Get your Commission as an officer and start a career with the United States Public Health Service. You will get to do all of the “clinical” stuff they taught you in school. Most duty stations the providers are right down the hall if you have a better idea for how to treat a patient, in fact many will come to you before even ordering anything! 30 days paid leave every year, you can retire in 20 years, free medical care, COOL uniforms (chicks love uniforms), the chance to do emergency response work both here and abroad, many different working environments and the chance to move all over the country with just one pharmacy license.

Can you tell I love my career?

Oh, and once you’re “in” pro pharmacy school, there’s a saying: “A-students go on to grad-school (mostly foreign exchange doctorates) and B-students work FOR C-students. It has to do with being well-rounded and having communication skills, and a LIFE.

Regarding sign-on bonuses…… wow! I know one fresh Pharm.D. got 50,000
for ONE YEAR contract to take over a pharmacy that hadn’t had a R.Ph. mgr for over 2 years!! Luckily, when I bailed on my first contract, I was able to file an amended tax form and recoup the IRS loss — also the new company lump-summed me the $30,000 (for 3 yrs) to buy out my old contract — and they put it into a “loan” that only became “pay” the year I completed contract. It meant having to sock away xtra tax that year for it, but it got me out of Righty-tighty-Aid fairly painlessly.

Beware the “total compensation” blah-blah from PDMs…. I once had one waste my time, ask me what it’d take for me to come work for them, and then proceed to try to make their “comp pkg” = that…. even included an estimated yearly “comp” for “free” parking in their downtown busy location! (they had a parking lot) — puh-leeeeez!

I whole-heartedly support treating your techs well…. There’s the newbies, the silvers, the golds, and then there’s the PLATINUM tech. Never let your plats or golds go!!!! Buy them mochas and lunches here and there, bring ‘em back stuff from your vacas — give them the room to do their jobs and back them up when they get into it with a customer. They’re the only “office bull-dogs” we get, and most the time they’ll save your ass on some “new” insurance twist that they’ve been doing for 3 months already! (we just don’t know it, cuz their soooo damn good at keeping the financial crap under control so we can deal with the pompous ass dr who thinks he’s god)

LAUGH. BE REAL with your customers. DON’T tell them “10 minutes” (I don’t give a shit about whatever the corp. “policy” is) when you know damn well it’s gonna be an hour. Your best customers will appreciate you not wasting their time, and the others– well fuck ‘em — they’re the time-wasters you wanna pawn off on some other poor R.Ph. at another location. For every pain-in-the-ass customer you get rid of, your ability to service your normal customers goes up atleast thrice.

Don’t be afraid to put the vicodin-joneser on “hold”, and then —oops— forget about them til they hang up… I’m sure they’ll call another 8 times that hour.

And DON’T dip into the cookie-jar — no matter what you may have seen older R. Ph.’s do!!!!! DON’T!!!!