Advice about work.
 

Hello all,
I started a new job in december last year and I have been having a few problems and would like some advice on how to deal with these issues.

When I was employed and accepted the job, I was employed as a "Pharmacy student" which is fine as I am currently at uni studying to enter the career. I was not told that I would be running the retail arm of the store, with no training and no back up on a weekly basis. I was also not told that I would be in charge of the junior staff (17 and 15 years old). I was told this after the shop was open and I had started work and also after I had resigned from my other job.

My biggest problems are:

- I am not getting trained in the over the counter medications. (everything from vitamins/supplements to medications). So it is essentially like the blind leading the blind in the shop.

- There is no continuity or communication between staff between the week and the weekend. (I have turned up for shifts on the weekend, without my other staff showing up. When I ring them to find out what is happening, they tell me they called in sick the day before and no one has even left me a note to let me know. Also no-one has organised replacement staff, so I end up working a 9 hour day with not so much as a toilet break)

- I am having problems with one of the junior staff members. She, to put it bluntly, has absolutely no manners (interrupting customers while speaking, has no understanding of personal space), work ethic (I ask her to take the rubbish to the skip bin outside and her first response is "I don't take out rubbish, thats not my job"), or intelligence. I realise that this sounds harsh, but the girl is 17 (nearly 18), in her last year of school and is incapable of doing simple math. for example: a customers purchase is $16, she gets handed a $20 note and has to use the calculator to work out the change.

- legal requirements are not being followed in regard to medication within the pharmacy dispensary.

These are the major points that I am having problems with. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place becaus the problems that i am having are not being seen or experienced by the full time staff that work during the week. I have been working in retail for a long time now and I see these as large problems because they can really kill a store (let alone the legal consequences of some of them). My boss (retail manager) is a very approchable person, but has absolutely no backbone and so far has simply ignored what issues I have brought up with her. The pharmacist in charge is a dinosaur and is disgustingly lazy (he will spend time on facebook instead of training the staff, during work hours), but he is also the husband of my Head of Pharmacy school at uni, so I am scared to say anything because of the potential consequences outside of work.

Basically I am extremely frustrated!!!! I am comming home from work and I can't figure out if I want to cry or scream.

Any advice you could offer would be appreciated.

re:
 

If you're working 9 hour shifts without a break, you're probably able to go whatever workers board they have there and talk about it if you feel you want to do that.

If you've already talked to your manager about it, looks like you have done what you can.

Pretty much you're between a rock and a hard place and either have to live with those things or find a new job. :/

.

The place has been run that way before you and it will be run that way after you. Do you feel an extra obligation to stay because of the uni connection? If not, find something else. You cannot fix there what has been broken before you got there, and it isn't your responsibility. Perhaps it is well-known in your field in your area that this place is a nightmare--if so, it may be detrimental to your future employment.

Were I you, I would pack it in and leave--find another job. I realize it is a hard economy, but this is the advice I would give my own daughter.

It doesn't seem the effort you put in is worth the worry and frustration, especially since people who own and/or run the place aren't worried or concerned. Find something else, and I sincerely hope it isn't the same no matter where you go in that field.