Cons for working the pharmacy:
Floating Pharmacist:
- Work life balance: This was tough in this position. Each region has a scheduler that coordinates floater pharmacists schedules and time off requests. Every month, each floater has a deadline to submit any schedule requests for pre-planned events during the month, and the scheduler does their best to ensure those days were blocked off for the floater. With that said, it wasn't abnormal for schedules to be published with only a week before the month in question began, and this made it very hard to plan anything from dinner with friends to an out of town weekend. Some of the shifts are "on call" which are not technically shifts until a staff pharmacist (or other floater) calls out and needs last-minute coverage. I'd say each month I'd have about 5 on call days, and got called in for about 50% of those days.
Overall cons for Publix:
-Vacation days: Publix likes to reward employees that stay with the company long-term, and this couldn't be more evident in their vacation policy. For the first 7 years of employment, pharmacists are only given 10 days of vacation, one of which must be taken as a full week (5 days). Beginning in year 3, Publix does provide one loophole to create more vacation days. This option allows you to convert your yearly holiday bonus into vacation days, which can be taken as a consecutive 5 day vacation or in individual days.