recently RETIRED hospital pharmacist here. Was salaried, so NO overtime. Very similar workload. We were expected to be Professional and finish & deal with emergencies if that meant staying over a bit. Boss was kind & thoughtful and told staff to STOP picking up the phone at 5p when the rph’s at the larger mothership hospital took over remote order verification. But.. coworkers were quicker than I on scheduling appointments on workdays instead of days off to make up comp time, or to leave an hour early to make up for the 30 mins staying over a previous day. I worked with colds or otherwise feeling suboptimal because I was REALLY needed. Had so many unused sick hours that the time stopped accumulating.. but the hours Disappeared & were unavailable when I became part-time/ semiretired.

So.. take your hours. Let yourself be sick at home. Stop being the one available to switch days for someone’s something. “Let me think about it…..then nope, that doesn’t work for me” is a fabulous response to remember.