pharmacy technician

shift leader

customer service representative

pharmacist

certified pharmacy technician

Walgreens

Whatever you do, do not take this job or any for that matter with this company even if it is the last one available on this planet. I will first begin by stating I can prove all of what is stated here with written documentation. There is a reason this employer is always hiring, as they will treat you horribly, and try and make it seem like it is your fault. I was never given the opportunity to start this job, which was a true blessing considering the absolute nightmare I was put through starting with the acceptance of the first offer letter that was given to me by Walgreens up until my prospective start of employment. I never officially began this remote Call Center Specialist Work from Home job, which I was not able attend the orientation on the first day or provide my i-9 documents in store,  despite my hard work volunteering countless hours to try and make this employment happen without help and with no success.  My first offer letter stated a rate of pay under the legal state minimum wage for which I reside and would be working remotely from, so I mentioned this and received no help from the onboarding coach who ghosted me and I was finally able to get in touch with a recruiter after waiting 3 weeks for a reply from the onboarding specialist who no doubt deleted my emails inquiring about my rate of pay discrepancies and IT equipment info as this was a posted remote position. The recruiter got annoyed that I brought this pay discrepancy up and that they had to change my offer letter to pay me the legal state minimum at $1 more a hour. The nerve in me and how dare I, right? It gets better.  Once doing so, I had to continually email them until 1 of the recruiters, not the original one who extended me the offer said I 'Should" have received the updated offer letter days ago, which was never emailed and then accused me of neglecting the acceptance of the job, which was a setup for failure by this company from the start. They then emailed me the offer letter and attached required i-9 documentation. I called HR at their corporate office for Walgreens in Illinois, and the HR representative had to get confirmation of where to send i-9 documentation, which I confirmed the fax number twice and the HR rep said to put my i-9 personal and confidential documents that were requested by Walgreens with attention to the recruiter for the position in my fax. I faxed the documentation 2 times successfully that day this was  2 weeks prior to the prospective employment with no updates from the two recruiters who I sent this fax to. Finally a week later the recruiter acknowledged my several email attempts and admitted to getting it and said she didn't handle this, and I had to supply it on day 1 of employment. This was unbelievable as I told HR on the phone when I faxed this that I wanted to avoid providing these documents via email as risk of a security breech and to not have to do this more than once.  Since this was a remote position, and I had been asking about IT equipment for weeks prior, and the recruiter in an annoyed tone said someone would reach out a few days before my first day of the job and to keep an eye out in the mail for equipment to show up at my home. I get the equipment less than a week before the start of the prospective job and cant get it to work. The help desk says to contact my Internet provider and after volunteering my time troubleshooting with the help desk several days before employment. I find out it is on the Walgreens side and their software isn’t working with my internet service provider for security reasons not blocked by my ISP but by Walgreens, who escalated my ticket 4 days before starting. Mind you this was concerning and I had brought this up to them over 8 weeks prior to this, and last minute they leave me in the dust as I was afraid would happen. Do not be proactive with this company as it will just waste your time and you will not be paid for it. The HR department will lie to you and toss your sensitive documents around carelessly. They provide no support and get mad when you do not do the things that they expect yet never tell you about, and you will be set up for failure with this position. i-9 documents were mishandled at the location I provide this company with on my prospective first day by the assistant store manager, who knew nothing about i-9 documentation and asked me to email through my cell phone my personal and confidential documents to their store email and then left me hanging without confirmation he received them. Get out while you can, as I hadn't read the reviews of this job until I received the offer letter, and saw how bad this job could be according to terrible reviews it got, and was blinded by the work from home convenience. This will not outshine everything else wrong with this job, as the work from home is the only good thing doesn't excuse the mistreatment you will receive if you accept it. I never began the job due to malfunctioning equipment that they could care less to try and help me make work and then asked me to join orientation with my personal cell phone the night before orientation was scheduled. Sorry, not good enough and Walgreens strung me along for 2 months of this nonsense, all to finally tell me to use my personal devices to receive the required training? Unacceptable from a national pharmacy and embarrassing for them nonetheless. If this review helps at least 1 person think twice about accepting this job, at least I can say it served to help save at least 1 person the time and agony these people will put you through knowingly waste your time.  I also want to stress this, do not let the work from home flexibility blind you from what this company is truly about. They are after the company and making money and could care less about you as an employee. Run, do not walk away from this as it isn't an opportunity they will extend you but a set up they know you will fail at. This set up scheme is also an attempt to make it appear that you weren't proactive as a candidate and were not serious about the job, which feels lousy to be treated this way, and really is just covering up the existing employee's dissatisfaction with this company and the way they treat their employees like garbage. If Walgreens hasn't chased you away yet which they did to me before I could even start this job, let this review be an attempt to warn you of what you will be subject to, and is an honest account of my horrific onboarding experience that wasted 2 months of my life.

Management ranging from the front of the store to the pharmacy varies completely. Most of the pharmacy managers you meet are really nice and genuinely want to help everyone, as for Assistant Managers and General Managers of the store. They are a completely different story and are really only out for themselves and could care less about their employees. As long as someone is available to take your shift they have no regard for what may be going on in your life. This is true regarding many different stores in various states.

I’ve worked with an amazing group of people the past 5 years, who have helped transform me into the person I am today. They care are about the general well being of the patients instead of you being just a number and that has made me stay with the company.
I work with amazing people but corporate makes high demands and does not allow for proper staffing. Luckily most of the people who come in regularly are very understanding.
Walgreens is a stable place that offers average benefits. Experiences are very different at different stores, and it is easy to transfer if needed.
My experience at Walgreens was good. The work was easy and and I had decent pay. It was easy to solve customer inquiries and problems, and working there kind of felt like I was a part of the community, in a way. Helping the customers who were from my neighborhood and talking with them day to day made it a job that I enjoyed doing.
Experienced Employee5 months agoOverall Experience
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I do pharmacy, photo, and stocking. I kinda dislike it because I don’t receive the appreciation I deserve for everything I know here. I am constantly running back and forth from working in package to doing photos or fedex. I hope to do something better in life and finish school. Money is always tight.
I currently work here and the pay is decent, especially in my area. It's a good job to have with opportunities for advancement, if you want to go into pharmacy.
I enjoy working here because there a lot of easy tasks and I enjoy building relationships with my co workers but Walgreens as a corporation doesn't treat the employees right.
My experience at Walgreens was rittled with issues. They company keeps its stores always understaffed. They do not provide adequate resources to the employees. They do not treat their employees like human beings especially pharmacist. They do offer opportunities for advancement but it is a
aggravating battle to fight. They do offer reimbursement but depending on what it is the process is utterly frustrating. They do offer financial assistance for aspiring pharmacist but it is very little compensation. They do not care about customers only profit. I will say they do pay a good portion of you insurance though and offer options to buy stock in their company. They retirement plans are good, if you can make it that long in the company.
Experienced Employee8 months agoOverall Experience
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This job strongly believes in growth. Their are many opportunities to move upward in the company. They believe strongly in hiring within and you scene various areas in the company that you can move to. Areas such as merchandising, management, district office, warehouse, tech support. If their is an opening you can apply, as long as you meet the criteria you too have a fair chance of being hired.
Manager / Director8 months agoOverall Experience
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What I like most about this job is that, hard work shows. All positions in the store will treat you better if they know you are a hard and productive worker.
Experienced Employee10 months agoOverall Experience
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I did like that the company seems to be trying to go in a new and more modern direction when it comes to management with its frontier program. Giving the workers the ability to direct the change in the store definitely helps with engagement. Things I would like to see change include: more investment in the stores as some stores are in desperate needs of repairs or a touch up and are not granted one due to it being a low-volume store, more accountability at the store manager level as some store managers that I have worked with in the past took advantage of the position to the detriment of everyone else.
Manager / Director11 months agoOverall Experience
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First off I would like to say that I have been with the company for 5 years. I started out as a cashier and Walgreens gave me the knowledge I needed to move up into the company. I would say Walgreens is a great company if you are either looking to get basic skills or if you are looking to invest into your future. I appreciate the connection I was able to build throughout me years at Walgreens. I have came across some amazing people who took the item to invest in me. Walgreens have amazing benefits for their employees so this is definitely a company that invest and care for their employees.
Manager / Director11 months agoOverall Experience
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The first 12 years I worked here were great. The company seemed to care about its employees. Now however it is all about numbers and they do not care how overworked and understaffed you are. Dangerous for a pharmacy.
Senior Employee11 months agoOverall Experience
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I enjoy working with my coworkers however we all wish there were more hours between us. Our location is always busy so it'd be nice to have an extra hand on occasion
Entry Level Employee12 months agoOverall Experience
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Working with Walgreens allowed me to improve my customer service and management skills and I met a lot of wonderful people along the way. Being with this company has inspired me to go back to school to learn about Pharmacy and get a licence for Pharmacy Tech. It is a challenging environment but I hope they will continue to grow in terms of their pharmacy department.

Pros: 
I’ve been working at Walgreens for the past 5 months and I can confidently say I love working there. I work at 2 locations in Lake Wales Florida and both have great management. They make sure to take the time to thank you for your work and contributions and make you feel very appreciated. They will always have your back. The crew is also very easy to get along with and they are welcoming and inclusive. Every job has a couple people that don’t sit well with you, but for the most part, the crew here is amazing. You’ll feel comfortable and eventually it’ll feel like a family. 
As for the work itself, it is really easy work. As a customer service associate, some days you will be on the register cashing people out, other days you might work on putting away inventory on the correct places on the shelves (truck). During closing you’ll straighten out the aisles and clean. Some things might take a few weeks to get used to figuring out how to do everything, but everything is relatively simple with practice. Stress levels are at a minimum. The vibes of the store are relatively calm and easygoing. 
Cons:
I will say that the store I first started working at didn’t train me very well. They didn’t explain many things to me and I was lost for the first couple of weeks, especially with how they did the schedules. So there is a possibility that you may have to teach yourself and actually reach out to management and ask questions about things, like your schedule, that they should have explained to you in the beginning. I still don’t know how to do some things around the store.

UPDATED REVIEW: 
I wrote my previous review when I was 18 years old working as a customer service associate. After six months of employment with the company, I was offered a promotion to a shift leader position, which I accepted. The first three years of working at the store and for this company was great. Sure there were crabby customers and typical annoyances on some shifts but nothing out of the ordinary nothing that made me really hate the job. For the most part I enjoyed working here. 
I am now approaching my fourth year with the company and things have been getting increasingly more difficult and stressful. The company is losing a lot of money and intern are closing a lot of stores throughout the country. They’re trying to cut costs in any possible way to make up for the loss , and employees are feeling the effects of it. We used to operate shifts with a pretty solid crew , a good amount of people working per shift, which made the tasks manageable to complete. But now we are being forced to operate on skeleton crews (2 people per shift, 3-4 if you’re lucky) and that simply is not enough people to run a retail pharmacy store, it’s just not . We are juggling 1 million different tasks in different departments throughout the store, including cashiering , stocking & rotating, photo lab, managing departments, inventory control, couponers & coupons knowledge, receiving deliveries , unloading warehouse deliveries (hot, tiring, and sweaty), store condition & presentations, and even being thrown into the pharmacy when they’re backed up even though you’re not properly trained to nor have any interest in working with pharmaceuticals. There’s also something called Medalia in which customers can leave reviews about the store , and most of the time people leave positive reviews but once in a while, we get a bad review and it tanks the entire NPS score that we’ve been trying to keep up, which is extremely discouraging, and I believe negatively impacts. The morale of the store. So we are constantly being pressured to tell customers about the survey in hopes of bringing this NPS score up with good reviews. On top of this, we also have to tell customers about the company credit card and if they would like to open up an account. We also have something called a task list on our handheld device in which we have to remember to check off the tasks within a certain amount of time or we fail Compliance and our store gets written up, but while remembering to check these tasks off might not seem so difficult to do, it is hard to remember when you have about a million and a half other things that you have to juggle at the same time , it is extremely easy for it to slip your mind . Walgreens employees are put under extreme pressure and impossible expectations. And that’s not even including the entitlement and rudeness that we face from customers, which can be insufferable. I can see the light fading out of my coworkers’s eyes  , we are becoming more and more stressed and miserable working here . I still have a lot if love for my team and we get along well. It is true that the management and culture of a store has the most impact on your enjoyment for the role you're in and the work you do. But I don’t believe it’s worth applying. I no longer want to work for this company, it is starting to feel exploitative. Please save yourself . What was once a supportive and uplifting environment and team has turned into one that puts more emphasis on nitpicking mistakes. I don’t feel as appreciated as I once did . I’ve been trying to figure out an exit plan for the past year and a half. 

Retail jobs typically don't pay well.  That doesn't excuse not paying well, that just means that a large number of companies don't believe their employees deserve to both eat and pay rent in the same month at any point in time.  Walgreens is absolutely one of those companies.  They spend a ton of time and money on "employee engagement" to prevent total mutiny or having to pay you enough to live on.

But, in addition to that, Walgreens will extract every possible iota of work out of you for every moment you are on the clock.  There is no reward for working hard and doing well.  If you get your work done early, your reward is more work.  Things you will not receive for hard work include: extra break/down/light duty time, additional income, bonuses, any other reward.  All the rewards for your willingness to throw yourself at menial tasks go to higher level managers.

If you keep this up, you may be given a promotion (IF there is room and there isn't a freeze on promotions) to Shift Leader, which still doesn't pay a living wage, but does come with 600% more expectation and stress.  From there you can go to Assistant Store Manager, which is a salary position that doesn't really pay better per hour than shift leader once you realize how much overtime you are required to work.

If you work hard and do well, you are chastised for the one thing out of a hundred you didn't finish in a day.  Others who struggle to get the basics right will be commended when they complete a single remedial task correctly.  If you're a performer, be ready to be taken advantage of and taken for granted, and for your manager to be confused when you express dissatisfaction.

If one of those who struggles for basics does something that sabotages or destroys your work -- for example, dumps a bunch of reshop or a truck tote of unrelated items into your bay right before your bay is graded on your day off -- be prepared for the manager to record that as your poor performance, and for them to not care that you weren't even there when it happened.

One day I didn't come immediately when called by the assistant store manager because I was on the can.  He yelled at me when I did get there, asking why I didn't come.  I told him I was in the bathroom.  He told me I was disrespectful for taking so long, and asked again why it was so hard for me to come when asked, why was I ignoring him, etc.  I told him again that I was in the bathroom.  He didn't get it.  He didn't care.  Apparently we are not allowed to complete the toileting process if one of our managers wants to tell us something.

One day I was completing some training lessons on the computer in the office.  If I was working out on the floor, I wouldn't have been cold because I would have been active; but since I was sitting in a small, closed room with A/C on full blast, I was cold, so I put on my jacket.  My manager told me I had to wear it under my uniform shirt, but it wouldn't have fit, and I pointed out that I wasn't where any customers could see me.  She told me that the camera could still see me.  Apparently it was more important that the loss prevention person who was maybe or maybe not watching the camera saw that my uniform was correct than for me to be comfortable enough to learn anything.  

To top all that off, their lack of care for their customers is appalling in contrast to the care for their customer they insist that employees have.  They talk about "extraordinary customer care", but then fuss at employees for helping customers in need instead of doing chores.  They talk about "personalizing" interactions, but want to script everything you say and force you to greet customers who have already been greeted, both of which are off-putting and insulting to customers.  We know that retail companies aren't interested in the happiness of their customers beyond what is profitable, but they could at least have the training in line with the practical expectations instead of leaving us to wonder which thing will get us in more trouble today.  Which is worse, not cleaning the chrome on the cooler doors, or telling the customer we can't take their passport picture for another 15 minutes because we have to clean the chrome on the cooler doors or we'll get yelled at?  Is it worse to let the shoplifter in aisle 1 make off with 6 bottles of Dove body wash so you can finish your overnight reset, or worse to not finish your reset because you were minding the guy in aisle 1 wearing a giant coat with giant pockets in July?  You are definitely going to get in trouble for one or the other, you just don't know which one.  Fun game!

They might welcome you to Walgreens, but only because your need to not starve to death and/or be homeless leaves you vulnerable to their labor practices.  There are tons of jobs that pay this badly, so you don't need this one.  Walk out of and away from Walgreens right now.  Stop donating your physical health, mental health, and time to the profit of Walgreens executives and upper management.  You can get paid not enough to live and get no experience/opportunity for advancement outside of retail somewhere that doesn't beat you down like this.

I previously worked as an Inventory Specialist. Before that, I was previously a Customer service associate. I was a CSA before I applied for the inventory position. A pharmacy tech license is required for the position of inventory specialist. 

A typical day at work for me is putting out price changes, and doing inventory counts on the handheld device for item counts that might be inaccurate. Checking the store email for anything related to inventory. For example, recalls, items to need to be sent back to the company for credit etc. During the day I do receiving and returns for vendors that deliver products for the store. At the end of the day, I mark damaged, expired products out of stock, donations, etc.

Once a week either your team members or you go thru the stock room and stock products after the busy weekend. Then after that, you scan the whole entire store to confirm which products are out of stock and which products are showing as in stock that is missing due to theft or incorrect counts. 

During all my job duties I was still required to do what I was previously doing as a Customer Service Associate. I still had to ring up customers and print photo orders. Cover people’s breaks. Being required to do what is not inventory duties makes it hard to complete my tasks for the inventory position in a workday.

During my time here I learned customer service skills and inventory skills. I did learn how to make photo products. 

The management at this store is very hit or miss. You can have shift leads that are one of the nicest people you will know, or shift leads that are insufferable to be around. The store manager at this location is replaced by someone new every few months since I started working here.  Each store manager that has worked here has a different idea of how the store should be run. It made it very jarring as the duties of my positions were constantly changing.

I personally think there is not much of a workplace culture where I was working. Corporate Walgreens like to pretend we have one but it’s not really felt where I was. 

The hardest part of the job was dealing with customers and not being able to complete my tasks for the day if we happen to be understaffed or busy. When we are understaffed and corporate Walgreens doesn’t help with that at all. I don’t ask to take time off for a vacation cause we are understaffed. And any time I did ask for some time off cause of a vacation I end up being called in on my days or they don’t grant me all the days I asked for off. Customers are some of the rudest people you will meet. I understand that they do need their medications cause of their illnesses but still gives no right to take it out on employees trying to help or do their jobs. 

The most enjoyable part of my job is my coworkers, they made work tolerable when we would joke around and talk about random stuff. Some of my regular customers were nice and interesting to talk to. Plus I know elderly people who pick up their scripts are lonely so I didn’t mind chit-chatting with them. 

By the way, Walgreens is open 365 days a year. They do really mean that. The pharmacy at this location isn’t open on major holidays but the store is. You will be required to work holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas etc. Which I feel is unnecessary because the pharmacy isn’t open. There is no reason for employees to be here. You only get paid for holiday pay past 90 days of employment with the company. Got hired in November and work Thanksgiving and Christmas? Sucks to be you cause you will not get holiday pay. 

I left cause there were many things wrong with the company and the location I worked at. There are employees at my location that have worked with Walgreens for over 7 years and still make the same amount as new employees who are hired in. They raised wages for new employees while screwing over the pay for previous employees. The Store manager during August 2022, as of this revised review made employees do tasks outside of their role. Employees left for better pay elsewhere. Employees also left cause the store manager doesn’t respect the employee’s availability to work. I personally have been scheduled outside of my availability and have been told to work closing shifts with very short notice.

Corporate never fixed issues wrong with the store. We had phone systems that would hang up on people calling the store to get ahold of the pharmacy. This left many customers angry. The poster printer in the photo department was never fixed. 

I left cause my mental health was suffering due to this job. Customers made the job hard  the store manager kept changing the duties of my role as an inventory specialist. I am not the only one who quit due to mental health reasons caused by the job. 

Overall I would only recommend you apply if you are desperate for a job and you need money.

This company needs to wipe out management and start all over. My experience with Walgreens was horrible. Training was a little over a month. They provide you with tons of materials yet about 10% of it is useful. Majority of it is hard to follow and offer information that's not pertinent to your job title. You will find yourself with a notebook full of notes that you've taken yourself that is much more useful than the materials handed out. Training was stressful because you learn how unorganized that company is. During training there were a few of employees who provided us with their insight and promised that once we're out of training and on the floor that we'll have an abundance of help however when that stressful day of shadowing came, it was such a confidence killer when almost every employee that management ask to train responded with a hard NO or did not hesitate to show their irritation. As a result you would shadow with someone that moves extremely fast and not explaining anything, basically acting as if ur not there or you'll shadow with someone that moved fast and explains fast like they're trying to hurry you out they're cube. When you're finally on the floor on your own... you're on your own. It was all lies when employees came in the training stating how the newcomers will get help. Imagine already being nervous because you're unprepared due to the lack of training, then when you call the team lead line either no one answers because all the team leads are gathered in the aisle talking or someone finally answers and if you get someone out of Canton, you're going to definitely get an attitude shot at you. They respond to you as if you should have learned everything in training. If you get another lead from another site which is located in another state, a lot of times they could not help because they do not know the rules for Canton mi site or do not have the clearance to do tasks at the Canton location. I will say, I preferred to get a lead from another site other than Canton because unfortunately they're too ghetto, lazy and unprofessional. 
My supervisor was also very very lazy. She never coached you, she never replied to emails. When I asked for assistance because the team leads aren't answering, she would give me wrong directions that had me more confused where I would have to resort back to the team lead line and wait 3 to 10 minutes before someone answered or she would tell me to call the team lead line because she didn't feel like assisting. A lot of processes had changed and I really believe she did not know the new processes. Rarely seen her actually work. She always was at someone desk talking even though we had to abide by the "good neighbor" policy. If you talked to get about her weave, food, or her credit score then she would talk to you all day. When it came to work, she is very incompetent. I had to go to another supervisor for advice on how to handle my supervisor and she have me tips. However, that supervisors BAD reputation exceeds herself so I don't understand how she was in a leadership position but can't lead. 
The systems that we worked out of were super slow and always crashed. Every call im apologizing to the patient for such slow service. I'm waiting, tapping my fingers for about 2 to 4 minutes for my programs to load and you're constantly loading up different screens within the call. The employees can be more efficient and can service more patients if the company would invest in a better software program. Imagine how frustrating it is working at a job where you know you can be more efficient but because you're working on a computer that seems like it's working off of dial up,  you can't show just how efficient you are. You have to manipulate the phone call and find ways to trick the system so you can be adherent to your call handle time. Not to mention that I couldn't schedule majority of the patients medication to be shipped because it seems like the insurance department does not work! A patient's referral could be sitting for a week or WEEKS because it needs a prior authorization or a patient is looking for financial assistance or something relating to the insurance and it does not get dealt with until the patient calls in extreme pain demanding their meds. Usually I would call to the insurance department and would be able to get the insurance approved to pay for the meds and get it shipped. Why did it have to take all that time though? Why aren't they working on patients referral before they're calling in pain?!
I can go on and on about AllianceRx because this could be a good company. As I stated earlier, management at the Canton location needs to be retained or let go and start fresh. Unfortunately patients do not get the top notch treatment that they should receive. They're not a priority. As of date I would tell people to not apply and for patients to seek another specialty pharmacy.

Epic Fail I mean.  I've been with this company for eight years, and in the last 3 or so, the culture and direction has changed for the worse.  Management at every level has deteriorated to the point that store management no longer makes decisions that truly affect the sales or profitability of their own stores.  Corporate big shots have sold every inch of promotional space to vendors, which leads to "required" displays in the stores.  The best areas to promote local hot items are contracted to these vendors, so we have no space to push the local flavor.  This wouldn't even be as big of an issue if there weren't market buyers ordering non-basic merchandise by the truckload and sending them to stores with the instructions to "merchandise on a front of store endstand."  It's a joke, because we have 10 front of store endstands in most stores, but some months we have 12 "required" front of store displays, and then we get this merchandise from the buyers.  To make it worse, the buyers do not communicate, so a cosmetics buyer may order product, but then the housewares buyer orders product, and the grocery buyer orders product, then the OTC buyers order product, and before we know it, we are bombarded with merchandise we cannot get onto the sales floor.  Add to that the market and regional managers that make their own rules on displays, now telling stores they can't do build certain types of displays, but no one EVER tells the buyers we cannot build their displays in our stores.  So now we have store vendors coming in dropping off hundreds of cases of soda, beer, wine, liquor, water, gatorade, you name it, but we are not allowed to build the floor displays the buyers promised the vendors we'd use to sell the merchandise!  It's a joke!

If you can get around chasing your own tail, you still have to explain to your supervisors why your days of supply will never go down, you end up putting most of the extra product on clearance, so you have to explain why your gross profit is down, and since you cannot order in the local hot items to tailor to your customer base, you have to now explain why customer counts are down as well.  In turn, they cut your payroll budget, forcing you to deal with all of it with less help, and then they wonder why you don't make your sales goals, get behind on resets or seasonal displays, and then after all is said and done, your goals aren't met and your bonus is bare minimum.  Except, now they have put in a loophole to their bonus structure that they can now dock your bonus if you fall miserably short of your goals.  

I used to love this company, and be very comfortable in it.  Helping the customers is always rewarding, you get to experience some great interactions with customers and if you are lucky, you build some great friendships along the way.  I work 65 hours or more a week, and when the company backs down enough on the buying, it actually can be rewarding.  But when 65 hours a week is just enough to keep you from sinking, your weeks become 75-80 hours just to try to catch up.  It's not fun any more.  It's not rewarding for sure. 

 Management is jumping ship, at least the ones that have options are.  The problem is, the pay scale is keeping most of us around, but you can probably sense there is a lot of bitterness in those that stay.  The ones that leave, they open up spots for untrained leadership to step in, and the company sealed their fate by eliminating lower management roles, and creating a leadership role that pays about the same as a department manager at Wal-Mart.  They give these employees the responsibility of a manager, closing shifts without management staff, counting drawers, productivity tasks, etc, but they do NOT empower them to keep employees on task, assign tasks, etc.  Instead, management has to write task lists for all shifts, and if an employee decides they want to sit on the floor and draw cartoons with sidewalk chalk, they cannot do anything to stop them.  Those issues have to be handled by management when they return to the store.  It sends a great message to the staff and makes life THAT much more difficult for the store manager.

I finally quit and moved on.  From what I understand from talking to friends still with the company, the buyer situation has only gotten worse.  The payroll budgets are still getting cut, which is crazy because we were already working shifts with little to no department coverage.  Everyone I know is taking heat over sales goals not being met, but somehow stock prices are at their highest point in 8 years or more (higher than any point I was with the company).  I cannot imagine what will happen when they cannot cut payroll any further and they have to rely on actually increasing sales to maintain stock prices.  Not sure who will fill the shelves, make the signs, and ring the customers out.

Walgreens is a pit of despair. If you are in any management role in the store you will have to do ten people's job all day. You do not get breaks because there is virtually no overlap between shifts due to the massive budget cuts they just imposed. In your average day you will have to do resets, merchandising, price changes, smart counts, this backwards inventory strategy called "OSA"(on shelf availability) which took the classic idea of "take stuff out if the stockroom and put it on the shelf, and made it super complicated. This is because there aren't stockers and front end workers,etc. ALL of your staff do everything. So the departments of the store are divided into "bays" which have a "bay owner". So a person making minimum wage is now a department manager. And they will receive little training to do their job if they're in a store that makes more than six thousand a day because there is no budgeted hours for training. So you, the manager, literally have to manage your department and theirs while running your shift. You are also going to be responsible for jumping in on the front register when needed, and also spending time in the pharmacy to help them with their tasks, while doing the office work, and running and learning the entire photo department. You also have to do the new FedEx program which is completely asinine.This is all on top of receiving vendors, trucks, being tasked with what the store manager needs you to get done because their plate is spilling over, you will need to also open and close the store. The average Walgreens is open 8am-10pm. You will have to go in as early as 6 am to receive trucks if that's when they arrive, and be there as late as eleven if all closing tasks aren't completed. It is impossible to get a daily task list done. There is never enough people. Then, the cherry on top of this pie of a job, are the monthly and weekly ad tags that drop on Saturday. So Walgreens, ever in it's quest to ruin your quality of life, does it's weekly and monthly ad tags on Saturday. So the morning manager prints this Bible sized stack of ad tags that need to be sorted and put onto the shelves. Weeklys aren't horrible. They're about four to six thousand tags and usually only take two full shifts to put up. Then there's the monthly tag set. So at the the beginning of each month, they send you somewhere between the regular four to six thousand weekly tags, and on to top of that another six to ten thousand monthly tags. Because corporate thinks that the shelves should be one yellow blur of signage. These monsters can take days to put up. The longest it ever took me and my staff to do them was eight days of full shifts to complete them because as you get closer to the holidays, which you should know that after Halloween, until January 2nd, those are blackout dates and cannot be requested off for any reason unless you are a store manager or the manager making the schedule, these ad tags piles get larger closer to the holidays when you get significantly busier. But don't worry, Walgreens corporate figured out that the best thing to do would be to extend the hours to midnight for the two weeks before Christmas. Because who wants to go home? The funniest thing is that even though you may close a store until midnight, you'll have managers who will schedule you to open the next day. So when you get home at one o'clock in the morning, be ready to get up in five hours to do it all again. 
   They have a system of P.T.O where you don't get sick days or vacation days. If you're full time, after six months, you accrue P.T.O based on the amount of hours you work. So, you may accrue about five days by the end of your first year. But those P.T.O days aren't just for requesting paid time off. They're to cover your sick days, vacation days, and any personal days you need to take. The company has an attendance policy where you can have five excused/unexcused absence occurrences in the whole year. Regardless of what is going on for the sixth one, it begins the disciplinary process to termination. So if you call out sick for one day. Thats one of your five occurrences. Most managers will offer you to use p.t.o for it. But remember, that comes out of your accrued amount. There is just no balance between a home life and Walgreens. If you work for Walgreens, you live at Walgreens. Do yourself a favor and keep looking. The ASMT program is a joke and even then, to be an ASM or God help you, a store manager, you'll be underpaid and overworked. For the rest of your life. Just go somewhere they value people. Because Walgreens isn't it.

Mail order facility that handles various states. 

Typical day at work: typing prescriptions with a couple computer screens (all scanned images) and doing some basic math calculations and sometimes looking up medication info in a database, listening to my own music on headphones. I have helped a couple times to test pilot programs and record system issues to get fixed (they also flew in a computer programmer from out of state once that we got to talk to in person about fixing one of these pilot programs, that was cool), once in a while I volunteer when extra help is requested by a different dept that labels, packages, and ships medication orders. In Central Utility dept, I have a 30 min lunch and two 15 min breaks. 

Management: very friendly/ approachable and understanding. Welcome suggestions from employees to consider possible improvements.  

What I learned: After getting hired, I got 2 weeks of classroom instruction, an exam, and then was put in a focus group before being allowed more autonomy when typing prescriptions. 
They paid for my pharmacy technician license exam and provided classes during my regular shift to study and prepare for taking the pharmacy tech license exam. 
My dept also includes people going to school while working, including those applying for pharmacy schools (it really helps to have  work experience as a tech if going to school part time for the academic pre-reqs to get into pharmacy schools). 
The hours are flexible, there are shift bid rankings twice a year and people choose their hours / days based on their rank in the dept for their position, 90%  based on performance stats for data entry. They allow people to request VTO hours (voluntary time off) instead of just PTO (paid time off). The day shifts are much busier than the evening shifts in my dept. Shifts start between 8:00 am to 3:30 pm that you can select from in your order of preference. When I was new and still improving my stats, it was easier to get a later shift than an early one.   
If one needs to see a therapist, the company pays for the first 5 therapy/ counseling sessions in total before one's insurance/ copay starts. 
There are internal positions where one can move up in the department or possibly transfer to another dept.  
There are databases to look up information and one can ask questions about prescription images if they are harder to read. 

If you do well in your stats and make the dept EMPOWER list, you can get free Walgreens gift cards, casual day passes, etc.  

Co-workers: are friendly and knowledgeable. There are Process Advisors that help you improve your stats and answer questions.  

Hardest part of the job: doing data entry in a CU level 1 position full time can feel lonely and become less fulfilling over time (2 years, 8 months as of June 2015). 

The most enjoyable part of the job: knowing that I can do my job well (fast and accurately, etc) and can challenge myself, no stress at all on this job, moments when I have a human connection with a coworker or supervisor instead of my computer screens or music. Knowing that my skills in my dept are transferable within this field and that I can use my experience here as a stepping stone to further my professional growth when I feel ready to do so. 

Note: Central Utility dept down sized in early April 2015. I was one of the data entry pharmacy techs they decided to keep. 

Pay with no prior experience or a tech license started for me at $11.00 hourly in 2012, then increased in my first 6 months to $11.38, then in another 6 months to $11.75, then I took my exam and got my tech license for another 75 cent raise to $12.50/ hourly for data entry after having my first year. One could take the exam earlier than I did to get the 75 cent raise. At the second year, it goes up to $12.78 for my position (CU Spc "level 1"/ data entry pharmacy tech). (Overtime is very rarely offered, but they do have I think six holidays during the year for holiday pay if one wants to volunteer for them, such as thanksgiving, christmas, and new year.)  
Or, if one has prior full time customer service experience or prior full time pharmacy tech experience, one would find it easier to get promoted within the dept to a Process Adviser position or a CU level 2 position for another pay raise. There are also team lead/ supervisor positions in the dept, but the team lead positions don't open up often, are much more competitive, and prefer someone with a 4 year degree.

I worked for this company for four years. I have worked in two stores. It kept getting worse and worse as time went by and honestly, I saw a lot of people walk out and not come back. I know managers that walked out and didn't come back. I personally do not like having to say a scripted paragraph each time I ring up a customer. You have to try and push "item of the month" each time you ring up a customer and it is usually candy. I don't want to push candy on people, especially when some of them say "I'm diabetic or I'm on a diet". It makes you feel bad. Not only that but I ended up working in the Beauty Department and I had to make $500 worth of sales on the one cosmetic register. Keep in mind, the store makes the same amount of money whether they ring up in the Beauty Department or up front. That meant constantly harassing the customers to ring up. People are just browsing and I am supposed to ask them to ring up. I am not aloud to just stand behind the register either so when the customer is ready, I am working on putting away truck or doing a reset. I don't want to follow people around waiting for them to be ready to ring up. 

        As the years went on, the company started pushing more and more little things to boost sales. Every fifteen minutes we were supposed to upsell something. Like if they bought makeup, we suggest makeup remover. Managers would have to fill out reports on if you were saying the paragraph long script at the registers. They would literally have to hide by a shelf to listen to see if you were saying it. Makes you feel paranoid. Some of the managers are really terrible. When I first started, the manager would always bully me and he wouldn't help me out. *I have heard my boss tell an older lady working there that she couldn't wear a sweater because "people wouldn't be able to read her shirt." Nobody is treated like a person. I wanted to work nights and my co-worker wanted to work mornings. We couldn't switch because of our job titles, even though we did the exact same job duties.

        On that note, that woman had been working there for ten years, and in half a year, I was her superior making better pay. That is really sad. She only stayed there because her husband was retired and she needs health insurance, otherwise she said she would quit. That company does not care about people. In fact, I think they are happy when people walk out so they can start with all new employees at minimum wage. They are so cheap that they were going to cut my pay by two dollars when I transferred. For some reason (probably legal) they couldn't do it. 

     As Walgreens employees, we could get a free flu shot each year which is fine. But they would try to force you to get it. I never would, but I know some people that really didn't want to and got one anyways because of the pressure. They pressured us because all the stores had flu shot/employee ratios and they wanted them to all be at 100%. I think it is pretty inappropriate. 

     One more thing, the store manager would get a bonus each year. It had to do with the profits of the store. *The store manager would be as cheap as possible about regulating the temperature. We would either be freezing in the winter or too hot in the summer. He didn't want to store expense anything. We had to clean with these practically waterproof paper towels. The garbage bags we would get sometime were terrible. You would have to triple bag the garbage. They would probably save more money by buying things that work instead of buying the cheapest. 

       Overall, I would say it is a terrible place to work. I hated every minute of it and the last straw was some woman I had never seen before call me into the office and tell me if she was my boss, I would have been fired by now. Then she lit into me about my sales. She was not nice about it. The only reason she was there was because my boss' wife had a baby and she was covering for him. I think if anyone was going to talk to me about my sales, it should have been my boss that knows me. She had no right to treat me like that. 

      A lot of managers here take their jobs a little too seriously. They will regulate you but sit in the office eating all day. You might think I am exaggerating, but there was a lot of lazy managers. When the boss was around, they had their lips pressed tightly to his butt. When the boss was gone, you did his job and your job. 

This place sucks. Beware.

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