pharmacist and tech in a single location to having several full-time pharmacists, part-time pharmacists, float pharmacists, and multiple techs across 5 pharmacies.
The growth has been astronomical and staggering at times. And it hasn't always been easy, but we've always managed to find a way to get the job done. And to say it's simply because of the pharmacy staff would be a dramatic understatement. Every nurse, prescriber, counselor, case worker, administrative assistant, and anyone else who's recommended a client use our pharmacy, or in some cases used the pharmacy themselves, deserves credit for the pharmacy succeeding the way it has.
We fill more scripts in a week than a lot of major chain pharmacies, and that's with us being closed earlier than most pharmacies during the week and not being open at all during weekends and major holidays. We recently hit 6500 total scripts in a month, a new record for us. The place is hopping.
The Willoughby pharmacy is special to me though. I was there from the start. It was a huge chance I took, leaving CVS and deciding to venture into the unknown. There was absolutely no guarantee the pharmacy would succeed. But I felt like we could do it. I've put a lot of time into that pharmacy, and in particular the last couple of years, a lot hours into making sure it stayed rolling along even through drastic change.
Looking back now, I had to do it.
I spent my first 13 years with CVS. I was tired of the way we were treated, tired of the way corporate didn't care about its employees. I was tired of being tired. Cliched, I know, but it was true. Then a girl I was dating at the time showed me the job listing (or maybe it was her Aunt who found it, either way, I'm fairly certain Tara was the one who showed me the listing and she can correct me if I'm wrong). I had nothing to lose so I went for it.
The discontent at CVS wasn't something that sprung up overnight of course. It festered for quite some time before finally reaching a boiling point. Of course, CVS wasn't always that bad. Sure, the pay was never great, but for a long while, it was something I could endure. It was my first job, and I took pride in getting it and sticking with it for as long as I did.
I applied for the job back in the summer of 1997. I was entering my junior year in high school. My mom needed help so it was mutually decided that I get a job. Back then, CVS didn't exist in this area, it was Revco, and there was one in the shopping corner across from my street in Brunswick. I went in, put in an application, then waited.
The call came from the Strongsville store though, which was a mild inconvenience. The idea with the one by my house was I could walk to it with ease. This wasn't quite as easy, but given they were hiring, my mom told me to go for it. I went in for an interview and was offered a job shortly thereafter.
I started on Labor Day, September 1st, 1997. I was just shy of my 17th birthday and at first, I worked as a cashier before slowly moving my way into stocking. I met a lot of people while there, a few I still keep in contact with to an extent. It wasn't long before I was a shift supervisor, but that wasn't going to be my path. In fact, just a couple months after I started, it wasn't even Revco anymore as CVS had already begun the process of converting the Revco stores over.
No, my interest in pharmacy began to grow the following summer. That old style store meant the pharmacy was behind the front registers, which meant constant contact with the pharmacy staff and I found the world of pharmacy to be fascinating. When an opening popped up in August 1998, I decided I wanted in. The pharmacist in charge at the time felt it was a good match and the store manager reluctantly allowed it, although he wanted me to work on the floor at night when we were slow.
And we were slow. We were terribly slow. A good week was 1000 scripts and that wasn't that frequent. The store was in an old shopping plaza where Tops (previously Finast) used to exist. That spot had long been vacated (although a Pat Catan's eventually moved in there right before I left) and while other locations were getting brand new stores, we were left out.
Of course, this meant we got away with a lot of things and were generally avoided when corporate came to town. But it was boring and people were moving on.
My pharmacist in charge had been relocated to the Berea store not long after I started working in the pharmacy and my friend Mike grew disenchanted with CVS and moved on to a couple of jobs before eventually coming back for a bit. I was feeling underutilized and my previous pharmacist in charge was trying to convince me to transfer to his store.
The politics behind that when I decided I wanted to transfer were pretty awful. My manager refused to agree to it at first, then said I couldn't go until a replacement was trained.
I honestly couldn't tell you who was trained. I didn't care. I was done with that location, wanting to move on to a new challenge. The Berea store was one of the busiest stores in the region, a stark contrast to the Strongsville store. Berea was known for easily breaking 600 scripts on a slow Monday. But I wanted that pace, I wanted a new challenge.
In 2000, I got my wish and began my time at that store. It was definitely a different world. For one, the store was actually relatively new, so it was set up how CVS wanted its pharmacies to be at the time. It had a drive-thru, it had automated filling, and the pace was something I hadn't seen before.
I caught on quickly though and quickly integrated myself into how the store operated. There were good times, there were bad times, and I was definitely not always a model employee, but the job would get done we tried to have as much fun as possible.
One day I'll get into more detail the shenanigans that went on there, and touch on some of the lower moments for myself, but this isn't post isn't meant to go into great detail on this time. Let's just say that it became increasingly clear that CVS corporate, and the Local 880 union, didn't really do much for the staff.
It wasn't uncommon to have corporate kiss up to a customer, even if the customer was clearly in the wrong, because they wanted to keep that business. There was nothing really liking have a customer tell me to go fuck myself because he didn't have his kid's insurance card, then have corporate throw a $25 gift card at him to keep his business.
This, along with the increasing cuts in hours while adding to the workload, made for a very stressful environment and morale was crashing down pretty hard. We continued to do the best that we could, but it was clear that corporate didn't care how stressed we were, they just wanted to keep piling things on.
They added phone calls, pages upon pages of them, that had to be completed each day in a weak attempt at keeping customers compliant (what it really ended up being was another way to boost script counts). They decided that pharmacists should give vaccines, which was more work, but then they made the vaccines a priority. If you came in with your sick kid's antibiotic and someone showed up wanting a flu shot, well, your kid's antibiotic got shoved to the side because CVS required flu shots be done first and foremost. They continued to cut hours while increasing the kinds of calls to make.
It became suffocating.
The breaking point for me was two separate points that summed up how corporate treated us.
We were busy as shit, running around like mad. The bigwigs, as they were referred to, showed up in the middle of an intense rush. We were filling scripts on time, moving people through the drive-thru quickly, answering phones in the time required, yet all this one particular asshole noticed was that there was dust on top of the highest shelf. He turned towards the staff and asked if anyone was intending on cleaning this.
We all stood there, dumbfounded. One pharmacist spoke for all of us though when he asked "are you kidding me? We're busting our asses and your worried about the dust up there? How about you clean it then?"
It was a moment I won't forget because it was a clear signal that they didn't care about us. They didn't care how hard we were working. They wanted us to do more.
The other moment was when we blew past the budget they expected us to hit for script count, then promptly shaved 60 tech hours away while increasing the budget. It was a punch to the gut and the final straw in all reality. I was ready to go. I was done with that place.
I was done with retail pharmacy.
Then I came across the job listing for a new pharmacy opening up within Signature Health. I jumped on the chance and was determined to not just get an interview, but land the job. I needed to get out and I needed a change of pace.
I remember feeling very good after the interview and thinking I had a real chance even though I was told there was another good candidate. I felt I had to have this job, had to get out of CVS.
We know how this turned out. I landed the job and was in the building prior to June 1st, 2010 to prepare the new pharmacy for its first day. I remember sitting at a computer, running test claims on dozens of fake scripts to make sure all the insurance contracts were good to go. I helped set the pharmacy up and helped figure out how we were going to operate.
On June 1st, the first Signature Health Pharmacy opened up and the rest is history.
It was exactly what I needed.
Too bad I was a shitty coworker for much of the first 6 years. Okay, so most of the time I was okay. I showed up, did the job, but I grumbled a lot. I was extremely moody. I was resistant to things I didn't like or want to do. I slacked off a lot and was annoyed when people wanted me to help with something.
The constant theme of my reviews was my attitude needed to improve, how I treated the clients needed to improve. I didn't adjust it right away, or if I did, it didn't last long.
I made a lot of mistakes.
The reality of it all was I was looking for a break. I wanted to do less work while getting paid more. Sure, there was motivation at the beginning and pride, and this isn't to say I didn't do the job. I absolutely did the job. I just didn't go above and beyond and if I did, it was for the wrong reasons.
After Kelley took over as pharmacist in charge, I had to shape up. She wanted and expected more out of me. Yet I resisted a lot of the time. I made excuses when I was constantly running late, made excuses when I wasn't answering the phone. I wasn't being accountable with myself and I was putting the burden of fixing my attitude on others who had to deal with it.
It took a while for me to realize that empathy is a wonderful thing. I wasn't empathetic at all the first few years. While the client base was much better than CVS's, I continued to react to them like they were a CVS customer.
It wasn't good enough.
Oddly enough, sometimes you have to see yourself in someone else to realize what you're doing wrong. You have to see someone else doing the things you were doing to realize how awful it looked. I had to see that. It's how I had to learn to be better.
I eventually realized about 2 or 3 years ago that how I was wasn't working for everyone else. I had to be better. I vowed to be better. I made myself be better.
I stopped letting personal life stuff affect my attitude at work. Once I was done entering scripts at drop-off, I didn't just sit and browse social media; I realized I should be helping others with what they're doing. I made myself more available, opened myself up to doing other things than drop-off. I started to understand empathy and stopped reacting with a nasty attitude, but rather tried to figure out how to deal with the situation in a more positive manner.
I saw what was wrong with me and grew up. I found ways to be helpful, made myself available for whatever needed to be done, and in some cases, became the voice of reason when things were challenging.
And 2017 in particular was challenging. There was turmoil, there were moments where we were barely staffed, and at times, my pharmacist Kerri and I were pretty much the only ones working in Willoughby.
We spent a LOT of time working together to keep things afloat. We had to. It meant I had to be willing to be everywhere needed.
I spent much of 2017 and early 2018 on drop-off. I grew to appreciate not being there, and when Regina came aboard, was more than happy to let her have a day over there to give me a breather. I relished it even.
By the summer of 2018 though, the winds of change were beginning to pick up. I didn't know it yet of course. It started as an offer of overtime to work on inventory related issues that had become concerning. I spent almost every week last summer working on Friday on overtime, figuring out what was going on and trying to come up with a solution.
It felt like an audition at times, like I was being prepped for something. I wasn't sure what, but there were whispers of an inventory-based position. Nothing that I could confirm at the time, but just things I had heard.
Of course, that came to be the case, and while I can't say for certain my inventory work was an audition, it sure feels like it was at this point. And I guess I passed that test, as here I am, on the brink of starting this new chapter in my pharmacy career.
It's going to be strange at first though. Signature Health in Willoughby has been my home for the last nearly 9 years. I've watched it grow from a few scripst a day to a relatively high volume independent. I've watched it grow from one pharmacy to five.
I'm proud of it. I'm proud of the Willoughby staff past and present. I'm proud of all the Signature Health staff that have come, gone, and still exist to this day. You all have a hand in the pharmacies succeeding.
Now I take my work behind the scenes, hopefully operating in a way that the pharmacies don't notice unless I'm there unless they need me to be. I'll be meeting new people and probably be getting lost in new buildings as I find my way to all of our locations.
I look forward to this challenge and look forward to helping all of the pharmacies get in a better place with their inventories, if they need the help of course.
I don't want to step too hard on any toes.
The honest truth is I wouldn't be here though if certain people weren't hard on me, didn't expect more from me. It took a while, but I think I finally got the message.
Thank you.
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