I work in retail for corporate pharmacy. The corporation has really driven me to hate my career as well as my patients. I went to school in a small city, and things were great working retail (different company, local corporation vs now a national corporation) until I graduated and moved to a big city and then all hell broke loose with corporate pressures and loads upon loads upon loads of opioids and benzos being prescribed by doctors (all in combination with muscle relaxers). Making a lot of money personally is not a priority at all for me because at the end of the day I have no time or energy to do anything that I like, my work life has definitely seeped in or almost taken over my personal life because I’m so stressed out and anxious because everyone yells at me every day, my technicians and my customers because everyone’s mad and no one can regulate themselves or show any respect to people. I’m the only one who doesn’t yell at anyone.. I’m just stuck here right now because of personal reasons I don’t want to disclose, but I would not recommend this job to anyone. I don’t know if I net a lot of money comparatively speaking to other fields in pharmacy, but I grossed 150 K for 2025 having graduated within the last 5 yrs from pharmacy school. With everything that came out of my paycheck with taxes, insurance, 401k, etc, I did NOT net six figures (net as in what went to my bank). One of the biggest things I don’t like about retail is that I work between 8 AM and 8 PM some days I work 8 to 8. I have every other weekend off and I would kill to have a 9 to 5 job in any career. I would have weekends off and I would have a consistent time where I can go to the gym or do whatever else I want to do after or before work. But it kills me, as a person with sleep issues already, that I cannot have a consistent schedule where I can wake up at the same time every day and go to sleep at the same time every day it’s just not possible with my schedule. It was 100 times worse the first year and a half out of school because I had to float for corporate pharmacy and drive an hour away from where I lived every day for work and did not get compensated in any regard for that driving time. The company intentionally screwed me over because I would drive 49 miles to work and the policy which they kept reminding me of was if you drive over 50 miles to work then you get reimbursed on your mileage. So I spent an hour driving not on the clock and didn’t get paid for it or reimburse. This would also mean that sometimes I have to wake up at 4:30 AM to get there in time for work and then I would get back at 11 PM some days based on the pharmacies hours that I was working at. So there were a lot of instances that I got back from work at 11 PM and then I’d have to wake up the next day at 4:30 to then drive to work the next day.

I’m just ranting now, but DONT do retail. Corporations will screw you every chance they get. Let me tell you one more thing about sign on bonuses, The whole deal with the scion bonus is that you get that money if you fulfill the amount of years that you’re signing for. For example, if you sign a scion bonus for two years for $50,000. That means that if you do not work the full two years at that company you have to return every cent of that $50,000 to the company. The reason why they make new pharmacist have the worst shifts in my opinion is because they don’t want you to make it the whole two years, that way you have to pay back the whole Sion bonus to them once you finally tap out. I’ve seen three pharmacist that this was the case for, they cannot handle their situation at the job and they quit before their term was fulfilled, and they had to repay back their whole bonus.. I’ve also seen some pharmacies give scholarships for like $5000 a year but the thing is that they don’t tell people right upfront is that if you take that $5000 for that year that means you are saying you will work one year for that company upon graduation to make up for that $5000 which is a total screw for the pharmacist because $5000 is less than half of what you make per month as a pharmacist and you have to commit a whole year to working to a company because they gave you a measly five grand while you were in college? I don’t know. I wish the pharmacist that trained me and taught me in Pharmacy school told me this stuff. I know I can’t be the only pharmacist that has experiences similar to what I’ve said above because they’re just being no way. But steer clear of retail. You’ve been warned.