I read a post on the forum by Jesse. Jesse works for a chain. His DM wrote him up because he failed to attend a “mandatory” store meeting at 8:00 AM on a Sunday morning. Jesse is unhappy with himself because he did not tell the DM why he did not attend. It was his mother’s birthday and he had made plans with her. His mother does not get out a lot because his bother is mentally challenged and she takes care of him.

Jesse says chain pharmacy has taken his “spirit”. I feel sure that most everyone that has worked for a chain understands Jesse. For 20 years, I worked for independents. About 15 years, ago I began working for Wal-Mart. I must admit that I was a neophyte in the corporate world. Like Jesse, I would get indignant or angry about something. After a decade of struggling with understanding this big corporation, I finally realized that the corporation is not a person. We humans are social creatures. We interact with other people. There is two way communication. Because a corporation is not a person, there is no two way communication. Everything is one way and that is from corporate to us. The corporation does not care how we feel, what problems we have, or what we think. The corporation only recognizes whether we follow orders or do not follow them. If we do not follow those orders, or we break some rule, then we are punished. This does not mean that the people at corporate headquarters are bad people. It does not mean that my DM is a bad person. Each person is doing their job, and each is following the rules and obeying the orders.

I doubt Jesse’s DM had any personal vendetta against him. She was simply following orders. It would not have made any difference if Jesse had told the DM why he missed the meeting. Excuses do not matter. For a lot of us, coming to realize the very nature of corporations takes some time. It took me a lot of years to come to these conclusions. In time, Jesse will learn. Corporations are impersonal entities. I liken corporations to nature. A tornado does not strike your house because it chose you. It is simply following the laws of physics. The corporation was not targeting Jesse. He just crossed its path moving in the wrong direction. A lot of us, and I am including myself, spend and inordinate amount of time struggling with corporate policies and procedures. A lot of us are unhappy about a number of things within our corporation. For the most part, we are wasting our time. Jesse asked how other pharmacists survive the abuse. First, I have to say that Jesse received no abuse. That would be like saying that he was “abused” by a tornado. The corporation did not intend to “abuse” him. Most pharmacists simply follow the rules. They do what they are told. There are a lot of things they do that they do not like. There are a lot of things they think the corporation should be doing differently. A lot of pharmacists whine and complain. But, it is really to no avail.