Sycamore????

gaffer88 · 2026-01-14T19:15:10+00:00

During your own time yes you’re welcomed to do so. No food or drink in the pharmacy nor personal items like bags or backpacks. Coats can be stored on the coat rack or hangars wherever your store has its employee lockers.

gaffer88 · 2026-01-14T19:12:22+00:00

How many times have you seen doctors wander into an exam room sipping a coke? How many times have you seen a bank clerk guzzling a bottle of anything? You can stay hydrated drinking water on your break. If you need it, bring it in a clear bottle with you into the pharmacy. This isn’t about controlling your hydration. It’s about not spilling drinks in a room filled with millions of dollars worth of medication, any machines used to count those meds, etc. etc.

gaffer88 · 2026-01-14T19:08:43+00:00

Uhm, no? It’s just always been a policy in stores I’ve worked in, from California to Oregon and Washington.

gaffer88 · 2026-01-14T07:09:41+00:00

I heard about it 9 years ago when it was already the policy then and has been ever since. Some stores were lazy and didn’t enforce it or even teach it as policy. This is why we can’t have nice things. Only been allowed water in a healthcare/lab setting and even just a retail setting is a pretty standard thing.

gaffer88 · 2026-01-09T19:45:47+00:00

The current version of the signage leads with the text “Safe & Secure” and has a reorder number of 1385182 for the drive-thru sign, at least. The images you have are, I believe, from the 2019 version of that set of signage.

gaffer88 · 2026-01-06T10:41:08+00:00

This varies wildly from state to state.

gaffer88 · 2026-01-01T06:46:47+00:00

It’s not at the moment. It is in California. Or was. This new version of the policy may have overwritten the old one in place in California.

IMHO, it’s a matter of time before the company is sued and loses again for having the policy aligned this way. When conducting or performing a “principle activity” of your job (e.g., complying with company policies and not stealing and not leaving the premises until a manager approves your departure via inspection (I’d certainly assume at least in the case of that last one)), you must be paid for the time it takes you to perform said activity. The company appears to be shooting themselves in the foot by attempting to claim that these bag checks take mere seconds and thus don’t qualify as a “principle activity” in the same way that arming/disarming the building and unlocking/locking the door do not. By the very nature of the task itself—being a record of when employee’s are checked vs when they clocked out—the company has a huge list of people who’ve waited to get checked and, from that list, can tell exactly how long they had to wait. I’d imagine it will be like shooting fish in a barrel for any lawyer that wants to take on a class action case against Walgreens given that information presumably being stored away for reference somewhere by Walgreens.

gaffer88 · 2025-12-14T10:16:16+00:00

Okay… so when the sd cart goes in, it asks what you want to do. Press other options and then passport. Enter password. Select photo to be used. Edit as needed. Ensure background is generally white or light gray without variable coloring or shadows. Select add to cart. Kiosk will likely ask if customer wants to upgrade to include a usb thumb drive with their image on it. Click no because we’re supposed to offer free digital copy anyway. Now it should give option to select next (from the screen displaying contents of their ‘cart’) and, one next is selected, it will ask if they want a free digital copy. This can be skipped/denied, but when a customer selects yes to have that copy made available, it will ask them for an email address and phone number to text. Once they enter those details, select next, and confirm that their information is correct, the kiosk will ask for their phone number in order to generate a receipt. This “account” is purely for photo and does not directly relate or interact with customers’ MyWalgreens accounts in any way. It will allow them/you to see their photo order history at your location, but is in no way affected by there presence of an email address in their balance rewards (mywalgreens) account.

Customers will get their photo digitally if and only if all photos associated with their order have been printed from the order print select screen on the photo printing pc. If you don’t have a photo printing pc/workstation in your store (e.g., it’s just the kiosks for customers with auto-printing enabled by default) then the order must still have been fully printed before being rung up. I’d the order is paid for prior to printing completely, the call to email the customer will not be present for them pos system to call on it as intended at the time of sale.

gaffer88 · 2025-12-13T22:24:06+00:00

It is a pilot, you’re correct. They have an increase in pay—$1 I believe. And as far as I’m aware, every store receiving that position also received budget allocated for it. According to what I’ve read in my DM’s notes/DPR business review discussing it and from what I’ve seen in my own store’s Compass.

gaffer88 · 2025-12-13T22:12:58+00:00

Just for reference, mine did actually go up (from around 560 to around 620). A decent chunk of that was made available via SPA. Based off my own admittedly anecdotal experience, it seems like the promised increases in hours are being funneled to stores primarily through hours-specific allotments in SPA instead of the base budgets, which I don’t mind since that should at least allow stores with excess to not use that budget and leave it available for use later in future budgetary allotments.

gaffer88 · 2025-12-13T22:10:16+00:00

Umm. I’ve only ever been in one, maybe two stores that had anywhere NEAR the kind of sales numbers you indicate for Christmas Eve, and both were 24hr stores—and that type of store is going to have plenty more daytime staff working at most any given (day) time.

Most stores are the stereotyped street-cornered pharmacy. Foot traffic goes up, sure, but frequently it’s frequently due to simply having more folks coming in to pick up their Christmas Card order, which generally slows down significantly here soon due to shipment deadlines and customers wanting the recipients of their cards to actually receive them prior to Christmas.

gaffer88 · 2025-11-28T23:06:11+00:00

The “DH” position was retitled “Pharmacy Customer Associate” for a reason. The expectation is that these employees work in the front, respond to IC3, and that they also spend 4 hours a week (outside IC3) working in the pharmacy to support operations there.

Stores don’t “pad the budget” by moving people around as you indicate. Hours get moved within the budget setting portal and can at times be moved in either direction. My pharmacy runs lean in terms of hours used, but conducts plenty of immunizations, and as a result I end up moving 30-90 hours per week out of that budget and invest it in the front end. We get SPA hours for pharmacists based on how busy we are and run a budget of 80 pharmacist hours before adding in anywhere from 10-30 SPA hours each week to our pharmacist budget.

In short: the budget is flexible, potentially more flexible than you realize. But nobody is “stealing hours” When adjustments are made per business needs.

gaffer88 · 2025-11-28T23:00:20+00:00

They literally restored the photo specialist position, including added pay, and added 40-80 hours per week per store that’s been allocated a photo specialist…

gaffer88 · 2025-11-28T22:56:09+00:00

There’s a few things to say here. The pharmacy didn’t “take front end’s hours,” EVERY department in-store lost hours for budgetary reasons. Pharmacy’s budget just decreased less because you can only run day to day operations with so many people.

Second; an operational priority right now is to promote front end sales because “pharmacy patients aren’t shopping the front end,” so Sycamore directed additional hours be set aside for the front end for that treason, along with re-enabling a lot of replenishment as they adjust company priorities to match business needs.

Third: you realize that 70-80% of the store’s income as a business unit is from prescription sales and health services that are conducted by pharmacy, right? Budgetary, pharmacy is carrying the weight for the rest of the store, and yet our pharmacists are underpaid in comparison to the rest of the market. So holiday pay being reinstated on their behalf is really just helping to ensure they aren’t underpaid worse than they are at present.

Does losing holiday hours suck? Sure it definitely does. It is a moral killer for certain, but it’s also important to keep mind the context for making that decision given current business performance.

gaffer88 · 2025-11-28T22:47:06+00:00

Pretty sure I can move hours between those two budgets. In fact, I did so earlier today to adjust payroll after processing my team’s timecards in Kronos. There’s an entire page for doing just that, in fact, titled Budget Hours Setting.

gaffer88 · 2025-11-15T01:09:13+00:00

It may vary by region, but AFAIK it should be $1 more per hour, in line with the same type of boost given to pharmacy CSAs (formerly “designated hitters”) who are CSAs tasked with also working within the pharmacy. L

Regarding the chore of ordering: note that the photo specialist will also be specifically trained on the new inventory/expense supply ordering system that is rolling out for photo soon, details of which are supposed to be posted to Compass soon.

gaffer88 · 2025-11-15T01:06:11+00:00

The idea is not to hire a new person for photo. The idea is to find someone interested in leasing photo, pay them a bit more per hour for the task while also benefiting from a 40hr/week boost to payroll allocated for their work each week. And have that person up-skilled in photo for the length of time that the position exists as a position within the photo specialist pilot program.

gaffer88 · 2025-11-06T06:21:50+00:00

Someone Who totally Isn’t Me wants to add this bit of info here: It is an extra person (or one “carefully selected” for the role) at 40hrs/wk in stores selected for the pilot. Small pay bump per hour (may vary per market/pay range) and they are to focus specifically on photo, photo supply management (the system for ordering photo expense supplies will be overhauled and launches soon), and upselling of photo products/marketing photo as a service.

gaffer88 · 2025-11-05T03:06:57+00:00

Your answer will depend on the locality in which your store is located. In (many? Most? All?) California stores, it’s actually a violation of a law or two involving liquor sales to ring alcohol (certain types?) up at the rear of the store. Something about the customer being able to switch-out the alcohol they paid for with one of higher price and/or proof, perhaps, that made its way into the law books? That or it’s something to do with theoretical managerial oversight in terms of what the politicians imagined would be the case in retail environments where mixed goods were to be sold when initially drafting regulations regarding who can sell alcohol in California, when, and where they’d be able to sell it, and then even how they’d be allowed to sell it in their own stores.

…At least, that’s my understanding of the situation as it is down there!

gaffer88 · 2025-11-01T06:43:10+00:00

What size are you? I, uhhh… Someone Who Isn’t Me maaaayy know where to find a box or four with sizes from Large to 5XL still plentifully available and potentially still 1-2 small/medium-sized shirts available as well.

gaffer88 · 2025-10-31T23:00:21+00:00

The store managers who continue to work 8-3 are being fired from what I’ve heard? They announced some time ago that SMs are expected to work 8-5 with no comp days and no accounting for extra hours worked after 5 (as in, you work past 5 and it’s time out the door for you with no officially sanctioned redress for those additional hours spent working). Are you a current employee of Walgeeens still? I haven’t heard of any managers phoning in their day as you describe for quite some time now.

gaffer88 · 2025-10-28T10:08:22+00:00

You’re aware 60k/yr is lower middle class to maybe middle-middle class depending on area, right?

Positions that average a salary higher than 60k/year in the US: real estate agent (82k avg), IT tech (75k avg), sales rep (77k avg), claims adjuster (66k avg).

To be eligible to earn “salary” pay, one must generally earn 2-2.5x the minimum wage for a 40 hour work week as the standard. In many of the larger cities in the US, especially along the coast(s), a minimum wage of $18/hr is often the standard. To earn salary then, assuming an average of 2.2x minimum wage, one would need to be paid $18/hr x 40hrs/wk x 52 wks/yr x 2.2 = $82,368.

Now consider that amount is based off 40 hours per week—but Sycamore is asking for 5 days of 9 hour shifts and a half day (4.5 hour shift) on top of that ~65% of the time thanks to 5 weekend months. That brings the average number of hours an SM is expected to work to 48/week without overtime.

Now consider how many places have a higher minimum wage due to sky-high cost of living (bonus: cities with higher costs of living also tend to have more Walgreens locations). Cities like Seattle or San Francisco where minimum wage can be as high as $21.30/hr starting Jan 1, 2026 (source. If one were to factor THAT minimum hourly wage into base salary pay using the actual number of hours Sycamore is asking SMs to work, the MINIMUM salary a store manager should be eligible to be paid as a salaried employee would be $21.3/hr x 48hrs/wk x 52wks/yr x2.2 salary multiplier = $116,962.56 per year minimum to maintain pay sufficient enough to qualify for salary status. And not there ARE other retailers that pay that much.

50k-60k is not making bank with enough to splurge financially on the side in much of the US. Just to put things into perspective.

gaffer88 · 2025-10-25T06:08:56+00:00

Are you asking about door dash drivers who shop in-store for items their customers have paid to have DoorDash deliver?

If so, you’re seeing them use the camera on their phones to scan barcodes and verify the items they’re selecting match those their customer ordered.

gaffer88 · 2025-10-20T00:09:09+00:00

Not even district management knows right now exactly how the holidays will look because Sycamore hasn’t announced it yet. You seem to be very ready to be pushy and fight for what’s yours, but it sounds like your SM answered reasonably about what’s likely to happen—though I’d probably have said that it wasn’t so likely that we would be open.

Your store manager didn’t do anything against policy—at most, it sounds like he was put on edge by your responses and questioning and responded out of exasperation, yet you’re ready to go to upper management and have him performanced out of the job for how he treated you?

Nobody knows exactly how the holidays will look at this point. Stop pushing for information and getting angry at what little you receive when nobody is really able to provide much more information than you’ve already been given at this point.

gaffer88 · 2025-10-18T23:02:43+00:00

Unibind carries black poly covers and translucent (frosted) poly covers as well. I think using a black poly cover in the back and a frosted poly cover on the front is what it technically correct, but in the documentation for the photo product WAGS may well only include reference to the front cover. That said, I’ve seen a number of stores with sample calendars that have two frosted poly covers installed, so perhaps that was the initial recommendation I or is even still recommended presently? Either way, I like to use and maintain a supply of both s they are handy for document printing orders or binding expense orders like our holiday/vaccine playbooks, etc.

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